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Friday, May 29:King Otto of Bavaria – who 'ruled' from 1886 to 1913, and was quite mad – is reputed to have exercised his right to shoot one peasant every day. Luckily for Bavaria's peasants, his attendants gave him pistols loaded with blanks and dressed up as peasants, playing dead whenever he 'shot' them.Mar 3, 2009
This is not a typographical error: I know that shooting PHEASANTS was known to be a favorite pastime of royals whose hobbies included hunting. But is it true that King Otto of Bavaria was prone to shooting at PEASANTS?
It seems, then, that they dodged bullets -- literally: and the only reason they managed to escape with their lives was that Otto was such a terrible shooter that he kept on missing his mark. But it was only a matter of time before he would hit that mark.
So a plan was devised to make his "hobby" safer: he was given a pistol loaded with blanks. Every morning, a guard was posted outside Fürstenried Palace (where he was confined from 1875 until the rest of his life), disguised as a peasant. Otto then would go outside and take his daily shot at this fake "peasant" -- who then would feign death by pretending to get felled by a bullet.
Basically, this charade went on for many years -- until 1913, when he finally and mercifully got deposed as king by his cousin Ludwig III (who would be the last king of Bavaria).
Is all this true?
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