Esteemed Friend!
[...] As regards my downfall, all I can hope is that my friends will for the present pass it over in silence as something unexplained and incomprehensible. I have imposed strict silence as a duty on myself, and to make this possible I go so far as to read no newspapers! I can say nothing that would not expose and discredit the King. All my hopes are set on his summoning up strength, so that faith in him need not be utterly abandoned—my hopes for him, for I love him!—
Still, I am not sorry, at this moment and for all eventualities, to lay before a scrupulous and judicious friend an account of the sequence of events as affecting myself in as pregnant a form as I can.—
I have recently become somewhat confused as to the actual motives of the agitation directed against me in February last. I believe it was really a trial of strength, it having been realised that the King was not to be jockeyed out of his affection for me. Possibly it was felt that Pfistermeister must be abandoned. Thereupon they sent Herr von Gruben from Regensburg, together with an old acquaintance of mine, Klindworth, late privy councillor, political agent for Austria in Brussels, to visit me at my own house. They made me a most extraordinary offer of a share in a great financial undertaking of Prince Taxis's. I feigned denseness. The pair came again with Klindworth's daughter, who made use of a former friendship with Frau von Bülow. Old Klindworth openly offered me his services if I would get him Pfistermeister's place with the King. Again I refused to understand.—On the other side Pfistermeister glossed over the past as far as possible, brought the questions of Semper's theatre, the School of Art and Tristan and Isolde upon the tapis with great ardour, offered me the prospect of unlimited credit, placed the purchase of my house on the civil list, etc., all the time, however (in the King's name, with whom nevertheless I was in constant correspondence), bringing up for discussion my latest views on Church and State. He wanted full particulars, using gross flattery. All in vain. I persisted in thinking of my artistic plans and of nothing else. I was not to be cajoled, it seemed. Well, they must wait their opportunity against me. Repeatedly (using among other things the delay in the execution of my new work) they tried to discourage the King and prejudice him against me as an impossible person. Financial embarrassments were artfully engineered so as to bring ignominy upon me. In this matter I was obliged to go openly to the King for help. They made use of this to get admissions about me through Frau von Bülow, a Catholic and Liszt's daughter. My answer was the proposal to summon you. This, as Lutz acknowledged to me, was received with horror by Cabinet and Ministers. A new and violent agitation was directed against the King; the old King Ludwig hurled his thunderbolts. Ultimately the young King's answer was his expedition to Switzerland, followed by my invitation to Hohenschwangau. For a week I was there, entertained like a near relation. I drove with him behind four horses with outriders, was accompanied by him thus two stations on my journey along the railway, took all my meals alone with him. Pfistermeister out of the way, Lutz took me in hand. A last attempt to conquer me; open acknowledgment of allegiance to Bismarck, a wholly reactionary policy, constitutional rights reduced, and so forth. I persisted that I had no wish to meddle in any of these matters. I advised the King to appoint a third (new) secretary, solely to secure the acquiescence of the Cabinet in our new artistic schemes. Finding that we were both unacquainted with suitable persons, I gave the King merely general advice on this point, and he, to put it into execution, turned again to Pfistermeister. Immediately there was a violent uproar in the public press, pointing to my extravagance and my influence over the King, misleading him into all kinds of wild projects, as the reason for the whole constitutional agitation against the Ministry. Seeing that the decisive struggle was bound to come, I did not suppress a rejoinder in which my real position was made pretty plain and the Cabinet represented as despicable, etc. At the same time I urged the King in writing to do the one thing which could give him light and freedom, to send a trusted messenger immediately for Neumayr and command him to form a new Cabinet without delay. But their cunning had already succeeded in prejudicing the King in a personal sense against the discharged Minister. He declared that he took the suggestion to summon him as an insult to his royal honour.
That finished it for me, and I gave the King to understand that if I was to continue to create for him he must give me my discharge and allow me to leave Munich. This made it easy for him to evade the storm which awaited him on his return to Munich—in the interest of my safety, as he believed. Pfordten came down with an aut—aut. Prince Karl talked of a revolution, even involving the army. The King lost his head. He sent asking me to travel for a few months till he could re-establish peace. I seized the opportunity to leave altogether, and am hoping now to settle down comfortably here and ultimately secure peace and quiet for work.
Thus far—as regards myself. If you can do anything in that direction, get the press to advise caution in judging occurrences in Munich and—to await the issue.
That the King will take courage, I know. He is suffering terribly already. He is a prisoner and has no one. [...] We have agreed to write to each other frequently. For the present I am silent [...]—Still, I fear greatly for the King—he is too young and the Liberals are too stupid. There you have the curse that gives the others their chance. [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 611