Prince Paul of Thurn and Taxis

Paul Maximilian Lamoral, Prince of Thurn and Taxis (full German name: Paul Maximilian Lamoral Fürst von Thurn und Taxis; 27 May 1843 – 10 March 1879), was the third child of Maximilian Karl, 6th Prince of Thurn and Taxis and his second wife Princess Mathilde Sophie of Oettingen-Oettingen and Oettingen-Spielberg. He was buried in Cannes, at the Cimetière du Grand Jas, Allée du Silence no. 33 under the name of Paul de Fels. Friendship with Ludwig II of Bavaria At the request of his father to King Maximilian II of Bavaria, he was appointed on 15 November 1861 as junior lieutenant in the 2nd Bavarian artillery regiment (military registry no. KA OP 69 547) and was assigned as orderly officer of then Crown Prince Ludwig on 1 May 1863. Ludwig and Paul became close friends after spending three weeks together in Berchtesgaden in September 1863. After Ludwig's accession to the throne in 1864, Paul was promoted to personal aide-de-camp of the king on 18 January 1865. In the following two years, Paul von Thurn und Taxis, who matched the king in his good looks, became the closest friend and confidant of the monarch. Although this infatuation, like that with Richard Wagner, was probably not sexually expressed, there were rumours in Munich that Ludwig was sexually intimate with his aide-de-camp. Paul appears to have kept a diary, but like everything else concerning him in the Regensburg archives of the Thurn und Taxis family, it has been destroyed. The following letter was sent by Paul to Ludwig from his apartment at Türkenstrasse 82 in Munich on 5 May 1866: