Louis I
(born August 25, 1786,
Strasbourg
, France?died February 29, 1868, Nice) was the
king
of
Bavaria
from 1825 to 1848, a liberal and a German nationalist who rapidly turned
conservative
after his accession. He is best known as an outstanding patron of the arts who transformed Munich into the artistic centre of Germany.
Louis, the well-educated eldest son of King
Maximilian I
, was a
fervent
German nationalist as a youth and served only reluctantly at
Napoleon
’s headquarters in the wars against Prussia and
Russia
(1806?07) and Austria (1809). In Bavaria he came to head the anti-French party, and at the
Congress of Vienna
(1814?15) he unsuccessfully advocated the return of Alsace and Lorraine to Germany. The liberal Bavarian constitution of 1818 bears his stamp, and he repeatedly resisted the demands of
Klemens Metternich
, the Austrian statesman, for basic changes in that document. In church questions, however, Louis was more conservative, opposing his father’s secularization of monasteries. He played an active part in the downfall of Bavaria’s leading minister,
Maximilian Montgelas
(1817), whom he blamed for these anti-ecclesiastical policies.
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Louis’s liberal reputation
assured
him of general acclaim upon his accession, but he was soon to disappoint his subjects. The king frequently feuded with the Diet, and after the
revolutions of 1830
in Europe he came to distrust all democratic institutions. The Ottingen-Wallerstein ministry (1831?37) was a shift to the right, and the subsequent government under Karl von Abel (from 1837) steered a strictly reactionary and clericalist course, restoring many monasteries and proceeding to erode the liberal constitution.
Culturally, however, Louis’s reign was brilliant. An enthusiastic patron of the arts, he collected the works that formed the nucleus of
Munich’s
two best-known museums, the
Glyptothek
and
Alte Pinakothek
(see
Bavarian State Picture Galleries
). His large-scale planning of Munich created the city’s present
layout
and classic style. He commissioned many representative buildings, among them the Ludwigskirche, Neue Pinakothek, Propylaen, Siegestor, Feldherrnhalle, and Odeon.
On the outbreak of the
revolutions of 1848
, Louis?whose passion for the dancer
Lola Montez
had reduced his popularity even further?abdicated in favour of his son
Maximilian II
.