Kaspar Hauser. 
was unmarried, and it was the business of these wicked intriguers 
to encourage him in all manner of dissipations which would be 
likely to keep him from desiring the wedded state. In case of 
his dying childless there remained only two direct heirs, Mar- 
grave Friedrich, who although married had no children, and 
Ludwig himself, who, it is believed, had promised the Countess 
never to marry in his own rank, and to do all in his power 
to ensure the succession of the Hochberg children to the 
throne. 
These plans were greatly disturbed by the marriage of Mar- 
grave Karl in 1806 to Stephanie Beauharnais, a relation of 
Empress Josephine and protégée of Napoleon. As affairs then 
stood, the marriage was politically advantageous for Baden ; but 
there was no affection between the wedded couple. Karl was 
only twenty-five years of age; but he was old in debauchery, and 
being of a careless, undecided disposition, he yielded readily to 
the diabolical temptations which were constantly provided by the 
conspirators to ruin his health and destroy all prospect of domestic 
happiness. Stephanie was beautiful, brilliant, and accomplished ; 
she possessed a fine mind and a good heart; but all these charms 
were for a long time unheeded by her husband, who was coarse 
in his tastes and boorish in his manners. 
For more than four years after the wedding Karl lived separate 
from his wife ; but at last her beauty and goodness began to be 
recognised by him ; their relations became intimate, and on the 
sth of June, 1811, their first child was born. It was a daughter, 
Princess Louise, who afterwards married Prince Gustaf Vasa of 
Sweden and became the mother of Princess Caroline, the pre- 
sent Queen of Saxony. 
The aged Grand-Duke Karl Friedrich died the same year 
(1811), and his grandson Karl succeeded to the throne. 
As the Salic law obtains in Baden, the advent of a female 
child was no great misfortune for the Hochberg party ; but when 
the next year, September 29, 1812, the cannon announced the 
birth of a prince, and the land was full of rejoicing because the 
ancient line of Zihringen was secure, Ludwig and the Countess