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By Leslie Kendall Dye
| Monday, April 13, 2015 - Off the Shelf
My mother frequently reminded me we had some interesting
relations, one of whom was the mad King Ludwig of Bavaria. “But how, what
with our being Jews, could that be, Mom?” I asked. “I think he raped a
peasant,” she replied. “The details have been lost to the sands of time.”
If our family is, in fact, related to the mad king, I hope it is because of
a consensual and pleasurable agreement between the peasant and the monarch.
Ludwig Bemelmans would write it that way. He is a man who always chooses
the pleasant story and the happy outcome in his dated but charming How to Travel Incognito.
How do you get by in Paris with no money? And not merely get
by, but enjoy the best of service and relentless offers of luxuries? Simply
pretend to be the Prince of Bavaria. Bemelmans, best known for the Madeline
books, meets one Count of St. Cucuface on a train traveling through Europe.
St. Cucuface generously teaches him how to be both a con man and bon
vivant. (You might recognize the name Cucuface as that of the villain of
the Madeline books. Bemelmans is happy to recycle funny names in the
service of a good yarn.)
Bemelmans dedicates his “memoir” to a friend who suggested,
one drunken night in Paris, th... READ
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