LUIGI I, king of BAVARIA. — Born on 25 August 1786 at Strasbourg, died on 29 February 1868 at Nice. Son of Massimiliano Giuseppe of Deux-Ponts and Guglielmina Augusta of Hesse-Darmstadt. His father was related to Carlo Teodoro, elector of Bavaria, whom he succeeded in 1799 as sovereign of that region. His tutor was Giuseppe Antonio Sambuga, a priest who sowed in the soul of the young L. the first seeds of his religious ideas. In 1803 he attended the University of Landshut and listened with particular interest to the lectures of Giovanni Michele Sailer, who gave a course on the morality of the sovereign according to Christian principles. Opposed to France, to Napoleon, and to the pro-French and anti-Catholic policy of Count Montgelas, in 1817 he succeeded in persuading his father to dismiss that minister, who nevertheless had the merit of enlarging the territory of the State and of obtaining for his sovereign the title of king in 1806.
Having ascended the throne upon his father’s death in 1825, L. summoned to his side the physician Ringseis, the jurist Schenk, and his tutor Sailer, and began the Catholic restoration of Bavaria. The following year the University of Landshut was transferred to Munich. The restrictions imposed by Montgelas on the free development of the faith and of the Catholic Church were for the most part abolished. The convents of the religious Orders secularized in 1803 were reopened. In general, however, L. regarded the Church as subordinate to the State, nor did he permit the Jesuits to return or the bishops to communicate freely with the Holy See. He acted as mediator in resolving the conflict that had arisen between the Holy See and Prussia concerning the person of Droste-Vischering. After 1840 the King’s relations with the Catholics deteriorated considerably. The King made no secret of his passion for the dancer Lola Montez, who arrived in Munich in 1846, and his conduct was harshly stigmatized by the ministers, the Church, and the people. Jealous of his royal prerogatives, L. in no way wished to be a constitutional sovereign or to relinquish the government of the State. The disturbances in Munich in March 1848 therefore led him to abdicate.