turn he was detested by the monarch.

"The royal treatment roused young Carl Maria's indignation to the
utmost; and his irritation led him one day to a mad prank, which was
nigh resulting in some years' imprisonment in the fortress of
Hohenasberg, or of Hohenhaufen. Smarting under some foul indignity, he
had just left the private apartment of the king, when an old woman met
him in the passage, and asked him where she could find the room of the
court washerwoman. 'There!' said the reckless youth, pointing to the
door of the royal cabinet. The old woman entered, and was violently
assailed by the king, who had a horror of old women; in her terror, she
stammered out that a young gentleman who had just come out had informed
her that there she would find the 'royal washerwoman,' The infuriated
monarch guessed who was the culprit, and despatched an officer on the
spot to arrest his brother's secretary, and throw him into prison.

"To those who have any idea how foul a den was then a royal prison, it
must appear almost marvellous that Carl Maria should have possessed
sufficient equanimity to have occupied himself with his beloved art
during his arrest. But so it was. He managed to procure a dilapidated
old piano, put it in tune with consummate patience, by means of a common
door-key, and actually, then and there, on the 14th of October, 1808,
composed his well-known beautiful song, 'Ein steter Kampf ist unser
Leben.'

"The storm passed over. Prince Ludwig's influence obtained the young
man's pardon and release. But the insult was never forgotten by the
king: he took care to remember it at his own right time. Nor had prison
cured Carl Maria of his boyish desire to play tricks upon the hated
monarch, when he conceived that he could do so without danger to
himself."

Carl proceeded to make himself an appropriate graduate of such a
university of morals, and devoted himself to wine, women, and debts,
with a small proportion of song. He belonged to a society of young men,
who called themselves by the gentle name of "Faust's Ride to Hell." He
now began also the composition of an opera, "Sylvana." This brought him
into acquaintance with operatic people, and he fell under the charm of
that "coquettish little serpent Margarethe Lang."

"To stem such a passion, or even to have given it a legal form, would
have been merely ridiculous and absurd in the eyes of the demoralised
circle by which he was surrounded. Gretchen possessed a lit