naturally tolerant, and still more liberalized by the influence of his
Protestant queen, was a firm believer in the divine right of kings;
and having joined hands with the clerical party in putting down the
revolution of 1848, found himself afterward so far compromised in
their behalf that he was unable to oppose their aggrandizing plans; so
that in his reign the priests, and especially the Jesuits, attained to
a greater degree of power than they had ever before known.

The young king for a while carried on the government after his
father's policy, and with the same ministerial officers; but he
soon began to show signs of independence of character, the first
manifestation of which was an attempt to curtail the power of the
Jesuits, especially in the matter of public instruction. This was,
of course, enough to rouse the enmity of the whole Society of Jesus
against him, and its members have been busy ever since in thwarting
all his plans and doing their utmost to render him unpopular with his
subjects.

Unfortunately, the king soon gave his people a plausible excuse for
fault-finding by the unbounded favor which he bestowed upon Wagner,
whose ideas and whose music were at that time alike obnoxious to the
majority of Germans. The favorite theory of this great genius, but
arrogant and unscrupulous man, was the elevation of the German nation
through the aesthetic and moral influence of a properly developed
theatre; and the king was ready to offer every facility for the
practical realization of this visionary plan. But the Jesuits scented
heresy in the alliance between the experienced composer and the
youthful dreamer, and the liberal party were indignant that Wagner's
affairs should be made a cabinet question at a time of such great
national anxiety. The dissatisfaction rose to such a height at last