psychological analysis. The king, is young, physically
delicate, and of highly sensitive organization. When he
comes to the throne he realizes the hollowness and the
hypocrisy of the existence that prescription has marked
out for him; he realizes also that the very ideal of
monarchy, under the conditions of modern European
civilization, is a gigantic falsehood. For a time after his
accession, he leads a life of pleasure seeking and revelry,
hoping that he may dull his sense of the sharp contrast that
exists between his station and his ideals. But his conscience
will give him no peace, and he turns to deliberate contemplation
of the thought, not indeed of abdicating his, false position,
but of transforming it into something more consonant with
truth and the demands of the age. He will become a citizen
king, and take for wife a daughter of the people; he will do
away with the pomp and circumstance of his court, and attempt
to lead a simple and natural life, in which the interests of
the people shall be paramount in his attention. But in this
attempt he is thwarted at every step. All the forces of
selfishness and prejudice and ignorance combine against him;
even the people whom he seeks to benefit are so wedded to their
idols that their attitude is one of suspicion rather than
of sympathy. He loves a young woman of strong and noble
character, and wins her love in return, but she dies on the
very eve of their union. His oldest and most confidential
friend, the wealthiest man in the kingdom, but a republican,
is murdered by a radical associate of the _intransigeant_ type,
and the king is left utterly bereaved by his twofold loss.
This brings us to the closing scene of the drama, in which the
king, his nerves strained to the breaking point, confronts the