Note 2 — Chapter IX · Ludwig’s Betrothal

Queen Marie had since her marriage been on terms of warm friendship with the young Duchess’s parents and their family. She was pleased at her son’s prompt decision. She drove in the early morning hours to the palace of Duke Max and the Duchess Ludovica. Nothing had occurred to prepare the Duke or his wife for what was about to happen, but they were proud at the unexpected offer of marriage. One of their daughters was an empress,2 they had seen another of their daughters a queen.3; now the youngest of them, and the one nearest her mother’s heart, would have her place on the throne of Bavaria. The young Duchess, too, gave her consent without hesitation. Eye-witnesses have, however, declared that her face, otherwise so fresh, became exceedingly pale when she promised the Queen-mother to marry her son. At nine o’clock Ludwig himself arrived. An hour later the formal engagement was celebrated.