Their daily meetings were augmented by frequent notes, sometimes two or three times a day, hand-delivered by their servants.23 Each evening the King called at Jane’s home, and most days she called on him at the vast Residenz Palace. They exchanged gifts. He gave her an inscribed prayer book, and often sent her posies of violets which she told him were her favourite flowers; she embroidered a cap for him and sent him sketches she made of the countryside around Munich. From the beginning he warned her to be careful of the content of her letters to him, for his position made him vulnerable. His fears were prophetic, for he would ultimately lose his crown through the indiscretion of a mistress. Throughout their correspondence Jane was careful, sometimes advising him she was being so, for his sake.
One of the proposals of marriage rejected by Jane came from a more than usually attentive and eligible source. Baron Carl Theodore Venningen, whom Jane met one morning while riding in the Hofgarten, fell instantly in love with her, just as Felix Schwarzenberg had done. But in the baron’s case Jane would remain his ideal while there was breath in his body. Unlike Jane’s other suitors, Carl – or Charles as Jane called him – refused to be rebuffed and became too attentive for Ludwig’s liking. This may have been because Ludwig was jealous on his own account, or because it spoiled his dream of a romantic reunion between Felix and Jane, the thought of which the King found irresistible.
However, it is obvious that Jane could not be singularly dependent upon her royal friend for friendship. She was not received at court, and the time the King could devote to her was, of necessity, limited. So Charles, who pursued her as tirelessly as Felix had once done, was Jane’s diversion from loneliness. He was tall, red-haired and good-looking, an aristocrat of obvious Germanic stock who wore the dashing uniform of a cavalry officer of the King’s Regiment.24 He rode well, and wrote exquisite French in a small, neat hand. He spoke English and indeed had English connections too, for he was first cousin to Lady Granville, the wife of the British Ambassador in Paris during the time that Jane was living there with Felix Schwarzenberg. Left to himself, Charles was inclined to perceive life as a serious business; Jane was like a beautiful butterfly that had fluttered within his grasp. He was utterly fascinated.
At first she regarded him merely as an amusing and pleasant companion; his constantly repeated proposals became almost a joke between them, prettily parried by Jane. Indeed, Charles’s devotion and frequently professed wish to marry her must have counterbalanced to some extent the pain of rejection by Felix. Yet she loved Felix so utterly that no man could even begin to be a substitute. She explained her feelings to Charles as she had explained them to the King, but Charles continued to press his suit. After all, he must have thought, he was here in Munich; Felix was not.
Felix continued to write to Jane, however, and though he resisted a meeting his constant declarations of love gave her reason to hope that their relationship could be resuscitated. In an attempt to assist in their reunion, Ludwig suggested that the couple might meet secretly at Schloss Berg, a Wittelsbach hunting lodge on Lake Starnberg, some forty miles south-west of Munich. There in romantic isolation they could discuss their differences and perhaps achieve a rapprochement without inviting further gossip. At the end of October 1831 Jane wrote to Felix telling him of the meeting proposed by the King. She begged him to join her and set out for Schloss Berg.
Full of anticipation, though Felix had not yet actually agreed to meet her, Jane waited for him. The poem she wrote upon her arrival wondered anxiously whether he would look at her ‘as of old’ or whether she must expect ‘a change I never thought to see’. Convinced that he merely had to see her to know that she loved only him, regardless of what others told him and the deceitful ‘breath of shrilling slander’, she refused to believe he could receive her coldly after all they had meant to each other.
Her confidence in her ability to win Felix back was undoubtedly due to her experience that where men were concerned one look was all it usually took. Felix possibly knew this too; hence his attitude regarding a meeting. It must not be forgotten, either, that Felix was an unusual man with unique qualities. His official court biographer in Vienna insisted he had mystical powers: ‘The excessive life-force of the Prince is illustrated by the fact that he had a magnetic influence over women – not in the romantic and figurative way, but actually and medically. His sister was supposed to come especially to visit him and touch his hand to acquire more strength.’25 Perhaps this explains, in part, Jane’s obsession.
Jane remained at Berg for several weeks in October and November 1831, wandering in the glorious woodlands alone, on horseback or on foot, willing her prince to come to her. One day her hopes soared when a visitor arrived, but it was not Felix. The persistent Charles Venningen had pursued her to her secret hideaway. Fearful that his presence might be misinterpreted by both the King and Felix, Jane insisted Charles return to Munich immediately and to ensure he did so made him the bearer of one of her frequent letters to the King. ‘I am so glad, dearest Lewis, to have had this opportunity of sending you these lines by Monsieur de Venningen who came here today. By this means you will receive them sooner … as he returns this evening’ – not, however, before he had made some ardent advances.
After ten days Felix wrote to advise that he could not meet Jane because of his commitments. As consolation the same post brought two letters from the King, a bouquet of violets and a book of his own poems preceded by the handwritten inscription:
These poems show you, show you my innermost feelings
You who became a victim of love, you will understand me
As I understand you, dearest, whom the world has exiled.
I will never judge you harshly, even if all the world does!
I cannot condemn you, because I understand it all.
Jane replied: ‘Do you really long for my return? Your wish shall be gratified … My first care shall be to sit for your picture. You are very impatient to have it finished, and that wish is sufficient for your Ianthe.’26 She returned to Munich having written her own dispirited poem of disappointment: ‘He comes not, ’twas but fancy’s dream which mocked my hopes with visions bright.’27
It is difficult to explain Schwarzenberg’s behaviour. If he did not wish the relationship to continue, why the constantly repeated avowals which kept Jane dancing to his tune? Had he simply told Jane that he no longer loved her it would have set her free, though painfully. The King sought to console his lovely young friend, and during the course of their conversation queried Baron Venningen’s frequent attendance at Jane’s home. When Jane confessed that his advances were becoming pressing, the King was alarmed. He begged her to discourage Charles and to be true to their shared ideal of love in its purest form.
One of Ludwig’s minor self-indulgences had been to commission the Schönheits-Galerie (Gallery of Beauty) for the Festsaalbau (or assembly rooms) at the Residenz. Similar in concept to the Lely series of Charles II’s ‘Ladies of the Bedchamber’, it consisted of a series of paintings by the court artist, Josef Stieler, of beautiful women. They were mainly members of Ludwig’s court (some were his mistresses), but Ludwig’s appreciation of pulchritude was catholic and women of every social rank were included, from the beautiful daughter of a Munich shoemaker to the wife of the British Minister, Lord Milbanke. In this gallery the royal connoisseur liked to wander each morning to contemplate