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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/38512-8.txt b/38512-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8e4d577 --- /dev/null +++ b/38512-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6433 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lola Montez, by Edmund B. d'Auvergne + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Lola Montez + An Adventuress of the 'Forties + +Author: Edmund B. d'Auvergne + +Release Date: January 6, 2012 [EBook #38512] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOLA MONTEZ *** + + + + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive.) + + + + + + + + + +LOLA MONTEZ + + + + +UNIFORM LIBRARY EDITION OF THE WORKS OF GUY DE MAUPASSANT, newly +translated into English by Marjorie Laurie. + + +Volume 1. BEL-AMI. + + "Bel-Ami" is an extraordinarily fine full-length portrait of an + unscrupulous rascal who exploits his success with women for the + furtherance of his ambitions. The book simmers with humorous + observations, and, as a satire on politics and journalism, is no less + biting because it is not bitter. + +Volume 2. A LIFE. + + This story of a woman's life, harrowed first by the faithlessness of + her husband and later by the worthlessness of her son, has been + described as one of the saddest books that has ever been written; it + is remorseless in its utter truthfulness. + +Volume 3. "BOULE DE SUIF" and other Short Stories. + + A story of the part played by a little French prostitute in an + incident of the war of 1870. It was published in a collection of tales + by distinguished French writers of the day, and was so clearly the gem + of the collection that it established the Author at once as a master. + +Volume 4. THE HOUSE OF TELLIER. + + + + +[Illustration: LOLA MONTEZ. Countess of Landsfeld] + + + + + LOLA MONTEZ + AN ADVENTURESS OF THE 'FORTIES + + + BY EDMUND B. D'AUVERGNE + + + ILLUSTRATED + + + LONDON + T. WERNER LAURIE, LTD. + 30 NEW BRIDGE STREET, E.C.4 + + + + + _First Printed April 1909 + Second Edition, December 1909 + Third Impression, November 1924 + Fourth Impression, February 1925_ + + _Printed in Great Britain by + Fox, Jones & Co., at the Kemp Hall Press, Oxford, England_ + + + + +PREFACE + + +The story of a brave and beautiful woman, whose fame filled Europe and +America within the memory of our parents, seems to be worth telling. The +human note in history is never more thrilling than when it is struck in +the key of love. In what were perhaps more virile ages, the great ones of +the earth frankly acknowledged the irresistible power of passion and the +supreme desirability of beauty. Their followers thought none the less of +them for being sons of Adam. Lola Montez was the last of that long and +illustrious line of women, reaching back beyond Cleopatra and Aspasia, +before whom kings bent in homage, and by whose personality they openly +confess themselves to be swayed. Since her time man has thrown off the +spell of woman's beauty, and seems to dread still more the competition of +her intellect. + +Lola Montez, some think, came a century too late; "in the eighteenth +century," said Claudin, "she would have played a great part." The part she +played was, at all events, stirring and strange enough. The most +spiritually and æsthetically minded sovereign in Europe worshipped her as +a goddess; geniuses of coarser fibre, such as Dumas, sought her society. +She associated with the most highly gifted men of her time. Equipped only +with the education of a pre-Victorian schoolgirl, she overthrew the ablest +plotters and intriguers in Europe, foiled the policy of Metternich, and +hoisted the standard of freedom in the very stronghold of Ultramontane and +reactionary Germany. + +Driven forth by a revolution, she wandered over the whole world, +astonishing Society by her masculine courage, her adaptability to all +circumstances and surroundings. She who had thwarted old Europe's skilled +diplomatists, knew how to horsewhip and to cow the bullies of young +Australia's mining camps. An indifferent actress, her beauty and sheer +force of character drew thousands to gaze at her in every land she trod. +So she flashed like a meteor from continent to continent, heard of now at +St. Petersburg, now at New York, now at San Francisco, now at Sydney. She +crammed enough experience into a career of forty-two years to have +surfeited a centenarian. She had her moments of supreme exaltation, of +exquisite felicity. Her vicissitudes were glorious and sordid. She was +presented by a king to his whole court as his best friend; she was dragged +to a London police-station on a charge of felony. But in prosperity she +never lost her head, and in adversity she never lost her courage. + +A splendid animal, always doing what she wished to do; a natural pagan in +her delight in life and love and danger--she cherished all her life an +unaccountable fondness for the most conventional puritanical forms of +Christianity, dying at last in the bosom of the Protestant Church, with +sentiments of self-abasement and contrition that would have done credit to +a Magdalen or Pelagia. + +In my sympathy with this fascinating woman, it is possible that I have +exaggerated the importance of her _rôle_; probable, also, that I have +digressed too freely into reflections on her motives and on the forces +with which she had to contend. Those who prefer a bare recital of the +facts of her career, I refer at once to the admirable epitome to be found +in the "Dictionary of National Biography." Here I have not hesitated to +include all that seemed to me to throw light on the subject of my sketch, +on the people around her, and on the influences that shaped her destiny. + +EDMUND B. D'AUVERGNE. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAP. PAGE + + I. CHILDHOOD 1 + + II. A RUNAWAY MATCH 11 + + III. FIRST STEPS IN MATRIMONY 17 + + IV. INDIA SEVENTY YEARS AGO 21 + + V. RIVEN BONDS 31 + + VI. LONDON IN THE 'FORTIES 39 + + VII. WANDERJAHRE 47 + + VIII. FRANZ LISZT 59 + + IX. AT THE BANQUET OF THE IMMORTALS 65 + + X. MÉRY 75 + + XI. DUJARIER 79 + + XII. THE SUPPER AT THE FRÈRES PROVENÇAUX 83 + + XIII. THE CHALLENGE 87 + + XIV. THE DUEL 95 + + XV. THE RECKONING 101 + + XVI. IN QUEST OF A PRINCE 107 + + XVII. THE KING OF BAVARIA 111 + + XVIII. REACTION IN BAVARIA 121 + + XIX. THE ENTHRALMENT OF THE KING 125 + + XX. THE ABEL MEMORANDUM 135 + + XXI. THE INDISCRETIONS OF A MONARCH 143 + + XXII. THE MINISTRY OF GOOD HOPE 149 + + XXIII. THE UNCROWNED QUEEN OF BAVARIA 157 + + XXIV. THE DOWNFALL 163 + + XXV. THE RISING OF THE PEOPLES 173 + + XXVI. LOLA IN SEARCH OF A HOME 177 + + XXVII. A SECOND EXPERIMENT IN MATRIMONY 181 + + XXVIII. WESTWARD HO! 193 + + XXIX. IN THE TRAIL OF THE ARGONAUTS 199 + + XXX. IN AUSTRALIA 205 + + XXXI. LOLA AS A LECTURER 213 + + XXXII. A LAST VISIT TO ENGLAND 219 + + XXXIII. THE MAGDALEN 223 + + XXXIV. LAST SCENE OF ALL 227 + + SOURCES OF INFORMATION 234 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + + LOLA MONTEZ, COUNTESS OF LANDSFELD _Frontispiece_ + + NICHOLAS I. _To face page_ 54 + + FRANZ LISZT " 60 + + ALEXANDRE DUMAS, SENIOR " 70 + + LOUIS OF BAVARIA, WHEN ELECTORAL PRINCE " 112 + + LOUIS I, KING OF BAVARIA " 144 + + LOLA MONTEZ (AFTER JULES LAURE) " 194 + + + + +LOLA MONTEZ + +AN ADVENTURESS OF THE 'FORTIES + + + + +I + +CHILDHOOD + + +The year 1818 was, on the whole, a good starting-point in life for people +with a taste and capacity for adventure. This was not suspected by those +already born. They looked forward, after the tempest that had so lately +ravaged Europe, to a golden age of slippered ease and general stagnation. +The volcanoes, they hoped, were all spent. "We have slumbered seven years, +let us forget this ugly dream," complacently observed a German prince on +resuming possession of his dominions; and "the old, blind, mad, despised, +and dying king's" worthy regent expressed the same confidence when he gave +the motto, "A sign of better times," to an order founded in this +particular year. Yet the child that thus with royal encouragement began +life in England at that time learned before he could toddle to tremble at +the mysterious name of "Boney," and later on would thrill with fear, +delight, and horror at his nurse's recital of the atrocities and final +glorious undoing of that terrific ogre. Presently he would meet in his +walks abroad, red-coated, bewhiskered veterans who had met the monster +face to face (or said they had); who would recount stories of decapitated +kings, dreadful uprisings, and threatened invasions; who had lost a leg or +an arm or an eye at Waterloo or Salamanca; which victories (they assured +him) were mainly due to their individual valour and generalship. As the +child grew older he would begin to make a coherent story out of these +strange happenings: he would realise through what a period of storm and +stress the world had passed immediately before his advent. He would listen +eagerly at his father's table to more trustworthy relations of the great +battles by men whose share in them his country was proud to acknowledge. +Waterloo, Trafalgar, the Nile, would be fought over again in the school +playground. For the best part of his life he might expect to have as +contemporaries, men who had seen Napoleon with their own eyes, and shaken +Nelson by his one hand--men who had seen thrones that seemed as stable as +the everlasting hills come crashing down, to be pieced together with a +cement of blood and gunpowder. How often the boy, or, as in this +particular case, the girl, must have longed for a recurrence of those +brave days, and deprecated the peaceful present. But for him (or her) far +more amazing things were in store. His it was to see society emerge from +its worn-out feudal chrysalis, and to take the path which may yet lead to +civilisation. Those born in 1818 could have the delightful distinction of +being carried in the first railway train, of sending the first "wire," of +boarding the first "penny 'bus." Born in the age of the coach and the hoy, +they would die in the era of the locomotive and mail steamer. Theirs was +an age of transition indeed, most curious to watch, most thrilling to +traverse. And--most valuable privilege of all to those that loved to play +a part in great affairs--they would be in good time to assist at the +widest spread and most terrific upheaval Europe had known since the +downfall of the Roman Empire. To have been thirty years of age in that +year of years, 1848! Those who witnessed the great drama must have felt +that to have come into the world more than three decades before would have +been a mistake the most grievous. + +Among the children fortunate enough, then, to be born when the nineteenth +century was in its eighteenth year was the heroine of our history. +Limerick, the city of the broken treaty, was her birthplace, Maria Dolores +Eliza Rosanna the names bestowed upon her in baptism. Only a year before +(on 3rd July 1817) her father, Edward Gilbert, had been gazetted an ensign +in the old 25th regiment of the line, now the King's Own Scottish +Borderers. He may have been, as his daughter and only child afterwards +claimed, the scion of a knightly house, but he could boast a far more +honourable distinction--that he rose from the ranks and earned his +commission by valour and good conduct in the long Napoleonic wars.[1] +Promotion it was, perhaps, that emboldened him to marry in the same year. +His wife was a girl of surpassing beauty, a Miss Oliver, of Castle Oliver, +wherever that may be, and a descendant of the Count de Montalvo, a Spanish +grandee, who had lost his immense estates in the wars. The ancestors of +this unfortunate noble (we are told) were Moors, and came into Spain in +the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, which was certainly the worst +possible moment they could have chosen for so doing. For this account of +Mrs. Gilbert's ancestry we are indebted to her daughter, whose names +certainly suggest a Spanish origin. It was by her mournful second name, or +rather by its lightsome diminutive, Lola, that she was ever afterwards +known. Perhaps she was so called in remembrance of one of the proud +Montalvos. At all events, she never ceased to cherish the belief in her +half-Spanish blood. When she was a romantic young girl--for young girls +_were_ romantic seventy years ago--Spain obsessed the Byronic caste of +mind. It was regarded as the home of chivalry, romance, love, poetry, and +adventure. To be ever so little Spanish was accounted a most enviable +distinction. So it would be ungenerous of us to impugn Lola's claim to +what she and her contemporaries considered an inestimable privilege. True +or false, the idea was one she imbibed with her mother's milk--though I +forgot to say that, according to her own statement, she was nourished at +this early period by an Irish nurse. I wish I could say in what religion +the new daughter of the regiment was educated. Somewhere she says that her +mother eloped with her father from a convent. The strong dislike she +manifested in after years for the Roman Catholic Church may have been +inspired by this circumstance, and suggests, at any rate, in one not +keenly sensible of nice theological distinctions, some personal motive +arising from a bitter experience. + +If the baby Lola gave promise of the woman, Edward Gilbert must have been +proud of his child--as proud of her as of his pretty wife and his hard-won +commission. But those years in troubled Ireland must have been anxious +ones for him. There is no evidence that he possessed private means, and to +support a wife and child on the pay of an ensign in a marching regiment +would necessitate economies of the most painful description. In the East, +now that Europe was at peace, lay the only hope of immediately increased +pay and rapid promotion. The establishment of the King's Own Scottish +Borderers was reduced, in August 1822, from ten to eight companies, and +Gilbert was able to obtain, in consequence, a transfer to the 44th of the +line, already under orders for India. His appointment to his new +regiment--now the first battalion Essex regiment--is dated 10th October +1822. With his young wife and child he embarked, accordingly, for the land +of promise. Probably the four-year-old Lola endured best of the three the +unspeakable fatigue and tedium of that long, long journey round the +Cape--a voyage which in those days it was no uncommon thing to prolong by +a call at Rio de Janeiro. It was not till four months had been passed at +the mercy of wind and wave that our weary travellers set foot in Calcutta. + +The regiment was stationed at Fort William, and there the ensign's hopes +of speedy advancement early received encouragement. At one time seventeen +of his brother officers lay sick with the fever, and before six months had +fled, the last post was sounded over the graves of Major Guthrie, Captain +O'Reilly, and Lieutenants Twinberrow and Sargent. The unspoken question on +every one's lips was, Whose turn next? In this Indian pest-house there +must have been moments when the young mother, fearful for her husband and +child, longed fiercely for the rain-drenched streets of Limerick. At last +the regiment was ordered to Dinapore. The journey was effected, as was +usual in those days, by water, an element to which the Gilberts were now +well accustomed. But here, instead of the monotonous expanse of ocean, +they had slowly unfolded before them the strange and brightly-coloured +panorama of the East--gorgeous, teeming cities, the dreadful, burning +ghâts, rank jungle, dense forests, rich rice-fields. As the flotilla +travelled only 12 or 14 miles a day, the passengers had ample time to +stretch their limbs ashore, and to visit the towns and villages passed _en +route_. The voyage, too, did not lack incident. On one occasion nine boats +were swamped, and eight British redcoats went to swell the horrible +procession of corpses which floats ever seaward down the Sacred River. +Another night the Colonel's boat took fire, and the flames, spreading to +other vessels, consumed the regimental band's music and instruments, which +were so sorely needed to revive the drooping spirits of the fever-stricken +troops. + +However, in the excitement of taking up their new quarters at Dinapore, +these evil omens were, no doubt, forgotten. Pretty women were rare in +India in those days, and Mrs. Gilbert received (from the men, at all +events) a right royal welcome. She was acclaimed queen of the station, +and, as her husband, the Ensign, became, of course, a person of +consequence. This was better than Ireland, after all. Dinapore was a +fairly lively spot, and regimental society was not overshadowed, as at +Calcutta, by the magnates of Government House. So Lola's mother flirted +and danced, while Lola herself was petted by grey-haired generals and +callow subs., and Lola's father began to dream of a captaincy. One day, +in the early part of 1824, his place at the mess-table was vacant. The +doctor looked in, and said "Cholera," and a few faces blanched. Craigie, +the Ensign's best friend, hurried to his bedside. The dying man was +speechless, but conscious. Beckoning to his friend, he placed his weeping +wife's hand in his, and, having thus conveyed his last wish, died. + +Lola was left fatherless before she was seven years old. She and her +mother, she tells us, were promptly taken charge of by the wife of General +Brown. + + "The hearts of a hundred officers, young and old, beat all at once + with such violence, that the whole atmosphere for ten miles round + fairly throbbed with the emotion. But in this instance the general + fever did not last long, for Captain Craigie led the young widow + Gilbert to the altar himself. He was a man of high intellectual + accomplishments, and soon after this marriage his regiment was ordered + back to Calcutta, and he was advanced to the rank of major." + +We are thus able to identify Lola's stepfather with John Craigie of the +Bengal Army, who was gazetted Captain on 11th May 1816, and Major, 18th +May 1825. Four years later he attained the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel.[2] +He seems to have been a generous, warm-hearted man, who never forgot the +trust placed in him by his dying friend at Dinapore. To him Lola was +indebted for such education as she received in India. That was not of a +very thorough character. With a mother who, we learn, was passionately +fond of society and amusement, little Miss Gilbert must have passed most +of her time in the company of ayahs and orderlies, picking up the native +tongue with the facility which distinguished her in after life, and +domineering tremendously over idolatrous sepoys and dignified khansamahs. +I can imagine her on the knees of veterans at her father's table, +delighting them with her beauty, and still more with her boldness and +childish ready wit. Of course, His Excellency (Lord William Bentinck) +would take notice of the pretty, pert child of handsome Mrs. Craigie, and +it is not to be wondered at that all her life she should hanker after the +atmosphere of a court, remembering the vice-regal glories at Calcutta. + +It seems to have dawned upon Mrs. Craigie, not very long after her second +marriage, that her daughter was, to use a common expression, running wild. +A little discipline, it was felt, would do her good. It was decided to +send her home to her stepfather's relatives at Montrose. With screams, +sobs, and wild protests, the eight-year-old girl accordingly found herself +torn from the redcoats and brown faces that she loved, once more to +undertake that terrible four months' journey to a land which she had +probably completely forgotten. + +The contrast between Calcutta, the gorgeous city of palaces, and Montrose, +the dour, wintry burgh among the sandhills by the northern sea, must have +chilled the heart of the passionate child. Yet she does not seem in after +life to have thought with any bitterness of the place, and speaks with +respect, if not affection, of her new guardian, Major Craigie's father. +She writes:-- + + "This venerable man had been provost of Montrose for nearly a quarter + of a century, and the dignity of his profession, as well as the great + respectability of his family, made every event connected with his + household a matter of some public note, and the arrival of the queer, + wayward, little East Indian girl was immediately known to all + Montrose. The peculiarity of her dress, and I dare say not a little + eccentricity in her manners, served to make her an object of curiosity + and remark; and very likely she perceived that she was somewhat of a + public character, and may have begun, even at this early age, to + assume airs and customs of her own." + +That is, indeed, very likely. Further information concerning our heroine's +stay at Montrose we have little. She does not seem to have retained any +very vivid impressions of her childhood. One of the few events in the +meagre history of the little Scots town she was privileged to witness--the +erection of the suspension bridge from Inchbrayock over the Esk. Here it +was, too, that she formed that friendship with the girl, afterwards Mrs. +Buchanan, which was destined to form her greatest consolation in the +evening of her days. The Craigies were strict Calvinists, and some of her +biographers have assumed, in consequence, that they must have treated the +child with rigour and inspired her with a distaste for religion. She never +said so, as far as I can ascertain. On the contrary, throughout her life +she evinced a marked bias in favour of Protestantism, which is quite as +compatible with an erotic temperament as was the zeal for Catholicism +displayed by the favourite mistress of Charles II. + +Her parents, says Lola, being somehow impressed with the idea that she was +being petted and spoiled (by the gloomy Calvinists aforesaid), she was +removed to the family of Sir Jasper Nicolls, of London. It is to be +observed that neither now nor after do we hear of her father's relatives, +who one would suppose to have been her proper guardians. This circumstance +certainly discountenances the theory of Edward Gilbert's exalted +parentage. Sir Jasper Nicolls, K.C.B., Major-General, was succeeded by +Major-General Watson in the command of the Meerut Division in 1831, in +which year it may be presumed he returned to England, and took his friend +Craigie's stepdaughter under his wing. Like most Indian officers, he +preferred to spend his pension out of England, and gladly hurried his +girls off to Paris to complete their education. They missed the July +Revolution by a year; but all France was presently ringing with the +exploits of the brave Duchesse de Berry, who became the idol of the +_pensionnats_. To Lola, no doubt, she seemed a heroine worthier of +imitation than the young Princess Alexandrina Victoria, who was just then +touring her uncle's dominions. The romantic fever was at its height in +Paris. To her schoolfellows the beautiful Anglo-Indian girl, with her +Spanish name and ancestry, must have appeared a new edition of De Musset's +"Andalouse." The influences about her at this time tended to stimulate all +that was romantic and adventurous in her temperament, and determined, +perhaps, her action in the first great crisis of her life. + + + + +II + +A RUNAWAY MATCH + + +It was now fifteen years since Mrs. Craigie had visited England, and +rather more than ten since she had seen her daughter. She had been made +aware that Lola's beauty far exceeded the promise of her childish years, +and this she took care to make known to all the eligible bachelors of +Bengal. The charms of the erstwhile pet of the 44th were eagerly discussed +by men who had never seen her. Lonely writers in up-country stations +brooded on her perfections, as advertised by Mrs. Craigie, and came to the +conclusion that she was precisely the woman wanted to convert their +secluded establishments into homes. It was difficult to get a wife of the +plainest description in the India of William IV.'s day, and the +competition for the hand of the unknown beauty oversea was proportionately +keen. If marriage by proxy were recognised by English law Lola's fate +would have been sealed long before she was aware of it. From a worldly +point of view the most desirable of these ardent suitors was Sir Abraham +Lumley, whom our heroine unkindly describes as a rich and gouty old rascal +of sixty years, and Judge of the Supreme Court in India. We see that in +that rude age it was not the custom to speak of sexagenarians as in the +prime of life. To the venerable magistrate Mrs. Craigie promised her +daughter in marriage. Remembering the hard times she had gone through with +her first husband, the penniless ensign, and forgetting, as we do when +past thirty, how those hardships were lightened by love, she no doubt felt +that she had acted extremely well by her daughter. Women's ideas on the +subject of marriage are usually absolutely conventional, and since unions +between men of sixty and girls of eighteen are not condemned by the +official exponents of religion, you would never have persuaded Mrs. +Craigie that they were immoral. Outside the Decalogue (and the Police +Regulations) all things are lawful. Well pleased with herself, the still +handsome Anglo-Indian lady sailed for home in the early part of the year +1837, proposing to bring her daughter back with her to the bosom of +Abraham. + +She found Lola at Bath, whither she had been sent from Paris with Fanny +Nicolls "to undergo the operation of what is properly called finishing +their education." I do not suppose the meeting between mother and daughter +was especially cordial, considering the temperament of the former and the +long period of separation, but Mrs. Craigie was delighted to find that +report had nowise exaggerated the young girl's charms. This was also the +private opinion of Mr. Thomas James, a lieutenant in the 21st regiment of +Native Infantry (Bengal), a young officer who had attached himself to Mrs. +Craigie on the voyage and accompanied her to Bath. The mother thought him +quite safe, as he had told her that he was betrothed, and had consulted +her about his prospects, or, rather, the want of them. The married ladies +of India have always been full of maternal solicitude for poor young +subalterns, who frequently repay their kindness with touching devotion. +It was probably the wish to be useful to his benefactress that had drawn +Mr. James to Bath. Or it may have been that he wished to drink the waters, +for I forgot to say that he had been ill during the voyage, and owed his +recovery to Mrs. Craigie's careful nursing. + +Lola was staggered by the kindness and liberality of her mother. Visits to +the milliner's and the dressmaker's succeeded each other with startling +rapidity; jewellery, _lingerie_, all sorts of delightful things were +showered upon her in bewildering profusion. Lieutenant James was kept on +his legs all day, escorting the ladies to the _modistes_ and running +errands to Madame Jupon and Mademoiselle Euphrosine. At last the girl +began to suspect that there must be some other motive for this excessive +interest in her personal appearance than maternal fondness. She made bold +one day (she tells us) to ask her mother what this was all about, and +received for an answer that it did not concern her--that children should +not be inquisitive, nor ask idle questions. (Lola is the only girl on +record who protested that too much money was being spent on her wardrobe.) +Her suspicions naturally increased tenfold. In her perplexity she sought +information from the Lieutenant, of whose interest in her she had probably +become conscious. Then she learnt the horrible truth. The wardrobe so fast +accumulating was her _trousseau_, and she was the promised bride of a man +in India old enough to be her grandfather. For a moment Lola was stunned. +For a full-blooded, passionate girl of eighteen the prospect was hideous. +We may be sure, too, that her informant did not understate the personal +disadvantages of Sir Abraham Lumley. Neither did he neglect this +favourable opportunity to declare his own passion for the proposed victim, +and to press his suit. An interview with Mrs. Craigie followed. + + "The little madcap cried and stormed alternately. The mother was + determined--so was her child; the mother was inflexible--so was her + child; and in the wildest language of defiance she told her that she + never would be thus thrown alive into the jaws of death. + + "Here, then, was one of those fatal family quarrels, where the child + is forced to disobey parental authority, or to throw herself away into + irredeemable wretchedness and ruin. It is certainly a fearful + responsibility for a parent to assume of forcing a child to such + alternatives. But the young Dolores sought the advice and assistance + of her mother's friend...." + +She was probably a little in love with that friend, who was a fine-looking +fellow, about a dozen years older than herself, and who had certainly +conceived a violent passion for her. The situation was conventionally +romantic. The books of that time were full of distressed damsels being +forced into hateful unions. Lola, it is safe to say, relished her new +_rôle_ of heroine not a little. So when her lover proposed a runaway +match, she felt that she was bound to comply with the usual stage +directions. After all, what could be more delightful?--an elopement in a +post-chaise with a dashing young officer, an angry mamma in pursuit, and, +happily, no angry papa, armed with pistols or horse-whip. + +Away they went. Lola has left us no particulars of the flight. The +runaways reappear, in the first month of Queen Victoria's reign, in the +girl's native land, where she was placed under the protection of her +lover's family. "They had a great muss [_sic_] in trying to get married." +Lola was under age, and her mother's consent was indispensable. James sent +his sister to Bath to intercede with Mrs. Craigie. The lady was furious. +Not only had her daughter upset her most cherished project, but had run +off with her most devoted friend and admirer. Mrs. Craigie was a prey to +the most mortifying reflections. No doubt she asked Miss James what had +become of the young lady to whom her brother had declared he was +affianced. She probably said some very unkind things about the Lieutenant. +At last, however, "good sense so far prevailed as to make her see that +nothing but evil and sorrow could come of her refusal, and she consented, +but would neither be present at the wedding, nor send her blessing." We +are not told if she sent the voluminous _trousseau_, which had been the +cause of all the mischief. She returned soon after, I gather, to India, to +announce to the unfortunate Sir Abraham the collapse of his matrimonial +scheme. + +Miss James returned to Ireland with the necessary authority, and Thomas +James, Lieutenant, and Maria Dolores Eliza Rosanna Gilbert, spinster, were +made man and wife in County Meath on the 23rd July 1837. The bride's +reflections on this event are worth quoting:-- + + "So, in flying from that marriage with ghastly and gouty old age, the + child lost her mother, and gained what proved to be only the outside + shell of a husband, who had neither a brain which she could respect, + nor a heart which it was possible for her to love. Runaway matches, + like runaway horses, are almost sure to end in a smash up. My advice + to all young girls who contemplate taking such a step is, that they + had better hang or drown themselves just one hour before they start." + +This warning was obviously intended to counteract the dreadful example of +the writer's subsequent life and adventures, and to dissuade ambitious +young ladies from following in her footsteps. Lola did not, of course, +believe what she said. Even "when wild youth's past" and the glamour of +love has worn thin, no sensible woman could believe that she would have +got much happiness out of life if it had been passed in wedlock with a man +half a century her senior. Perhaps, however, Lola sadly reflected that if +she had become Sir Abraham's wife, she would probably have become his +widow a very few years after. + + + + +III + +FIRST STEPS IN MATRIMONY + + +Thus Lola found herself in Ireland, the wife of a penniless +subaltern--exactly the position of her mother twenty years before. "All +for love and the world well lost," she might have exclaimed. There is no +reason to suppose that disillusionment came to her any sooner than to +other hot-headed and romantic young ladies similarly placed. She was +accustomed to view her early married life in the bitter light of +subsequent experience, and forgot all the sweets and raptures of first +love. Women of her temperament always find it hard to believe that they +ever really loved men whom they have since learned to hate. Even by her +own account, those months in Ireland were not altogether unrelieved by the +glitter for which her soul craved. Her husband took her to Dublin, she +informs us, and presented her to the Lord-Lieutenant. His Excellency Lord +Normanby was one of the few good rulers England has placed over Ireland, +and like most clever men, he was an admirer of pretty women. Lola seems to +have been made much of by him. He paid her many compliments, among others +this, "Women of your age are the queens of society"--a remark which may be +addressed with equally good effect to ladies anywhere between seventeen +and seventy. Mr. James began to grow restive under the fire of admiration +directed by great personages upon his young wife. It is not impossible to +believe that she flirted. Her husband decided to withdraw her from the +seductions of the viceregal court, and retired with her to some spot in +the interior, the name of which has not been transmitted to us. Lola, in +memoirs she contributed years after to a Parisian newspaper, describes her +life in this retreat as unutterably tedious. The day was passed in hunting +and eating, these exercises succeeding each other with the utmost +regularity. Meanwhile, the system was sustained by innumerable cups of +tea, taken at stated intervals, and with much deliberateness. + +Ireland had changed since the emancipation of the Catholics. It was not +with tea that the heroes of Charles Lever's time beguiled the tedium of +existence. + +"This dismal life," continues our heroine, "weighed on me to such an +extent that I should assuredly have done something desperate if my husband +had not just then been ordered to return to India." Lola, it will have +been seen, entertained little affection for her native land. She had no +recollection of her childhood there, and she never afterwards thought of +the country except in connection with the detested husband of her youth. + +In the second year of the Queen's reign she left Ireland, to return years +after in very different circumstances. Her fondest memories were of the +East, towards which she now gladly turned her face for the second time. +"On the old trail, on the out trail," she sailed aboard the East Indiaman, +_Blunt_, her husband at her side. There is a curious parallelism between +her mother's life and her own up till now, which she could not have +failed to notice. Her memories of the voyage strike me rather as having +been specially spiced for the consumption of Parisian readers, than as an +authentic relation. James, we are told, neglected his young wife, and +exhibited an amazing capacity for absorbing porter. Finding the time heavy +on her hands, Lola resorted to the commonest of all distractions on +passenger ships--flirting. While her consort lay sleeping "like a +boa-constrictor" in his bunk, his wife's admirers used to slip notes under +the door, these serving her as spills for Mr. James's pipe. The gentlemen +who fell under the spell of Lola's fascinations at this stage of her +career were three in number--a Spaniard called Enriquez, an Englishman, +simply described as John, and the skipper himself. This "colossal sailor" +seems to have been somewhat of a philosopher. One of his profound +reflections has been handed down to us, and is worth recording: "Love is a +pipe we fill at eighteen, and smoke till forty; and we rake the ashes till +our exit." + +Lola thus pictures as a man-enslaving Circe the girl who was described by +a contemporary as a good little thing, merry and unaffected. I doubt if +the flirtations here magnified into intrigues were very serious affairs, +after all. It is rather pathetic, the woman's shame for the simplicity of +the girl, and her evident desire to paint her redder than she was. It is +probable that the girl would have been quite as much ashamed if she could +have seen herself at thirty. + + + + +IV + +INDIA SEVENTY YEARS AGO + + +The land to which little Mrs. James was eager to return seems to us now to +have been a poor exchange for the rollicking Ireland of Lever's day. India +in 1838, as for a score of years after, was under the rule of John +Company. Collectors and writers of the Jos. Sedley type were still able to +shake the pagoda tree, and Englishmen in outlying provinces often became +suddenly rich, how or why nobody asked, and only the natives cared. Indigo +planters beat their half-caste wives to death, and English magistrates +looked the other way. Our people died, like flies in autumn, of cholera, +snakebites, and the thousand and one fevers to which India was subject. We +were still shut in by powerful native states. Ranjit Singh ruled in the +Punjaub, the Baluchis in Scinde; there was yet a king in Oude and a rajah +at Nagpûr. Slavery was only abolished in the British dominions that very +year, and Hindoo widows had but lately lost the privilege of burning +themselves on their husbands' funeral pyres. The chronic famine had +assumed slightly more serious proportions. + +It was a land of loneliness, remote and isolated. A postal service had +been introduced only the year before, and letters took at least three +months to come from England. This was by the overland route, which was +liable at any moment to interruption by the caprice of the Pasha of Egypt +or the enterprise of Bedouins. There were, of course, no railways and no +telegraphs. You travelled wherever possible by river, in boats called +budgerows, which had not increased in speed since Ensign Gilbert's day. +Going up the Ganges you might have seen the Danish flag waving over +Serampore. If you were in a hurry and could afford it, you travelled +_dâk_--that is, in a palanquin, carried by four bearers, who were changed +at each stage like posting-horses. This method of travel--about the most +uncomfortable, I conceive, ever devised by man--greatly impressed and +interested Lola. She thought it repugnant to one's sense of humanity, but +could not help observing the lightheartedness of the bearers. They jogged +briskly along to the accompaniment of improvised songs, which were not +always flattering to their human load. + + "I will give you a sample," says our traveller, "as well as it could + be made out, of what I heard them sing while carrying an English + clergyman who could not have weighed less than two hundred and + twenty-five pounds. Each line of the following jargon was sung in a + different voice:-- + + "'Oh, what a heavy bag! + No, it is an elephant; + He is an awful weight. + Let us throw his palki down, + Let us set him in the mud-- + Let us leave him to his fate. + Ay, but he will beat us then + With a thick stick. + Then let's make haste and get along, + Jump along quickly!' + + "And off they started in a jog-trot, which must have shaken every bone + in his reverence's body, keeping chorus all the time of 'Jump along + quickly,' until they were obliged to stop for laughing. + + "They invariably (continues Lola) suit these extempore chants to the + weight and character of their burden. I remember to have been + exceedingly amused one day at the merry chant of my human horses as + they started off on the run. + + "'She's not heavy, + Cabbada [take care]! + Little baba [missie], + Cabbada! + + Carry her swiftly, + Cabbada! + Pretty baba, + Cabbada!' + + "And so they went on, singing and extemporising for the whole hour and + a half's journey. It is quite a common custom to give them four annas + (or English sixpence) apiece at the end of every stage, when fresh + horses [_sic_] are put under the burden; but a gentleman of my + acquaintance, who had been carried too slowly, as he thought, only + gave them two annas apiece. The consequence was that during the next + stage the men not only went faster, but they made him laugh with their + characteristic song, the whole burden of which was: 'He has only given + them two annas, because they went slowly; let us make haste, and get + along quickly, and then we shall get eight annas, and have a good + supper.'" + +The burden of the European's life in India at this period is voiced in +"Marois'" poem, _The Long, Long, Indian Day_. It was the empire of +_ennui_. A strongly puritanical tone, too, was observable in certain +influential circles, and the clergy frequently discountenanced and +condemned the poor efforts at relaxation made by officers and their wives. +Dances and amateur theatricals were often the subject of censure from the +pulpit. So the men fell back on brandy pawnee, loo, and tiger-shooting. +The women were worse off. To the Honourable Emily Eden we are indebted for +some vivid pictures of Anglo-Indian society during the viceroyalty of her +brother, Lord Auckland (1836-1842). They enable us to realise Lola's +emotions and manner of life during her second visit to India. Miss Eden's +compassionate interest was excited by + + "a number of young ladies just come out by the last ships, looking so + fresh and English, and longing to amuse themselves--and it must be + such a bore at that age to be shut up for twenty-three hours out of + the twenty-four; and the one hour that they are out is only an airing + just where the roads are watered. They have no gardens, no villages, + no poor people, no schools, no poultry to look after--none of the + occupations of young people. Very few of them are at ease with their + parents; and, in short, it is a melancholy sight to see a new young + arrival." + +Another passage runs:-- + + "It is a melancholy country for wives at the best, and I strongly + advise you never to let young girls marry an East Indian. There was a + pretty Mrs. ---- dining here yesterday, quite a child in looks, who + married just before the _Repulse_ sailed, and landed here about ten + days ago. She goes on next week to Neemuch, a place at the farthest + extremity of India, where there is not another European woman, and + great part of the road to it is through jungle, which is only passable + occasionally from its unwholesomeness. She detests what she has seen + of India, and evidently begins to think 'papa and mamma' were right in + withholding for a year their consent to her marriage. I think she + wishes they had held out another month. There is another, Mrs. ----, + who is only _fifteen_, who married when we were at the Cape, ... and + went straight on to her husband's station, where for five months she + had never seen a European. He was out surveying all day, and they + lived in a tent. She has utterly lost her health and spirits, and + though they have come down here for three weeks' furlough, she has + never been able even to call here [at Government House]. He came to + make her excuse, and said, with a deep sigh: 'Poor girl! she must go + back to her solitude. She hoped she could have gone out a little in + Calcutta, to give her something to think of.' And then, if these poor + women have children, they must send them away just as they become + amusing. It is an abominable place." + +This was not realised at once by Mrs. James, whose first season (she tells +us) was passed "in the gay and fashionable city of Calcutta." There she +became an acknowledged beauty. Not long after the outbreak of the first +Afghan War she was torn away from the comparative brilliance of the +capital, and accompanied her husband most reluctantly, to Karnál, a town +between Delhi and Simla, on the Jumna Canal. The place is no longer a +military station. At this juncture, happily for us, a flood of light is +poured upon Lola's character and history by the letters of Miss Eden, +dated from Simla and Karnál in the latter part of the year 1839. I include +some extracts not directly relating to Lola, as they describe scenes in +which she must have taken part, and which formed the background against +which she moved. + + "_Sunday, 8th September_ [1839]. + + "Simla is much moved just now by the arrival of a Mrs. J[ames], who + has been talked of as a great beauty of the year, and that drives + every other woman, with any pretensions in that line, quite + distracted, with the exception of Mrs. N., who, I must say, makes no + fuss about her own beauty, nor objects to it in other people. Mrs. + J[ames] is the daughter of a Mrs. C[raigie], who is still very + handsome herself, and whose husband is Deputy-Adjutant-General, or + some military authority of that kind. She sent this only child to be + educated at home, and went home herself two years ago to see her. On + the same ship was Mr. J., a poor ensign, going home on sick leave. + Mrs. C. nursed him and took care of him, and took him to see her + daughter, who was a girl of fifteen [_sic_] at school. He told her he + was engaged to be married, consulted her about his prospects, and in + the meantime privately married this girl at school. It was enough to + provoke any mother, but as it now cannot be helped, we have all been + trying to persuade her for the last year to make it up, as she frets + dreadfully about her only child. She has withstood it till now, but at + last consented to ask them for a month, and they arrived three days + ago. The _rush on the road_ was remarkable, and one or two of the + ladies were looking absolutely nervous. But nothing could be more + unsatisfactory than the result, for Mrs. James looked lovely, and Mrs. + Craigie had set up for her a very grand jonpaun [kind of sedan-chair], + with bearers in fine orange and brown liveries, and the same for + herself; and James is a sort of smart-looking man, with bright + waistcoats and bright teeth, with a showy horse, and he rode along in + an attitude of respectful attention to _ma belle mère_. Altogether it + was an imposing sight, and I cannot see any way out of it but + magnanimous admiration. They all called yesterday when I was at the + waterfalls, and F[anny] thought her very pretty." + + + "_Tuesday, 10th September._ + + "We had a dinner yesterday. Mrs. James is undoubtedly very pretty, and + such a merry, unaffected girl. She is only seventeen now [twenty-one, + in fact], and does not look so old, and when one thinks that she is + married to a junior lieutenant in the Indian army fifteen years older + than herself, and that they have 160 rupees a month, and are to pass + their whole lives in India, I do not wonder at Mrs. Craigie's + resentment at her having run away from school. + + "There are seventeen more officers come up to Simla on leave for a + month, partly in the hope of a little gaiety at the end of the rains; + and then the fancy fair has had a great reputation since last year, + and as they will all spend money, they are particularly welcome.... + + + "_Wednesday, 11th September._ + + "We had a large party last night, the largest we have had in Simla, + and it would have been a pretty ball anywhere, there were so many + pretty people. The retired wives, now that their husbands are on the + march back from Cabul, ventured out, and got through one evening + without any prejudice to their characters." + +Are regimental ladies in India nowadays expected to keep in seclusion +while their husbands are on active service? I think not. + + "_Monday, 16th September._ + + "We are going to a ball to-night, which the married gentlemen give us; + and instead of being at the only public room, which is a broken, + tumble-down place, it is to be at the C.'s [the Craigies'?], who very + good-naturedly give up their house for it." + + + "_Wednesday, 18th September._ + + "The ball went off with the greatest success: transparencies of the + taking of Ghaznee, 'Auckland' in all directions, arches and verandahs + made up of flowers; a whist table for his lordship, which is always a + great relief at these balls; and every individual at Simla was there. + There was a supper room for us, made up of velvet and gold hangings + belonging to the Durbar, and a standing supper all night for the + company in general, at which one very fat lady was detected in eating + five suppers.... It was kept up till five, and altogether succeeded." + + + "_Friday, 27th September._ + + "We had our fancy fair on Wednesday, which went off with great + _éclat_, and was really a very amusing day, and, moreover, produced + 6,500 rupees, which, for a very small society, is an immense sum. X. + and L. and a Captain C. were disguised as gipsies, and the most + villainous-looking set possible; and they came on to the fair, and + sang an excellent song about our poor old Colonel and a little hill + fort that he has been taking; but after the siege was over, he found + no enemy in it, otherwise, it was a gallant action. + + "We had provided luncheon at a large booth with the sign of the + 'Marquess of Granby.' L. E. was old Weller, and so disguised I could + not guess him; X. was Sam Weller; K., Jingle; and Captain C., Mrs. + Weller; Captain Z., merely a waiter, with one or two other gentlemen; + but they all acted very well up to their characters, and the luncheon + was very good fun.... The afternoon ended with races--a regular + racing-stand, and a very tolerable course for the hills; all the + gentlemen in satin jackets and jockey caps, and a weighing stand--in + short, everything got up regularly. Everybody likes these out-of-door + amusements at this time of year, and it is a marvel to me how well X. + and K. and L. E. contrive to make all their plots and disguises go + on. I suppose in a very small society it is easier than it would be in + England, and they have all the assistance of servants to any amount, + who do all they are told, and merely think the 'sahib log' are mad." + + + "_Tuesday, 15th October._ + + "The Sikhs are here. Our ball for them last night went off very well. + The chiefs were in splendid gold dresses, and certainly very + gentleman-like men. They sat bolt upright on their chairs, with their + feet dangling, and I dare say suffered agonies from cramp. C. said we + saw them amazingly divided between the necessity of listening to + George [Lord Auckland], and their native feelings of not _seeming_ + surprised, and their curiosity at men and women dancing together. I + think that they learned at least two figures of the quadrilles by + heart, for I saw Gholâb Singh, the commander of the Goorcherras, who + has been with Europeans before, expounding the dancing to the others." + +Lola's month at Simla had now expired, but she probably postponed her +departure to witness the reception of these chiefs. Having been reconciled +with her mother--partly, it seems, through the kindly intervention of the +Governor-General's sister, and partly, as she afterwards declared, through +her stepfather--she returned with her husband to his cantonment. Here she +was fortunate again to attract the attention of the viceregal party. + +Miss Eden writes from Karnál, under date 13th November 1839:-- + + "We had the same display of troops on arriving, except that a bright + yellow General N. has taken his liver complaint home, and a pale + primrose General D., who has been renovating some years at Bath, has + come out to take his place. We were at home in the evening, and it was + an immense party, but except that pretty Mrs. James who was at Simla, + and who looked like a star among the others, the women were all plain. + + "I don't wonder if a tolerable-looking girl comes up the country that + she is persecuted with proposals.... That Mrs. ---- we always called + the little corpse is still at Karnál. She came and sat herself down by + me, upon which Mr. K., with great presence of mind, offered me his + arm, and said to George that he was taking me away from that corpse. + 'You are quite right,' said George. 'It would be very dangerous + sitting on the same sofa; we don't know what she died of.'" + + + "_Sunday, 17th November._ + + "We left Karnál yesterday morning. Little Mrs. James was so unhappy at + our going that we asked her to come and pass the day here, and brought + her with us. She went from tent to tent, and chattered all day, and + visited her friend Mrs. ----, who is with the camp. I gave her a pink + silk gown, and it was altogether a very happy day for her evidently. + It ended in her going back to Karnál on my elephant, with E. N. by her + side and Mr. James sitting behind, and she had never been on an + elephant before, and thought it delightful. She is very pretty, and a + good little thing, apparently, but they are very poor, and she is very + young and lively, and if she falls into bad hands she would soon laugh + herself into foolish scrapes. At present the husband and wife are very + fond of each other, but a girl who marries at fifteen hardly knows + what she likes." + + + + +V + +RIVEN BONDS + + +Miss Eden's misgivings were warranted by the events. "Husband and wife are +very fond of each other"--that was, doubtless, true, but Lola's lips would +have curled had she read the passage in after years. Abandoned by the +departure of the viceregal party once more to the slender social resources +of Karnál, the young wife, I conjecture, fretted and moped. The glitter of +the Court made the boredom of the cantonment all the more oppressive. The +year after the Simla festivities Karnál had another distinguished visitor, +the famous Dost Mohammed Khan, Amir of Kabul, but as during his six +months' stay he was kept a close prisoner in the fort, his presence could +not have sensibly relieved the monotony. Lieutenant James's subsequent +readiness to divorce his wife proves that he had no very strong attachment +to her, and gives some colour to her allegations against him. Of course, +it is safe to conclude that both were in the wrong, or, more truthfully, +had made a mistake. So long, however, as people regard marriage more as a +contract than a relation, each party will be anxious to throw the +responsibility for the rupture upon the other. As the husband had the +opportunity of stating his case in the law courts, it is only fair that +the wife should be allowed to plead hers here. Her version of the +circumstances which brought about the breach is as follows:-- + + "She was taken to visit a Mrs. Lomer--a pretty woman, who was about + thirty-three years of age, and was a great admirer of Captain [_sic_] + James. [His bright waistcoats and bright teeth were not without their + effect, we see.] Her husband was a blind fool enough; and though + Captain James's little wife, Lola, was not quite a fool, it is likely + enough that she did not care enough about him to keep a look-out upon + what was going on between himself and Mrs. Lomer. So she used to be + peacefully sleeping every morning when the Captain [read Lieutenant] + and Mrs. Lomer were off for a sociable ride on horseback. In this way + things went on for a long time, when one morning Captain James and + Mrs. Lomer did not get back to breakfast, and so the little Mrs. James + and Mr. Lomer breakfasted alone, wondering what had become of the + morning riders. + + "But all doubts were soon cleared up by the fact fully coming to light + that they had really eloped to Neilghery Hills. Poor Lomer stormed, + and raved, and tore himself to pieces, not having the courage to + attack any one else. And little Lola wondered, cried a little, and + laughed a good deal, especially at Lomer's rage." + +The injured husband, apparently, was never pieced together again, as we do +not hear that he ever instituted any proceedings against the seducer of +his wife. It is true that by Lola's account they may be considered to have +put themselves beyond his reach, for the Neilghery Hills lie, as the crow +flies, about 1,400 miles from Karnál, and a stern chase in a palanquin +over that distance is an undertaking from which even Menelaus would have +shrank. Nor did the peccant Lieutenant James think it worth while to +resign his commission. + +Whatever may have been the immediate cause, it is clear that husband and +wife were on bad terms when the cantonment at Karnál was broken up in the +year 1841. Lola took refuge under her mother's roof at Calcutta. She +admits that her reception was cold, and that Mrs. Craigie pressed her to +return to Europe. On this course she finally decided, probably without +great reluctance. It was given out, and not perhaps altogether untruly, +that she was leaving India for the benefit of her health. Her husband came +down to Calcutta, and himself saw her aboard the good ship, _Larkins_. Her +stepfather, to whose relations in Scotland she was again to be confided, +was much affected at her departure. + + "Large tears rolled down his cheeks when he took her on board the + vessel; and he testified his affection and his care by placing in the + hands of the little grass-widow a cheque for a thousand pounds on a + house in London." + +Thus for the second and last time Lola saw the swampy shores of Bengal +receding from her across the waves. She was never again to see India or +those who bid her adieu. The merry, unaffected schoolgirl of Simla had +become in one short year a disappointed, disillusioned woman. While +husband and wife exchanged cold farewells, probably neither expected nor +wished to see the other again. Both had made a mistake, and both knew it. +Now they were placing half a world between them. Lola's heart must have +lightened, as the good ship sped before the wind southwards across the +Indian Ocean. Accustomed to shipboard, the _désagréments_ of the voyage +were nothing to her, and she immediately began to take an interest in her +companions. She speaks of a Mr. and Mrs. Sturges, Boston people, who were +nominally in charge of her; and of a Mrs. Stevens, another American lady, +a very gay woman, who had some influence in supporting her determination +not to go to the Craigies' on reaching England. There was a Mr. Lennox on +board, sometimes described as an aide-de-camp to some governor, who also +may have had something to do with this resolution. It all came about as +Lord Auckland's sister had feared. Lola had fallen into evil hands, and +laughed herself into a bad scrape. She had been accustomed to admiration; +she was young, beautiful, and passionate. Her heart was empty; she was +angered against her husband. She was by no means unwilling to face the +possibility of a final separation from him. Lennox remains for us the +shadowiest of personalities, but his disappearance, implying abandonment +of the woman he had compromised, tells against him. In this instance I +think we may safely conclude that the man was to blame. + +Out of affection for him, then, or a determination to lead her own life, +uncontrolled and unshackled, Mrs. James, on arriving in London, flatly +refused to accompany Mr. David Craigie, "a blue Scotch Calvinist," whom +she found awaiting her. + + "At first he used arguments and persuasion, and finding that these + failed, he tried force; and then, of course, there was an explosion, + which soon settled the matter, and convinced Mr. David Craigie that he + might go back to the little dull town of Perth as soon as he pleased, + without the little grass-widow. Now she was left in London, sole + mistress of her own fate. She had, besides the cheque given her by her + stepfather, between five and six thousand dollars' worth of various + kinds of jewellery, making her capital, all counted, about ten + thousand dollars--a very considerable portion of which disappeared in + less than one year by a sort of insensible perspiration, which is a + disease very common to the purses of ladies who have never been taught + the value of money." + +It was in the early spring of 1842 that Lola set foot in London. +Considering the rapidity for those times with which her husband became +informed of her next movements, these must have been amazingly open; and +it is hard to resist the conclusion that she was deliberately trying to +bring about a divorce. She knew that the English law grants no relief to +those who come to it both with clean hands. She knew also that so long as +her husband neither starved nor beat her, she could not set the law in +motion against him. English law, supposed to vindicate the sanctity of +marriage, sets a premium on adultery and cruelty: these are the only +avenues of escape from unhappy unions into which high-minded men and women +may have been betrayed by youthful folly, by over-persuasion, by +sentiments they innocently over-estimated. If Lola Gilbert at the age of +eighteen had signed a bill for ten pounds, the courts would have annulled +the transaction, on the ground that her youth rendered her incapable of +appreciating its gravity. As it was, she had signed away her life--a less +important thing than property--and our Rhadamanthine law sternly held her +to her bargain. + +James was not slow to avail himself of the pretext she afforded him. He +instituted through his proctors a suit against her for divorce in the +Consistory Court of London, to which jurisdiction in all matrimonial +causes at that time belonged. Lola, as he probably expected she would do, +ignored the proceedings from first to last. The case was heard before Dr. +Lushington on 15th December 1842. Mrs. James was accused of misconduct +with Mr. Lennox on board the ship _Larkins_, and of subsequently +cohabiting with him at the Imperial Hotel, Covent Garden, and in lodgings +in St. James's. The court was satisfied with the proofs adduced, and +pronounced a divorce _a mensâ et toro_. In modern legal language this was +a judicial separation. These two people, though they were to live apart, +were sentenced never to marry again during the lifetime of each other. It +is by such dispositions that the law of England proposes to promote +morality and the interests of society. + +Both lover and husband disappear from the scene. James rose to the rank of +captain, retired from the Indian army in 1856, and died in 1871. He never +crossed Lola's path again, and she ever afterwards referred to him with +contempt and bitterness. If it was in any vindictive spirit that he +divorced her, he would have done well to remember how in former years he +had taken advantage of her youth and inexperience. It was a squalid ending +to the romantic runaway match. It would be interesting to know with what +emotions Captain James heard of his ex-wife's adventures in high places in +the years that followed. It must have seemed odd that monarchs should risk +their crowns for the charms that he so lightly prized. Perhaps his wonder +was not untinged with regret. More likely it might have been written of +him as of Lola:-- + + "Who have loved and ceased to love, forget + That ever they lived in their lives, they say-- + Only remember the fever and fret, + And the pain of love that was all his pay." + +Mrs. Craigie put on mourning as though her child was dead, and sent out to +her friends the customary notifications. The good old +Deputy-Adjutant-General alone thought kindly of Lola. + + + + +VI + +LONDON IN THE 'FORTIES + + +To a woman in Lola's situation, London in the early 'forties offered every +inducement to go to the devil. Between a roaring maelstrom of the coarsest +libertinism, on the one hand, and an impregnable barrier of heartless +puritanism on the other, her destruction was well-nigh inevitable. The +hotchpotch of unorganised humanity that we call Society seldom presented +an uglier appearance than it did in the first decade of Victoria's reign. +Sir Mulberry Hawk and Pecksniff are types of the two contending forces. +Blackguardism was matched against snivelling cant. Luckily, the victory +fell to neither. Those were the days of Crockfords, of Vauxhall, of the +spunging-house, of public executions turned into popular festivals; when +gentlemen of fashion painted policemen pea-green, and beat them till they +were senseless; when peers got drunk and the people starved. Opposed to +this debauchery was a religion of convention and propriety, narrow, +stupid, and un-Christlike--the cult of the correct and the respectable, +the fetishes to which Lady Flora Hastings and many another woman were +coldly sacrificed. + +In spite of Sir Mulberry and Mr. Pecksniff, however, Lola, ex-Mrs. James, +had no intention of going under. Her exclusion from society, after her +wearisome experiences in India, she probably regarded as no great +hardship. Her youth, her sprightliness, and her beauty made her many +friends. Some of these as quickly became enemies, when they discovered +that a divorced woman is not necessarily for sale. More than one _roué_ +vowed vengeance against the girl who, with bursts of laughter and +dangerous gusts of anger, rejected the offer of his protection. It was, +perhaps, in this way she offended the elegant Lord Ranelagh, who was then +swaggering about in the Spanish cloak he had worn in the Carlist Wars. +Lola was strong enough to swim in the maelstrom. Independence and +adversity brought out the latent force in the character of the "good +little thing" of Simla. Instead of looking out for a refuge, she sought a +career. + +She turned, of course, towards the stage, the one profession in Early +Victorian times that offered any promise to an ambitious woman. She took +more pains to acquire a knowledge of her art than are deemed necessary by +most beautiful aspirants nowadays. She studied under Miss Fanny Kelly, a +gifted actress, who had distinguished herself by her efforts to improve +the social status of her profession, and who had opened a dramatic school +for women adjacent to what is now the Royalty Theatre. Lola describes Miss +Kelly as a lady as worthy in the acts of her private life as she was +gifted in genius. This opinion was shared by all the contemporaries of the +venerable actress. In after years Mr. Gladstone thought fit to recognise +her services to the theatre by a royal grant of one hundred and fifty +pounds, but the money arrived in time only to be expended on a memorial +over her grave in the dismal cemetery at Brompton. Since Lola was a +friend of Miss Kelly, she must have been very far from being the depraved +character she is represented by some. + +With all the goodwill in the world, the experienced mistress could not +make an actress of her beautiful pupil, who accordingly determined to +approach the stage through a back-door. If talent of the intellectual +order was denied her, she could fall back on her physical advantages. She +determined to become a dancer. She was instructed for four months by a +Spanish professor, and then (so she assures us) underwent a further +training at Madrid. It was now that she assumed the name of Lola +Montez--so soon to be known throughout Europe. She passed herself off as a +Spaniard, partly, no doubt, for professional reasons, and partly to +conceal her identity with the wife of Captain James. Society can hardly +expect its quarry to step out into the open to be shot at. Her beauty and +her dancing so impressed Benjamin Lumley, the experienced director of Her +Majesty's Theatre, that it was on his stage that she actually made her +first appearance. + +The morning papers of Saturday, 3rd June 1843, announced accordingly that +between the acts of the opera (_Il Barbiere di Seviglia_), Donna [_sic_] +Lola Montez, of the Teatro Real, Seville, would make her first appearance +in this country, in the original Spanish dance, "El Olano." Attracted by +this advertisement, a critic, who afterwards wrote under the pseudonym of +"Q.," called at the theatre, and was presented to the _débutante_. In her +he recognised a lady living opposite his lodgings in Grafton Street, +Mayfair, who had long been the object of his silent adoration. He dwells +on her extreme vivacity, on her brilliancy of conversation, and on her +foreign accent, which struck him as assumed. She was persuaded to give a +rehearsal for his special benefit. + + "At that period," he goes on to say, "her figure was even more + attractive than her face, lovely as the latter was. Lithe and graceful + as a young fawn, every movement that she made seemed instinct with + melody as she prepared to commence the dance. Her dark eyes were + blazing and flashing with excitement, for she felt that I was willing + to admire her. In her _pose_, grace seemed involuntarily to preside + over her limbs and dispose their attitude. Her foot and ankle were + almost faultless. Nadaud, the violinist, drew the bow across his + instrument, and she began to dance. No one who has seen her will + quarrel with me for saying that she was not, and is not, a finished + _danseuse_, but all who have will as certainly agree with me that she + possesses every element which could be required, with careful study in + her youth, to make her eminent in her then vocation. As she swept + round the stage, her slender waist swayed to the music, and her + graceful neck and head bent with it, like a flower that bends with the + impulse given to its stem by the changing and fitful temper of the + wind."[3] + +On that eventful June evening, then, manager, critics, not least of all +Lola herself, confidently looked forward to a striking success. The house +was crowded, and many notabilities were present. There were the King of +Hanover, the Queen-Dowager, the Duchess of Kent, and the Duke and Duchess +of Cambridge. There was also Lola's old enemy, my Lord Ranelagh, who with +a party of friends occupied one of the two omnibus-boxes--an admirable +point from which to examine the ankles and calves of the long-skirted +ballet-girls. When the curtain rose in the _entr'acte_, a Moorish chamber +was revealed. On either side stood a damsel, gazing expectantly towards +the draped entrance at the back of the stage. A moment later and there +glided through this a figure enveloped in a mantilla. One of the handmaids +snatched away this drapery, and the commanding form of Donna Lola Montez +was revealed in all its glory. + + "And a lovely picture it is to contemplate! There is before you the + perfection of Spanish beauty--the tall, handsome person, the full, + lustrous eye, the joyous, animated face, and the intensely raven hair. + She is dressed, too, in the brightest of colours: the petticoat is + dappled with flaunting tints of red, yellow, and violet, and its showy + diversities of hue are enforced by the black velvet bodice above, + which confines the bust with an unscrupulous pinch. Presently this + Andalusian _Papagena_ lifts her arms, and the sharp, merry crack of + the castanets is heard. She has commenced one of the merry dances of + her nation, and many a piquant grace does she unfold."[4] + +The audience are bewitched, enraptured. The stage is strewn with bouquets. +Suddenly from the right omnibus-box comes the surprised exclamation: "Why, +it's Betty James!" Lord Ranelagh has recognised the woman who rebuffed +him, and hurriedly whispers to his friends. Above the applause from stalls +and gallery, there is heard on the stage, at least, a prolonged and +ominous hiss. My lord's friends in the opposite box act upon the hint, and +the hissing grows louder and more insistent. The body of the audience, +knowing nothing about the matter, conclude that the dancer cannot know +her business, and presently begin to hiss, too. In ten minutes more the +curtain comes down upon her, and Lola's career as a dancer is terminated +in England. + +Lord Ranelagh had had his revenge. This species of blackguardism was only +too common in those days. The notorious Duke of Brunswick that same year +had gone with his attorney, Mr. Vallance, and a party of friends, to +Covent Garden Theatre, for the express purpose of hooting down an actor, +Gregory, who took the part of Faust. He succeeded in his design, and +bragged about it afterwards. In Early Victorian times the theatre was +completely under the thumb of certain aristocratic sets. The exasperated +Lumley was powerless to resist the fiat of these gilded snobs. Lola +Montez, they insisted, must never appear on his stage again. He obeyed. +The Press was very far from imitating his subserviency. The _Era_ and +_Morning Herald_ praised the new _danseuse_ in what seem to us extravagant +terms, and deliberately ignored the inglorious _dénouement_ of her +performance. Indeed, but for the pen of "Q." we might be left to share the +surprise expressed at her disappearance by the _Illustrated London News_, +which, ironically perhaps, suggested that the votaries of what might be +called the classical dance had set their faces against the national. + +Lola herself was under no misapprehension as to the cause and authors of +her defeat. She wrote to the _Era_ on 13th June, protesting passionately +against a report that was being circulated to the effect that she had long +been known in London as a disreputable character. She positively asserted +that she was a native of Seville, and had never before been in London. She +complains of the cruel calumnies that had got abroad concerning her, and +says that she has instructed her lawyer to prosecute their utterers. Of +course, the greater part of this statement was untrue, but she had her +back against the wall, and with their reputation, social and professional, +and means of livelihood at stake, few women would have acted otherwise. My +own view is that after her affair with Lennox, Lola tried hard "to keep +straight," and made powerful enemies in consequence. The alliance of +Pecksniff and Sir Mulberry proved too strong for her. + + + + +VII + +WANDERJAHRE + + +London, then, was closed to Lola. She was recognised, and for the divorced +wife of Lieutenant James there were no prospects of a career. Her defeat +determined her to aim higher, not lower, as most women would have done. In +the English country towns she would have been quite unknown, and might +have earned a modest competence. But her experience of Montrose and Meath +did not predispose her towards the provincial atmosphere. Devoting England +and its serpent seed to the infernal gods, she took wing to Brussels. So +rapidly were her preparations made that when "Q." called the very morning +after the "frost" at Her Majesty's at her apartments in Grafton Street, he +found her gone--none knew whither. We must feel sorry for our anonymous +friend, for it is evident from his confessions that Lola's blue eyes had +bored a big hole in his heart. He consoled himself for her loss by writing +(I suspect) some of the flattering notices on her performance to which +reference has been made. + +It is impossible to trace his enchantress's movements in their proper +sequence during the next nine or ten months (June 1843 to March 1844). We +find her at Brussels, Berlin, Dresden, Warsaw, and St. Petersburg. She +reached the Belgian capital practically with an empty purse. She +afterwards said[5] that she went there partly because she had not enough +money wherewith to go to Paris, partly because she hoped to make her way +on to The Hague. She proposed to lay siege to the heart of his Dutch +Majesty William II., then a man fifty-one years of age. She had, quite +probably, met his son, the Prince of Orange, who was visiting Lord +Auckland about the time she was at Simla, and had heard tales in Calcutta +about the Dutch Court. The House of Orange has not been fortunate in its +domestic relations. It is said that during the last king's first +experience of wedlock, the heads of chamberlains often intercepted the +books aimed by the Royal spouses at each other, while the whole palace +re-echoed with the slamming of doors and the crash of crockery. William +II., though not possessed of the reputation of his son and grandson, the +celebrated "_Citron_," was known to be on bad terms with his Russian wife, +Anna Pavlovna. He seemed to Lola a promising subject for the exercise of +her powers of fascination. The design, if she ever really entertained it, +was not one that moralists could applaud, but in extenuation it must be +urged that Lola's late defeat could not have encouraged her to persevere +in the path of virtue. However, the Dutch project came to nothing, and the +display of our heroine's statecraft was reserved for another capital and +another day. + +In Brussels she found herself friendless and penniless. She was reduced to +singing in the streets to save herself from starvation--she who only four +years before had been borne from the stately Indian Court enthroned on +the Viceroy's elephant! Her distress is rather to the credit of her +reputation, for it would have been easy enough for so beautiful a woman to +have found a wealthy protector in the Belgian capital. She was noticed by +a man, whom she believed to be a German, who took her with him to Warsaw. +"He spoke many languages," says Lola, "but he was not very well off +himself. However, he was very kind, and when we got to Warsaw, managed to +get me an engagement at the Opera."[6] I cannot help wishing that Lola had +given us some account of a journey that must have been performed in a +carriage right across Central Europe from Belgium to Poland. + +Warsaw in 1844 must have been as cheerless a spot as any in Europe. The +great insurrection of 1831 had been suppressed with ruthless severity by +the soldiers of the Tsar, and there was not a family of rank in the city +that was not mourning for some one of its members who had passed beyond +the ken of its living, into dread Siberia. Order reigned at Warsaw, +indeed, in its conqueror's famous phrase, but it was order obtained only +with the knout and the bayonet. The Polish language was barely tolerated, +the Catholic religion proscribed. Women, half-naked, were publicly flogged +for their attachment to their faith, school-boys and school-girls sent to +perish beyond the Urals. The secret service ramified through every grade +of society. Fathers distrusted their sons, husbands feared to discover in +their own wives the tools of the Muscovite Government. To this day Poles +are seldom free from the nightmare of the Russian spy. The present writer +remembers how, some years ago, at Bern, in the capital of a free +republic, a Polish medical man refused, with every symptom of +apprehension, to discuss the condition of his country within the longest +ear-shot of a third party. + +Yet unhappy Warsaw, under the heel of the terrible Paskievich, could be +coaxed into a smile by the flashing eyes of the new Andalusian dancer. Her +beauty enraptured the Poles, and drew from one of their dramatic critics +the following elaborate panegyric:-- + + "Lola possesses twenty-six of the twenty-seven points on which a + Spanish writer insists as essential to feminine beauty--and the real + connoisseurs among my readers will agree with me when I confess that + blue eyes and black hair appear to me more ravishing than black eyes + and black hair. The points enumerated by the Spanish writer are: three + white--the skin, the teeth, the hands; three black--the eyes, + eye-lashes, and eyebrows; three red--the lips, the cheeks, the nails; + three long--the body, the hair, the hands; three short--the ears, the + teeth, the legs; three broad--the bosom, the forehead, the space + between the eyebrows; three full--the lips, the arms, the calves; + three small--the waist, the hands, the feet; three thin--the fingers, + the hair, the lips. All these perfections are Lola's, except as + regards the colour of her eyes, which I for one, would not wish to + change. Silky hair, rivalling the gloss of the raven's wing, falls in + luxuriant folds down her back; on the slender, delicate neck, whose + whiteness shames the swan's down, rests the beautiful head. How, too, + shall I describe Lola's bosom, if words fail me to describe the + dazzling whiteness of her teeth? What the pencil could not portray, + certainly the pen cannot. + + "'Vedeansi accesi entro le gianci belle + Dolci fiamme di rose e di rubini, + E nel ben sen per entro un mar di latte + Tremolando nutar due poma intatte.' + + "Lola's little feet hold the just balance between the feet of the + Chinese and French ladies. Her fine, shapely calves are the lowest + rungs of a Jacob's ladder leading to Heaven. She reminds one of the + Venus of Knidos, carved by Praxiteles in the 104th Olympiad. To see + her eyes is to be satisfied that her soul is throned in them.... Her + eyes combine the varying shades of the sixteen varieties of + forget-me-not...." + +And so forth, and so on. + +It is indisputable that in this, her twenty-sixth year, Lola was extremely +beautiful. Her bitterest detractors have never denied her the possession +of almost magical loveliness. This was informed by sparkling vivacity, and +a force of personality, without which we should never have heard the name +of Lola Montez. A human masterpiece of this sort is as much a source of +trouble in a community as a priceless diamond. Everyone's cupidity is +excited, probity and honour melt away in the fierce heat of temptation. +The upright think that here at last is a prize worth the sacrifice of all +the standards that have hitherto guided them. St. Anthony, after forty +years of sainthood, succumbs--and is glad that he does. Even miserable +Poland for a moment forgot her woes when she looked on Lola; and her stern +conqueror, the terrible Paskievich, felt a new spring pervading his grim, +sixty-year-old frame. He, the master of many legions, he at whose frown a +nation paled--why should he not grasp this treasure? Who should say him +nay? + +I will let Lola tell the story in her own words. + + "While Lola Montez was on a visit to Madame Steinkiller the wife of + the principal banker of Poland, the old viceroy sent to ask her + presence at the palace one morning at eleven o'clock. She was assured + by several ladies that it would be neither politic nor safe to refuse + to go; and she did go in Madame Steinkiller's carriage, and heard from + the viceroy a most extraordinary proposition. He offered her the gift + of a splendid country estate, and would load her with diamonds + besides. The poor old man was a comic sight to look upon--unusually + short in stature, and every time he spoke, he threw back his head and + opened his mouth so wide as to expose the artificial gold roof of his + palate. A death's-head making love to a lady could not have been a + more disgusting or horrible sight. These generous gifts were most + respectfully and very decidedly declined. But her refusal to make a + bigger fool of one who was already fool enough was not well received. + +[This, I take it, is the only instance of the word fool being applied to +one of the ablest, if most ruthless, men Russia has ever produced.] + + "In those countries where political tyranny is unrestrained, the + social and domestic tyranny is scarcely less absolute. + + "The next day His Majesty's tool, the colonel of the _gendarmes_ and + director of the theatre, called at her hotel to urge the suit of his + master. + + "He began by being persuasive and argumentative, and when that availed + nothing, he insinuated threats, when a grand row broke out, and the + madcap ordered him out of her room. + + "Now when Lola Montez appeared that night at the theatre, she was + hissed by two or three parties who had evidently been instructed to do + so by the director himself. The same thing occurred the next night; + and when it came again on the third night, Lola Montez, in a rage, + rushed down to the footlights, and declared that those hisses had been + set at her by the director, because she had refused certain gifts + from the old prince, his master. Then came a tremendous shower of + applause from the audience; and the old princess, who was present, + both nodded her head and clapped her hands to the enraged and fiery + Lola. + + "Here, then, was a pretty muss. An immense crowd of Poles, who hated + both the prince and the director, escorted her to her lodgings. She + found herself a heroine without expecting it, and indeed without + intending it. In a moment of rage she had told the whole truth, + without stopping to count the cost, and she had unintentionally set + the whole of Warsaw by the ears. + + "The hatred which the Poles intensely felt towards the government and + its agents found a convenient opportunity of demonstrating itself, and + in less than twenty-four hours Warsaw was bubbling and raging with the + signs of an incipient revolution. When Lola Montez was apprised of the + fact that her arrest was ordered, she barricaded her door; and when + the police arrived she sat behind it with a pistol in her hand, + declaring that she would certainly shoot the first man dead who should + break in. The police were frightened, or at least they could not agree + among themselves who should be the martyr, and they went off to inform + their masters what a tigress they had to confront, and to consult as + to what should be done. In the meantime, the French Consul gallantly + came forward and claimed Lola Montez as a French subject, which saved + her from immediate arrest; but the order was peremptory that she must + quit Warsaw." + +I have no means of verifying this account. Riots were of frequent +occurrence in Warsaw during the 'forties, but, thanks to a rigid +censorship of the Press, the particulars concerning them have failed to +reach us. That the citizens would at once side with any one who for any +reason whatsoever was "agin the Government" is not to be doubted, and Lola +was quite clever enough to make a slight to her appear as an insult to +the Warsaw public. In defending herself with the pistol, she only gave +proof of the manlike courage and resolution conspicuous throughout her +whole career. As to the cause of the row, one of Lola's recent biographers +remarks that if Prince Paskievich had made the offer alleged, it is quite +certain that she would have closed with it. It is far from being certain. +The Russian Viceroy was definitely repugnant to her, and her subsequent +experiences show that she never bestowed herself upon a man whom she could +not, or did not, love. She was new, too, to her _rôle_ of adventuress. +Altogether, there is no good reason for doubting that Lola's relation of +her experiences in the Polish capital is substantially true. + +On the other hand, vanity certainly betrayed her into several deviations +from the truth in her reminiscences of St. Petersburg. She went thither, +she informs us, upon her expulsion from Poland--an odd refuge! Of her +journey in a _calèche_ across the wastes of Lithuania and through the dark +forests of Muscovy; of St. Petersburg, still half an Oriental city, where +all men below the rank of nobles wore the long beard and caftan of the +Asiatic--our _raconteuse_ has nothing to say. She introduces us at once to +the Tsar and the innermost arcanum of his Court. + + "Nicholas was as amiable and accomplished in private life as he was + great, stern, and inflexible as a monarch. He was the strongest + pattern of a monarch of this age, and I see no promise of his equal, + either in the incumbents or the heirs-apparent of the other thrones of + Europe." + +Lola, we see, speaks as an authority on crowned heads. In her estimate +of Nicholas I. she seems to have forgotten the republican principles she +generally professed. The Tsar was, no doubt, the most commanding figure of +his time, and Russia's influence in the counsels of Europe has never since +had as much weight as in the earlier part of his reign. His fine +proportions, as much as his strength of character, probably excited Lola's +admiration, and blinded her to defects, physical and temperamental, which +did not escape the notice of more keen-eyed critics. She did not see that +the autocrat's majestic demeanour was a pose, that his stern, hawk-like +glance was deliberately cultivated, and that he had only three expressions +of countenance, all put on at will. Horace Vernet, who knew Nicholas well, +was firmly convinced that he was not wholly sane. As to his amiability in +private life, he is said to have been, like many tyrants, a good husband, +and he often condescended to take tea with his nurse, "a decent Scotch +body." It was to this respectable exile that the members of the imperial +family owed that fluent and colloquial English, which often as much +astonished as gratified our countrymen. It is recorded that one of the +Grand Dukes genially accosted the British chaplain at St. Petersburg with +the enquiry: "God damn your eyes, and how the devil are you?"--language, +very properly remarks an Early Victorian writer, which no man on earth had +the right to address to a person in Holy Orders. + + +[Illustration: NICHOLAS I.] + + +The Tsar himself was better bred. His relations with Mademoiselle Montez +were characterized by politeness and liberality. Not only he, but his +right-hand man, the astute Livonian, Benkendorf, held the lady's political +acumen in high esteem. While she and the Emperor and the Minister of the +Interior were in a somewhat private chat about vexatious matters connected +with Caucasia, airily relates Lola, a humorous episode occurred. + + "It was suddenly announced that the superior officers of the Caucasian + army were without, desiring audience. The very subject of the previous + conversation rendered it desirable that Lola Montez should not be seen + in conference with the Emperor and the Minister of the Interior; so + she was thrust into a closet, and the door locked. The conference + between the officers and the Emperor was short but stormy. Nicholas + got into a towering rage. It seemed to the imprisoned Lola that there + was a whirlwind outside; and womanly curiosity to hear what it was + about [did she then understand Russian?], joined with the great + difficulty of keeping from coughing, made her position a strangely + embarrassing one. But the worst of it was, in the midst of this grand + quarrel the parties all went out of the room, and forgot Lola Montez, + who was locked up in the closet. For a whole hour she was kept in this + durance vile, reflecting upon the somewhat confined and cramping + honours she was receiving from Royalty, when the Emperor, who seems to + have come to himself before Count Benkendorf did, came running back + out of breath, and unlocked the door, and not only begged pardon for + his forgetfulness, in a manner which only a man of his accomplished + address could do, but presented the victim with a thousand roubles, + saying laughingly: 'I have made up my mind whenever I imprison any of + my subjects unjustly, I will pay them for their time and suffering.' + And Lola Montez answered him: 'Ah, sire, I am afraid that rule will + make a poor man of you.' He laughed heartily, and replied: 'Well, I am + happy in being able to settle with you, anyhow.'" + +Lola makes here a rather heavy draft on the reader's credulity. However, +from the nice things she has to say about His Imperial Majesty, it is +clear that she had been admitted at one time or another to his presence. +Had not Nicholas I. been a pattern of the domestic virtues, we might have +attributed his embarrassment at Lola's being discovered in his closet, and +the donation of the thousand roubles, to reasons entirely unconnected with +the Caucasus. After all, Lola may have argued, if she had been courted by +a king, why should she not have been consulted by an emperor? + +Before or after her visit to St. Petersburg the dancer saw the Tsar at +Berlin. Mounted on a fiery Cordovan barb, she was among the spectators at +a review given by King Frederick William in honour of his imperial guest. +The horse was scared by the firing, and bolted, carrying its rider +straight into the midst of the Royal party. Lola was not sorry to find +herself in such company, but a _gendarme_ struck at her horse and +endeavoured to drive it away. An insult of this sort Lola was the last +woman to tolerate. Raising her whip, she slashed the policeman across the +face. Out of respect for the Royal party, the incident was allowed to end +there, for the moment; but the next day the dancer was waited upon with a +summons. She instantly tore the document to pieces, and threw them into +the face of the process-server. Such contempt for the law might have been +attended with very serious consequences, but Lola went, as a matter of +fact, scot-free. Perhaps her friends in high places interceded for her; +but it is hard to believe, as she afterwards declared, that the _gendarme_ +came to her lodgings to sue for her pardon.[7] In every capital of Europe +it soon became known that the beautiful Spanish dancer was able and +prepared to defend herself against the most determined antagonists of +either sex. + +But a nobler quarry than Tsar and Viceroy was now to fall before the +shafts from Lola's eyes. + + + + +VIII + +FRANZ LISZT + + +In the year 1844 Franz Liszt may be considered to have reached the zenith +of his fame. In the two-and-twenty years that had elapsed since his first +triumph, when a lad of eleven, at Vienna, the young Hungarian had taken +pride of place before all the pianists of his day. The crown still rested +securely on his brow, despite the formidable rivalry of Thalberg. Paris, +London, Berlin, St. Petersburg, Rome, and Milan had in turn felt his +spell, and rapturously acclaimed him the king of melody. Honours and +wealth poured in upon him. The magnates of his native land--the proudest +of all aristocracies--presented him with a sword of honour. The monarchs +of Europe publicly recognised the lofty genius of one whom they knew to be +no friend of theirs. For Liszt, the devotee of later years, glowed then +with generous enthusiasm for freedom, political and religious. Frederick +William sent him diamonds, and he pitched them into the wings; the Tsar +found him unabashed and contemptuous; the Kings of Bavaria and Hanover he +scorned to invite to his concerts; before Isabel II. he refused to play at +all, because Spanish Court etiquette forbade his personal introduction to +her. The Catholic Church, he wrote, knew only curse and ban. He was the +friend of Lamennais. The bourgeois--the Philistine, as we should call him +now--he held in greater abhorrence even than the tyrant. In Louis Philippe +he saw bourgeoisie enthroned. Yet the King of the French courted the man +whose empire was more stable than his own. He reminded the pianist of a +former meeting when the one was but a boy, and the other only Duke of +Orleans. "Much has changed since then," said the Citizen-King. "Yes, sire, +but not for the better!" bluntly replied the artist. + +In 1844 Europe was more liberal in some respects than America is to-day. +Honours and applause were not denied to Liszt because he openly +transgressed the sex conventions. Since 1835 his life had been shared by +the beautiful Comtesse d'Agoult, the would-be rival, under the name +"Daniel Stern," of the more celebrated Georges Sand. Of this union were +born three children, one of whom became the wife of Richard Wagner. Madame +d'Agoult was a Romanticist, and a very typical figure of her time and +circle. She was an interesting woman, and tried hard to be more +interesting still. But it was no affectation of passion that led her to +abandon home, husband, and position, to throw herself into the pianist's +arms at Basle. She was deeply in love with him; but she wished to be more +than a wife, more than a lover: she aspired to be his muse. Liszt, +however, needed no inspiration from without. In an oft-quoted phrase, he +said that the Dantes created the Beatrices; "the genuine die when they are +eighteen years old." The man chafed more and more under the ties that +bound him. He had no wish to abandon the mother of his children, but his +genius demanded to be unfettered. He wandered over Europe, sad and +bitter at heart, but heaping up his laurels. The Comtesse and the +children stayed in Paris, or at the villa Liszt had rented on the +beautiful islet of Nonnenwerth, in the shadow of "the castled crag of +Drachenfels." There he joined them from time to time, while unable to +resist the conclusion that he and she must part. The evolution of their +temperaments and intellects was in rapidly diverging directions. He was no +longer willing to throw himself out of the window at her bidding as he had +publicly declared himself to be four years before. The cord that bound +them was frayed and fretted to a thread. + + +[Illustration: FRANZ LISZT.] + + +At Dresden fate threw Liszt and Lola Montez across each other's path. The +intense, artistic nature of the man cried out with joy at the glorious +beauty of the woman. Her inextinguishable vivacity, her almost masculine +boldness, her frank and splendid animalism enraptured the musician, now +sick to death of soulful conversations and the sentimentalities of +Romanticism. It was the old struggle for the possession of the artist, +waged by Silvia and Gioconda. Lola was beautiful as a tigress. To Liszt +she could surrender herself proudly. She was one of those erotic women, +whose passion is excited rather by a man's mental attributes than by his +physical advantages. Intellect she adored. Her own strong nature could +yield only to a stronger. We have heard how she spoke of Nicholas I.; we +shall find this almost sensuous craving for force of personality in her +subsequent relations. To her, the pianist must have been a new revelation +of manhood. Her life so far had brought her in contact with Indian +officers and civilians, a few men about town, and (for a few hours) with +one or more potentates. Now she met a great man with a beautiful soul. +She had heard the stories current of Liszt's abnegation, his boundless +generosity, his pride in his vocation. In her, too, he recognised a +haughty intolerance of patronage, a contempt for those in high places, +such as he had himself exhibited. Both could laugh over the slights to +which they had subjected the King of Prussia, and their demeanour in +presence of the mighty Tsar. It is likely enough that their conversation +may have begun in some such fashion; how their love ripened we are left to +guess. On this episode in her history Lola exhibits unwonted reserve. She +mentions meeting Liszt at Dresden, and speaks of the furore he created. As +to their love passages, she is silent. I like to think that this was a +secret she held sacred, that her love for the great musician had in it +something fresh and noble, which distinguished it from the emotions +excited in her by all other men. Women of many attachments are prone to +idealise one among them. + +The world was bound by no such scruples. The rumour ran from capital to +capital that Liszt was enthralled by the Andalusian. It reached the +Comtesse d'Agoult in her retreat at Nonnenwerth. She penned a fierce, +reproachful letter. Liszt, in Calypso's grotto at Dresden, answered +proudly and coldly. The Comtesse wrote, announcing the end of their +relations. Most men are frightened at the abrupt termination of a love +affair of which they have long been heartily weary. Liszt gave the +Comtesse time to think it over. She made no further overtures, expecting +that he would come to kneel at her feet. He did not. The lady went to +Paris, and they never met again. + +The artist at least owed Lola a service, since she had been the unwitting +instrument of a rupture so long desired by him. But he valued his +newly-recovered freedom too highly to jeopardise it by linking his life +again with a woman's. His love affair with Lola may have been simply an +infatuation. Lucio would soon have tired of Gioconda had he lived with +her. We hardly know how this brief love story began; we are quite in the +dark as to how it ended. A report was current that the two travelled +together from Dresden to Paris, where both appeared in the spring of '44. +We do not hear that they were seen together in the French capital, so the +adieux may already have been exchanged. Liszt stayed there but a few +weeks, and then started on a tour through the French departments. Then he +crossed the Pyrenees, and pushed as far south as Gibraltar. Less than +three years later he was in the toils of a third woman--the Princess Zu +Sayn-Wittgenstein, with whom his relations endured twelve years. It is +noteworthy that he and Lola turned their thoughts from love to religion +almost at the same time, though half a world lay between them. + +Of the third actor in this little drama it is hardly within my province to +speak. The Comtesse d'Agoult found consolation in the care of her children +and in those wider interests of which she never tired. She ardently +espoused the cause of the Revolution in 1848. More fortunate than her old +lover, she never lost the sane and generous sympathies of her youth. You +may read her _Souvenirs_, published at Paris the year after her death +(1877). Liszt long survived the women who had loved him--not a fate that +either of them would have envied him. + + + + +IX + +AT THE BANQUET OF THE IMMORTALS + + +Lola's first appearance in Paris was, like her _début_ at Her Majesty's, a +fiasco. Thanks, no doubt, to her reputation for beauty and audacity, she +secured an engagement at the Opera, then under the management of Léon +Pillet. The power behind the throne was the great Madame Stoltz, who some +years later was to be hooted off the stage by a hostile clique just as +Lola had been nine months before. At that time, however, no one dreamed of +a revolt against the all-powerful _cantatrice_ whose favour the _danseuse_ +was fortunate to procure. The great Stoltz looked best and was luckiest in +men's parts, and therefore saw no rival in the now famous "Andalouse." + +Lola, accordingly, made her bow to the Parisian public on Saturday, 30th +March 1844, in _Il Lazzarone_, an opera in two acts by Halévy. Her +audience was more fastidious than the playgoers of Dresden and Warsaw. Her +beauty ravished them, but in her dancing they saw little merit. Seeing +this, Lola made a characteristic bid for their favour. Her satin shoe had +slipped off. Seizing it, she threw it with one of her superb gestures into +the boxes, where it was pounced upon and brandished as a precious relic by +a gentleman of fashion. The manoeuvre seems to have succeeded in its +object, for the _Constitutionnel_ next morning found it necessary to warn +young dancers against the danger of factitious applause, while "abstaining +from criticising too severely a pretty woman who had not had time to study +Parisian tastes." Théophile Gautier was less gallant:-- + + "We are reluctant," he writes, "to speak of Lola Montes, who reminds + us by her Christian name of one of the prettiest women of Granada, and + by her surname of the man who excited in us the most powerful dramatic + emotions we have ever experienced--Montes, the most illustrious + _espada_ of Spain. The only thing Andalusian about Mlle. Lola Montes + is a pair of magnificent black eyes. She gabbles Spanish very + indifferently, French hardly at all, and English passably [_sic_]. + Which is her country? That is the question. We may say that Mlle. Lola + has a little foot and pretty legs. Her use of these is another matter. + The curiosity excited by her adventures with the northern police, and + her conversations, _à coups de cravache_, with the Prussian _gens + d'armes_, has not been satisfied, it must be admitted. Mlle. Lola + Montes is certainly inferior to Dolores Serrai, who has, at least, the + advantage of being a real Spaniard, and redeems her imperfections as a + dancer by a voluptuous _abandon_, and an admirable fire and precision + of rhythm. We suspect, after the recital of her equestrian exploits, + that Mlle. Lola is more at home in the saddle than on the boards." + +As at Her Majesty's, so at the Opera. Lola's first appearance was her +last. For the rest of the year, as far as I can learn, she was out of an +engagement. She had, no doubt, made some money during her German and +Russian tour, and Liszt would not have forgotten her when he started on +his southern tour at the end of April. + +If her association with him had begotten in Lola Montez a thirst for wit +and genius, she had every chance of slaking it in Paris. There were giants +on the earth in those days, and they were all gathered together on the +banks of the Seine. It is not too much to say that since the Medici ruled +in Florence, no capital has boasted so brilliant an assemblage of men of +genius as did Paris under the paternal government of July. In the year +'44, Victor Hugo, attended by a score of minor poets, daily appeared on +his balcony to acknowledge the homage of the public; Lamartine was +dividing his attention between politics and literature. Alfred de Musset +was wrecking his constitution by spasms of debauchery. Balzac was dodging +his creditors, playing truant from the National Guard, and finding time to +write his "Comédie Humaine"; Théophile Gautier, a man of thirty-three, if +he had not yet received the full meed of his genius, was already well +known and widely appreciated. Alexandre Dumas had long since become a +national institution, and his son was looking out for copy among the +ladies of the _demi-monde_. Delphine Gay was writing her brilliant +"Lettres Parisiennes" for her husband's newspaper. The Salon was still +rejecting the masterpieces of Delacroix, but Vernet was painting the +ceiling of the Palais Bourbon. Auber, though past the prime of life, had +not yet scored his greatest success. Paris was like Athens in the age of +Pericles. + +Life was really worth living then, when Louis Phillippe was king. He was +an honest, kindly-natured man, this pear-headed potentate, who reigned, +"comme la corniche règne autour d'un plafond." He was the king of the +_bourgeois_, and he looked it every inch, with his white felt hat and +respectable umbrella; but in the calm sunshine of his reign the arts +flourished and the world was gay. Those days before the Revolution remind +us of that strange picture in our National Gallery, "The Eve of the +Deluge." Paris, as the old stagers regretfully assure us, was Paris then, +and not the caravanserai of all the nations of the world. The good +Americans who died then, had they gone to Paris, would have thought they +had reached the wrong destination. Men of Pontus and Asia had not then +made the French capital their own. The invasion of the Barbarians, says +Gustave Claudin, took place in 1848. They came, not conducted by Attila, +but by the newly-constructed railways. As these strangers had plenty of +money to spend, they naturally sought the most fashionable quarters. + + "The true Parisians disappeared in the crowd, and knew not where to + find themselves. In the evening, the restaurants where they used to + dine, the stalls and boxes where they used to assist at the opera and + the play, were taken by assault by cohorts of sightseers wishing to + steep themselves up to the neck in _la vie Parisienne_." + +The tide of the invasion has never diminished in volume, and the true +Parisian has become extinct. + +In the year 1844 the fine flower of Parisian society was in undisputed +possession of the Boulevard--the quarter between the Opera and the Rue +Drouot. + + "By virtue of a selection which no one contested," says the author + just quoted, "nobody was tolerated there who could not lay claim to + some sort of distinction or originality. There seemed to exist a kind + of invisible moral barrier, closing this area against the mediocre, + the insipid, and the insignificant, who passed by, but did not linger, + knowing that their place was not there." + +The headquarters of the noble company of the Boulevard was the famous Café +de Paris, at the corner of the Rue Taitbout. Dumas, Balzac, and Alfred de +Musset were to be seen there twice or thrice a week; the eccentric Lord +Seymour, founder of the French Jockey Club, had his own table there. Lola, +doubtless, often tasted the unsurpassed _cuisine_ of this celebrated +restaurant, for she soon penetrated into the circle of the Olympians, and +was presented with the freedom of the Boulevard. + +She met Claudin (who indeed knew everybody). + + "Lola Montez," he says, "was an enchantress. There was about her + something provoking and voluptuous which drew you. Her skin was white, + her wavy hair like the tendrils of the woodbine, her eyes tameless and + wild, her mouth like a budding pomegranate. Add to that a dashing + figure, charming feet, and perfect grace. Unluckily," the notice + concludes, "as a dancer she had no talent." + +That multiple personality whom Vandam embodies in "An Englishman in Paris" +admits that Lola was naturally graceful, that her gait and carriage were +those of a duchess. When he goes on to say that her wit was that of a +pot-house, I seem to detect one of his not infrequent lapses from the +truth. Only three years had elapsed since Lola had shone in Court circles +in India, where the social atmosphere was not that of a bar-room; and +since then she had been wandering about in countries where her ignorance +of the language must have left her manner of speech and modes of thought +almost unaffected. Pot-house wit would not have fascinated Liszt, nor the +fastidious Louis of Bavaria. "Men of far higher intellectual attainments +than mine, and familiar with very good society," admits our nebulous +chronicler,[8] "raved and kept raving about her." + +Dumas, he says in another place, was as much smitten with her as her other +admirers. This, of course, is no guarantee of her refinement, for the +genial Creole had the reputation of not being over nice in his attachments +and amours. He was then in the prime of life, and may be considered to +have just reached the zenith of his fame by the publication of "Les Trois +Mousquetaires," "Monte Cristo," and "La Reine Margot" (1844-5). Two years +before he had formally and legally married Mademoiselle Ida Ferrier--this +step, so inconsistent with his temperament and mode of life, having +resulted from his own reckless disregard of the conventions. The lady had +fascinated him while she was interpreting a _rôle_ of his creation at the +Porte-St.-Martin. It did not strike him that it would be irregular to take +her with him to a ball given by his patron, the Duke of Orleans, and he +straightway did so. "Of course, my dear Dumas," said His Highness affably, +"it is only your _wife_ that you would think of presenting to me." Poor +Alexandre, the lover of all women and none in particular, was hoisted with +his own petard. A prince's hints, above all when he is your patron and +publisher, are commands. Dumas was led to the altar, like a sheep to the +slaughter, by the charming Ida. Châteaubriand supported the bridegroom +through the ordeal. However the chains of matrimony sat lightly on the +irrepressible _romancier_. Madame Dumas soon after departed for Florence, +greatly to the relief of her spouse. He was living, at the time of Lola's +visit to Paris, at the Villa Médicis at St. Germain. There he could +superintend the building of his palace of Monte Cristo, on the road to +Marly, a part of which, with imperturbable _sang-froid_, he actually +raised on the land belonging to a neighbour, without so much as a "by your +leave." This ambitious residence emptied Dumas's pockets of the little +money that the ladies he loved had left in them. + + +[Illustration: ALEXANDRE DUMAS, SENIOR.] + + +Alexandre, of course, fell passionately in love with Lola Montez. We need +no written assurance of that. We read that he told her that she had acted +"like a gentleman" in her treatment of Frederick William's policemen, and +with what far-fetched compliments he followed up this commendation it is +easy to imagine. There were certain resemblances in their temperaments, +though the woman was far the stronger. Posterity is never likely to agree +on an estimate of Dumas's character. Théodore de Banville thought him a +truly great man. + + "Dumas," he wrote, "had no more need to husband his strength and his + vitality than a river has to economise with its waters, and it seemed, + in fact, that he held in his strong hands inexhaustible urns, whence + flowed a stream always clear and limpid. In what formidable metal had + he been cast? Once he took it into his head to take his son, + Alexandre, to the masked ball of Grados, at the Barrière Montparnasse, + and, attired as a postilion, the great man danced all night without + resting for a moment, and held women with his outstretched arm, like a + Hercules. When he returned home in the morning, he found that his + postilion's breeches had, through the swelling of the muscles, become + impossible to remove; so Alexandre was obliged to cut them into strips + with a penknife. After that what did the historian of the + Mousquetaires do? Do you think he chose his good clean sheets or a + warm bath? He chose work! And having taken some _bouillon_, set + himself down before his writing paper, which he continued to fill with + adventures till the evening, with as much 'go' and spirit as if he had + come from calm repose. + + "Nature has given up making that kind of man; by way of a change, she + turns out poets, who, having composed a single sonnet, pass the rest + of their lives contemplating themselves and--their sonnets." + +Prodigious! It is gratifying to think that this indefatigable worker had +always two sincere admirers--himself and his son. The latter, it is true, +would have his joke at the former's expense. "My father," remarked the +son, "is so vain that he would be ready to hang on to the back of his own +carriage, to make people believe he kept a black servant." +Notwithstanding, the two loved each other tenderly. Innumerable anecdotes +bear witness to the paternal fondness of the one, the filial devotion of +the other. Yet their relation was more that of two sworn friends, as is so +touchingly expressed in these lines from the "Père Prodigue":-- + + "... I have sought your affection, more than your obedience and + respect.... To have all in common, heart as well as purse, to give and + to tell each other everything, such has been our device. We have lost, + it seems, several hundred thousands of francs; but this we have + gained--the power of counting always on one another, thou on me, I on + thee, and of being ready always to die for each other. That is the + most important thing between father and son." + +These are the words of Frenchmen. An Englishman would have put such +language into the mouths of husband and wife. + +Enjoying the friendship of Dumas _père_, Lola no doubt had the privilege +of meeting Alexandre junior. The young man was then in his twenty-first +year, and had piled up debts to the respectable total of fifty thousand +francs. It was just about this time, as has been said, that he turned his +attention to literature. He found "copy" for his most celebrated work in +the pale, flower-like courtesan, Alphonsine Plessis, who shared with Lola +the devotion of the erotic Boulevard. The two were women of very different +stamp. The Irish woman confronted the world with head erect and flashing +eyes; the Lady of the Camellias, with a blush and trembling lips. They +were typical of two great classes of women: those who rule men, and those +whom men rule. The loved of the God of Love died young. After Alphonsine's +early death, the fair Parisiennes flocked to her apartments, as to the +shrine of some patron saint, and touched, as though they were precious +relics, her jewellery and trinkets, her _lingerie_, and her slippers. + + + + +X + +MÉRY + + +Another most delightful friend had Lola--he whom she refers to in her +autobiography as "the celebrated poet, Méry." To describe this charming +and impossible personage as a poet, is to indicate only one department of +his genius: as a dramatist he was not far inferior to his great +contemporaries, as a novelist he revealed an amazing power of paradox, and +a bewildering fertility of imagination. He wrote descriptions of countries +he had never seen (though he had travelled far), which, by their accuracy +and colour, deceived and delighted the very natives. He was not merely +rich in rhymes, said Dumas, he was a millionaire. He could write, too, in +more serious vein, and was a profound and ardent classicist. + +In 1845 Méry was approaching his half-century. Thirty years before he had +come to Paris from Marseilles in hot pursuit of a pamphleteer who had +dared to attack him. He found time to cross swords with somebody else, and +got the worst of the encounter. As a result he took a voyage to Italy for +the benefit of his health. His adventures remind us alternatively of those +of Brantôme and Benvenuto Cellini. At a later period he was associated +with Barthélemy in an intrigue for the restoration of the Bonapartes; and +went to pay his respects to Queen Hortense, while his colleague vainly +endeavoured to talk with the Eaglet through the gilded bars of his cage. + +Méry could, in short, do everything, and everything very well. He +possessed the faculty of turning base metal into gold. Geese in his eyes +became swans, and in every lump of literary coke he saw a diamond of the +purest ray. It was, above all, in his dramatic criticism, remarks De +Banville, that this faculty produced the most surprising results. + + "One day, reading in Méry's review the pretended recital of a comedy + of which I was the author, I could not but admire its gaiety, grace, + unexpected turns, and happy confusion, and I said to myself: 'Ah, if + only this comedy were really the one I wrote!'" + +On another occasion, says the poet, at the theatre, + + "he said to me: 'What a superb drama!'--and he was perfectly right. + The play, as he described it to me, was, in fact, superb, only + unfortunately it had been entirely reconstructed by Méry on the absurd + foundation imagined by Mr. * * *. The _dénouement_ he invented--for + though the third act was not finished, he spoke of the fifth as an old + acquaintance--was of such tragic power and daring originality, that + after hearing him expound it, I had no desire to witness Mr. * * *'s." + +Reviewers and dramatic critics of this kind are now, unhappily, rare. + +These few anecdotes sufficiently justify De Banville's claim that Méry was +something altogether unheard of and fabulously original. He should have +been (and probably was) the happiest of men, and his peculiar powers must +have lightened his critical labours as much as they benefited those he +criticised. He was as incapable of envy as Dumas was of rancour. Certainly +no more lovable and agreeable creature ever haunted the slopes of +Parnassus. + +I doubt if such men would be appreciated in our society. Ours is the reign +of the glum Boeotian. We know not how to converse, and wits are as dead +as kings' jesters. There is no scholarship in our senate, and the standard +of oratory there would not have satisfied an Early Victorian debating +society. If we talk less, assuredly we do not think the more. Every +social, political, and religious idea that occupies our dull brains had +entered into the consciousness of the men of the 'forties. They thought +quickly and talked brilliantly. Their young men were youths--full of fire, +enthusiasm, love, and fun. They did not talk about the advantages of +devotion to business in early life. They were not born tired. Wonderful, +too, as it may seem, people in those days used to like to meet each other +in social converse, and were not ashamed to admit it. It was not then +fashionable to affect a disinclination for society--the handiest excuse +for an inability to talk and to think. Lola Montez learned in Paris what +was meant by the _joie de vivre_. In '45 wit was at the prow and pleasure +at the helm. + + + + +XI + +DUJARIER + + +As an _artiste_, Lola was naturally anxious to conciliate the Press, which +had not spoken too kindly of her first performance on the Paris stage. +Gautier's unflattering notice had appeared in one of the most influential +newspapers--_La Presse_. This journal was under the direction of the +famous De Girardin, the Harmsworth of his generation. Till 1st July 1836 +the lowest annual subscription to any newspaper in Paris was eighty +francs; on that day De Girardin issued the first number of _La Presse_ at +a subscription of forty francs a year. This startling reduction in the +price of news excited, of course, no little animosity, but its successful +results were immediately manifest. The daring journalist's next innovation +was the creation of the _feuilleton_. The new paper prospered exceedingly, +though it represented the views of the editor rather than those of any +large section of the public. In 1840 De Girardin acquired a half of the +property, the other being held by Monsieur Dujarier, who assumed the +functions of literary editor. + +In 1845 Dujarier was a young man of twenty-nine, a writer of no mean +ability, and a smart journalist. He was well known to all the Olympians of +the Boulevard, and entered with zest into the gay life of Paris. Lola +became acquainted with him soon after her arrival in the capital, probably +in an effort to win the paper over to her side. He spent, she tells us, +almost every hour he could spare from his editorial duties with her, and +in his society she rapidly ripened in a knowledge of politics. But before +her political education had proceeded far, the woman's beauty and the +man's wit had produced the effect that might have been looked for. "They +read no more that day"--Lola and Dujarier loved each other. + +"This," continues our heroine, "was in autumn [the autumn of '44], and the +following spring the marriage was to take place." I fancy the word +"marriage" is introduced here out of respect for the susceptibilities of +the American public. The Old Guard of the Boulevard, in Louis Philippe's +golden reign, _se fiança mais ne se maria pas_. Besides, Lola was still +legally the wife of that remote and forgotten officer, Captain James. "It +was arranged that Alexandre Dumas and the celebrated poet, Méry, should +accompany them on their marriage tour through Spain." Dumas, Méry, and +Lola, to say nothing of Dujarier, travelling together through +Andalusia--here would have been a gallant company indeed, with which one +would have gladly made a voyage even to Tartarus and back! The narrative, +too, of the journey would have permanently enriched literature. But the +scheme has gone, these sixty years, to the cloudy nether-world of glorious +dreams unrealized. + +The success of De Girardin's newspaper had intensely embittered his +competitors, who made it the object of venomous attack. The founder dipped +his pen in gall and acid, and his sword in the blood of his enemies. He +fought four duels, and having killed Armand Carrel, sheathed his rapier. +But he did not lay aside his pen, which was even more dreaded. Dujarier +proved an apt pupil, and by his command of irony and sarcasm at last +attracted to himself as much hatred and jealousy as his senior. The +special rival of his paper was the _Globe_, edited by Monsieur Granier de +Cassagnac, a journalist of the type we now denominate yellow. He had at +one time been on the staff of _La Presse_, to which he remained +financially indebted. Dujarier came across the debit notes signed by him, +and obtained a judgment against him. The exasperation of the _Globe_ knew +no bounds. The editor may be conceived addressing to his satellites the +reproaches used by Henry II.: "Of those that eat my bread, is there none +that will rid me of this pestilent journalist?" The appeal was responded +to by his wife's brother, Monsieur Jean Baptiste Rosemond de Beauvallon, a +Creole from Guadeloupe, then in his twenty-fifth year. He was dramatic +critic to the _Globe_, and in this capacity his acquaintance was sought by +Lola. Dujarier naturally objected to this, and his interference was not +forgiven by his journalist rival. The two men seemed doomed to cross each +other's path. There was a certain Madame Albert, with whom Dujarier had +been on terms of intimacy for some years. In December 1844 he ceased to +visit her, probably for no other reason than that he had transferred his +affections to Lola. As it happened, however, De Beauvallon made the lady's +acquaintance at this moment, and she spitefully suggested that Dujarier +had discontinued relations with her in order not to meet him. The Creole's +score against the literary editor of _La Presse_ was now a high one, and +he embraced his brother-in-law's quarrel with enthusiasm. + + + + +XII + +THE SUPPER AT THE FRÈRES PROVENÇAUX + + +At the beginning of March (1845), Lola, despite her failure at the Opera, +obtained an engagement at the Porte-St.-Martin Theatre for the musical +comedy _La Biche au Bois_. While she was rehearsing, she and her lover +received an invitation to supper at the Frères Provençaux, a fashionable +restaurant in the Palais Royal. The party was to be composed of some of +the liveliest men and women in Paris, and none of those invited were over +thirty-five years of age. Lola was keen to accept, but Dujarier would not +hear of her being seen in such a company. In spite of her protests he +decided, however, to go himself. It was the evening of 11th March. + +He found himself the only guest, for all the others paid their shares in +the cost of the entertainment. The nominal hostess was Mademoiselle +Liévenne: "a splendid person, with abundant black hair, black eyes like a +Moorish woman or Arlésienne, dazzling skin, and opulent figure." There +were also at the table Mademoiselle Atila Beauchêne, Mademoiselle Alice +Ozy, Mademoiselle Virginie Capon, and other charming ladies, all styling +themselves actresses, and spending a thousand francs a week out of a +salary of twenty-five. In attendance on this bevy of beauty were some of +the jolliest fellows in Paris. The oldest and most distinguished was Roger +de Beauvoir, whose curly black hair, wonderful waistcoats, and pearl-grey +pantaloons made him the delight of the fair sex, and the envy of his +fellow-boulevardiers. De Beauvallon was also present, but he and Dujarier +were not openly on bad terms, and nothing seemed likely to cloud the +general gaiety. + +The fun waxed fast and furious. Champagne corks popped in all directions, +toasts were drunk to everybody and everything. Dujarier proposed "Monsieur +de Beauvoir's waistcoat," followed by "Monsieur de Beauvoir's raven +locks." The jovial Roger responded with the toast "Friend Dujarier's bald +head," and evoked roars of laughter by drinking to the Memoirs of Count +Montholon, with which _La Presse_ had promised to entertain its readers +for the last five years. Dujarier laughed as loudly as the others; the +champagne had risen to his head. He began to fondle the girls, and became +a little too bold even for their taste. "Anaïs," he murmured in an audible +whisper to Mademoiselle Liévenne, "je coucherai avec toi en six mois." The +next moment he realised he had gone too far. Recollecting himself, he +apologised, was forgiven, and the incident seemed to be forgotten by all. + +The remains of the supper were removed, curtains drawn back, and one side +of the room left free for dancing, while a card-table occupied the other. +More people dropped in. De Beauvoir, finding the literary editor in such a +good humour, thought the moment opportune to remind him of one of his +romances which _La Presse_ had accepted but seemed in no hurry to publish. +To worry an editor about such a matter at such a moment is to court a +rebuff. Dujarier replied sharply that Dumas's novel would be running for +some time, adding that it was likely to prove more profitable to the paper +than De Beauvoir's serial would be. Roger, the best-humoured of men, was +nettled at this reply, and said so. "Good! do you seek an affair with me?" +retorted the editor. "No, I don't look for affairs, but I sometimes find +them," answered the author. + +It is clear that Dujarier, like his mistress, seldom had his temper under +perfect control. He took a hand at _lansquenet_, and complained of the low +limit imposed by the banker, Monsieur de St. Aignan. He and De Beauvallon +offered to share the bank's risks and winnings. This being agreed to, +Dujarier threw down twenty-five louis, De Beauvallon five and a half. The +bank won twice, and Dujarier was entitled to a hundred louis. But St. +Aignan had made the mistake of understating the amount in the bank before +the cards were dealt, and now, therefore, found that the winnings were not +sufficient to satisfy him and his partners. He was about to make good the +deficit at his own expense, when De Beauvallon generously suggested to +Dujarier that they should share the loss in proportion to their stakes. +The literary editor preferred to stand upon his rights, and seems to have +been backed up by the bystanders. De Beauvallon said nothing more at the +time, but as the candles were flickering low and the party was preparing +to break up, he reminded his rival that he owed him (on some other score) +eighty-four louis. Dujarier replied tartly, but handed him the +seventy-five louis he had won, borrowed the odd nine louis from Collot, +the restaurant-keeper, and thus discharged the debt. He had lost on the +whole evening two thousand five hundred francs. In the grey March dawn +his head became clearer. He vaguely realised he had given deep offence to +two, at least, of his fellow revellers. He returned, anxious and haggard +to his lodgings in the Rue Laffitte, where Lola was eagerly awaiting him. +She guessed at once that something was amiss, and endeavoured in vain to +extract from him the cause of his evident agitation. Returning evasive +answers, the journalist hurried off to the office of _La Presse_. + + + + +XIII + +THE CHALLENGE + + +Whether or not Dujarier had used offensive expressions to De Beauvallon on +this particular occasion, the opportunity for bringing to a head the +long-standing feud between the two newspapers was too good to be missed. + +That afternoon the literary editor was waited upon at his office by two +gentlemen--the Vicomte d'Ecquevillez, a French officer in the Spanish +service, and the Comte de Flers. They informed him that they came upon +behalf of Monsieur de Beauvallon, who considered himself insulted by the +tone of his remarks the previous evening, and required an apology or +satisfaction. Dujarier affected contempt for his rival, making a point of +mispronouncing his name. He had no apology to offer, and referred his +visitors to Monsieur Arthur Berrand, and Monsieur de Boigne. As the +seconds withdrew D'Ecquevillez mentioned that Monsieur de Beauvoir also +considered himself entitled to satisfaction. + +The rest of that day Lola could not but remark the intense pre-occupation +of her lover--that concentration of mind that all men experience at the +near menace of death. On the battle-field it may last for a minute or an +hour; in other circumstances it may last for days together. Dujarier felt +himself already a dead man. He had hardly handled a pistol in his life. He +envied his mistress, who had often given him an exhibition of her powers +as a shot. De Beauvallon, on the other hand, was known to be skilled in +all the arts of attack and defence. Nor could Dujarier doubt that he +wished to see him dead. In the evening Bertrand and De Boigne arrived. +Lola was with difficulty persuaded to leave them to attend her rehearsal. +Dujarier, pale and nervous, discussed the matter with his friends. "C'est +une querelle de boutique!" he exclaimed bitterly, but expressed his +determination to proceed with the affair if it cost him his life. +Bertrand, fully alive to the gravity of the situation, sought De +Beauvallon's seconds, and argued that nothing said by his principal could +be considered ground for an encounter. His efforts at a reconciliation +were useless. De Boigne tried to give precedence to De Beauvoir, who was +accounted an indifferent shot; but that easily placable author had just +lost his mother, and displayed no anxiety to defraud De Beauvallon of his +vengeance. Seeing the encounter was inevitable, Bertrand and De Boigne +exacted from the other side this written statement:-- + + "We, the undersigned, declare that in consequence of a disagreement, + Monsieur Dujarier has been challenged by Monsieur de Beauvallon in + terms which render it impossible for him to decline the encounter. We + have done everything possible to conciliate these gentlemen, and it is + only upon Monsieur de Beauvallon insisting that we have consented to + assist them." + +This statement was signed by all four seconds. It left Dujarier, as the +injured party, the choice of arms. He chose the pistol, thinking, it is +to be presumed, that as his adversary was equally experienced in the use +of the rapier and firearms, chance might possibly favour him with the +latter. + +Lola, while these negotiations were proceeding, was a prey to the most +painful apprehensions. Pressed by her, Dujarier admitted that he was about +to engage in an affair of honour, but gave her to understand that his +opponent would be Roger de Beauvoir. Her alarm at once subsided. No one +feared Roger. "You know I am a woman of courage," she said; "if the duel +is just, I will not prevent it." + +"Oh, what after all is a duel!" said her lover lightly, but she noticed +that his smile was forced. + +She drove to the Porte-St.-Martin; Dujarier, at three in the afternoon, +paid a visit to Alexandre Dumas. He picked up a sword that stood in a +corner of the room, and made a few passes. "You don't know how to wield +the sword, I can see," observed the novelist. "Can you use any other +weapon?" + +"Well, I _must_ use the pistol," replied the journalist significantly. + +"You mean you are going to fight?" + +"Yes, to-morrow, with De Beauvallon." + +Dumas looked grave. "Your adversary is a very good swordsman," he said. +"You had better choose swords. When De Beauvallon sees how you handle the +weapon, the duel will be at an end." + +He told Dujarier that Alexandre, junior, practised at the same +fencing-class as De Beauvallon, and he strongly urged him to reconsider +the choice of weapons. But the journalist was obstinate. He had no +confidence in his opponent's clemency, and he feared his skill with the +rapier. With the pistol there was always a chance; with cold steel he was +bound to be killed. In vain Dumas argued that the sword could spare, while +the pistol could slay, even if the trigger were pulled by the least +experienced hand. Dujarier dined with father and son. The friends parted +at nine in the evening. The journalist, in company with Bertrand, went to +a shooting gallery, where he tried his hand at the pistol. He hit a figure +as large as a man only twice in twenty shots! Dumas strolled into the +Variétés. He was ill at ease. Finally he took a cab and drove to the Rue +Laffitte. He found Dujarier seated at his bureau, writing his will, as it +afterwards proved. + +Dumas returned to the question of weapons. Dujarier showed a disposition +to avoid the whole subject. "You are only losing your time," he said, "and +that is valuable. I don't want you to arrange this affair, mind. It is my +first duel. It is astonishing that I have not had one before. It's a sort +of baptism that I must undergo." + +His friend questioned him as to the cause of the proposed encounter. "Lord +knows!" was the reply, "I can recollect no particular reason. I don't know +what I am fighting about. It's a duel between the _Globe_ and _La +Presse_," he added, "not between Monsieur Dujarier and Monsieur de +Beauvallon." + +Seeing him determined both to fight and to choose fire-arms, Dumas +recommended him at least not to use the hair-trigger pistol. To the +novelist's astonishment, Dujarier admitted he did not know the difference +between one kind of pistol and another. Alexandre said he would show him, +and drove off to his house for the purpose. As he descended the stairs, he +passed Lola, who noticed his agitation. Dujarier was again writing when +she entered his room. He was very pale. Dissimulating his preoccupation, +he invited his mistress to read a flattering notice on her performance +from the pen of Monsieur de Boigne. But Lola was not to be thus diverted +from her purpose. She implored her lover to tell her more about the +proposed encounter, to reveal the cause of his evident anxiety. He merely +replied that he was extremely busy, that there was nothing to worry about. +He insisted on her returning to her own apartments. "I'll come and see you +to-morrow," he promised, "and, Lola!--if--if I should leave Paris for any +reason, I don't want you to lose sight of my friends. Promise that. They +are good sorts." + +He almost forced Lola out of the house, only to admit Dumas a few minutes +later. The novelist had brought a brand-new pair of pistols. "Use these," +he said; "I'll give you a written statement that they have not been used +before. That ought to satisfy the seconds." Dujarier shook his head. "Look +here," said Dumas solemnly, "your luck has endured a long time. Take care +that it does not fail you now." + +His friend's well-meant pertinacity irritated the journalist. He replied +brusquely: "What would you? Do you want me to pass for a coward? If I +don't accept this challenge, I shall have others. De Beauvallon is +determined to fasten a quarrel on me. One of his seconds told me so. He +said my face displeased him. However, this affair over, I shall be left in +peace." + +It was one o'clock in the morning. Dumas, having exhausted all the +resources of argument and persuasion, rose to depart. "At least," he +counselled his friend, "don't fight till two in the afternoon. It is no +use getting up early for so unpleasant an affair. Besides, I know you. +You are always at your worst--nervous and fidgety--between ten and +eleven." + +"You know that," said Dujarier eagerly, "you won't think it fear? And, +Dumas," ... he went to his desk, and wrote a cheque on Laffitte's for a +thousand crowns. "I owe you this. Now this is drawn on my private account, +and as the duel takes place at eleven, go there before eleven, for you +don't know what may happen. Go there _before eleven_, for after that my +credit may be dead. I beg of you, go before eleven." + +The two friends wrung each other's hand, and Dumas, heavy at heart, went +downstairs. Dujarier was left to his thoughts. The reflections of a man +who is practically sure that he will be dead next day are quite peculiar. +The sensation is not fear in the ordinary acceptation of the term. It is +an effort to realise what no man ever can properly realise--that the world +around you, which in one (and a very true) sense has no existence except +as it is perceived by you, will, notwithstanding, be existing to-morrow +evening, while you will not exist. Intellectually you know this, but you +cannot realise it. + +At such moments men turn with relief to the pen. With ink and paper you +can project yourself beyond your own grave. Dujarier signed his will, +which began with these words:-- + + "On the eve of fighting for the most absurd reasons, on the most + frivolous of pretexts, and without its being possible for my friends, + Arthur Bertrand and Charles de Boigne, to avoid an encounter, which + was provoked in terms that forced me on my honour to accept, I set + forth hereafter my last wishes...." + +Then he wrote to his mother. + + "MY GOOD MOTHER,--If this letter reaches you, it will be because I am + dead or dangerously wounded. I shall exchange shots to-morrow with + pistols. It is a necessity of my position, and I accept it as a man of + courage. If anything could have induced me to decline the challenge, + it would have been the grief which the blow would cause you, were I + struck. But the law of honour is imperative, and if you must weep, + dear mother, I would rather it be for a son worthy of you than for a + coward. Let this thought assuage your grief: my last thought will have + been of you. I shall go to the encounter to-morrow calm and sure of + myself. Right is on my side. I embrace you, dear mother, with all the + warmth of my heart. + + "DUJARIER." + +There was nothing more to be done or to be said. Only a few hours of the +night remained. The experienced duellist would have steadied his nerves by +as long a sleep as possible. But Dujarier regarded himself as doomed. He +mentally contrasted his miserable performances at the shooting gallery +with the wonderful things De Beauvallon was reported to have done with the +pistol in Cuba. The stories might be inventions. He tried to snatch a few +hours' sleep.[9] + + + + +XIV + +THE DUEL + + +The morning of the 11th March dawned. The ground was white with snow. +Dujarier was taking his light French breakfast when Lola's maid brought +him a message. She wished to see him. He promised to come at once, and the +servant took her leave. Dujarier hastily scribbled these lines:-- + + "MY DEAR LOLA,--I am going out to fight a duel with pistols. This will + explain why I wished to pass the night alone, and why I have not gone + to see you this morning. I need all the composure at my command and + you would have excited in me too much emotion. I will be with you at + two o'clock, unless----Good-bye, my dear little Lola, the dear little + girl I love. + + D." + +It was seven o'clock. He told his servant to deliver the letter about +nine. He then rose and walked to De Boigne's house in the Rue Pinon. There +he found the four seconds in consultation. He saluted them, and thanked De +Boigne for his notice of Lola. The conditions of the encounter were then +signed and read. The combatants were to be placed at thirty paces +distance, and could make five forward before firing, but each was to step +after the other had fired. One was to fire immediately after the other. A +coin was spun to determine who should provide the pistols; but it was +understood that the weapons were not to have been used before by the +combatants. The coin decided in favour of De Beauvallon. D'Ecquevillez +then produced a pair of pistols, which he gave the other seconds to +understand were his personal property. He and De Flers then went in search +of their principal. Dujarier and his friends returned to the Rue Laffitte, +where they picked up the doctor, Monsieur de Guise, and drove off, all +four, to the Bois de Boulogne. + +The rendezvous was a secluded spot near the Restaurant de Madrid. There +is, and probably was then, a _tir aux pigeons_ close by. The morning was +intensely cold, and no one was about. A few snowflakes were falling as the +party arrived. There was no sign of De Beauvallon and his seconds, though +it was now ten o'clock. The four men impatiently paced up and down, +Bertrand and De Boigne conversing in low tones as to the probable result +of the encounter, while Dujarier talked with the doctor on matters in +general. De Guise, however, could not refrain from questioning him as to +the cause of the affair. The journalist related the episodes at the Frères +Provençaux, from his own point of view, and said that D'Ecquevillez had +told him that De Beauvallon intended to fight him "because he did not like +him." "I naturally replied," continued Dujarier, "that many people might +not like me, and I could not be supposed on that account to fight them. +D'Ecquevillez retorted that his principal would force me to fight by a +blow and an insult. This threat was in itself an insult. I accepted the +challenge." + +The doctor observed the journalist closely. He was shivering with the +cold, and the nervous excitement, which Dumas had remarked in him always +at this hour, was manifesting itself. The seconds drew near, and De Guise +gave it as his professional opinion that Dujarier was not in a condition +to fight. Bertrand and De Boigne joined their entreaties to his, and +argued that having waited an hour for the other party, they could in all +honour retire from the field. Dujarier refused to do any such thing. +Before all things, like most nervous men, he dreaded the imputation of +cowardice. The cold and the excitement made him tremble. His friends would +suspect him of fear; therefore, at all hazards, he must give them proof of +his courage. + +Finding his persuasions futile, De Guise resigned himself to listen to a +long and minute account of the quarrel with De Beauvoir. The recital was +finished when the sound of carriage wheels was heard. Dujarier's heart +must have given a big leap! A shabby cab drove up and out of it jumped De +Beauvallon and his seconds. De Boigne accosted the Creole with some +asperity. He remarked that it was confoundedly cold, and that he and his +principal had been kept waiting for an hour and a half. D'Ecquevillez, who +seems to have done most of the talking throughout the whole affair, turned +to Bertrand, and explained that they had been delayed by the necessity of +purchasing ammunition and by the slowness of the cab horse. + +De Boigne now addressed himself to De Beauvallon, and made a final effort +to arrange the dispute. "I speak to you," he said, "as one who has had +experience of these affairs. There is nothing to fight about. Your friends +have put it into your head that an insult was intended." + +"Sir," replied De Beauvallon coldly, "you say there is no motive for this +duel. I think differently, since I am here with my seconds. You don't +suggest any other course. The position is the same as yesterday, when it +was settled that we should fight. Besides, an affair of this sort is not +to be arranged on the field." + +De Boigne shrugged his shoulders. He had done his utmost for his friend. +He and De Flers selected the ground, and with the consent of the other, he +measured forty-three paces, diminishing the distance originally agreed to. +D'Ecquevillez, meanwhile, had produced his pistols, recognisable by their +blue barrels. Bertrand was about to charge one, when he introduced his +finger into the muzzle, and withdrew it, black to the depth of the +finger-nail. He looked at the other. "These pistols have been tried," he +said. + +"On my honour," declared D'Ecquevillez, "we have only tried them with +powder. Monsieur de Beauvallon has never handled them before." + +With this positive assurance Bertrand had to be content. The pistols were +again tried with caps. With grave misgivings, he and De Boigne placed +their man. De Beauvallon also took up position. Dujarier took his pistol +from his second so clumsily that he moved the trigger and nearly blew De +Boigne's head off. + +The signal was given. Dujarier fired instantly. His ball flew wide of the +mark. He let drop his pistol, and faced his adversary. + +De Beauvallon very deliberately raised his arms and covered his opponent. +The spectators held their breath. "Fire, damn you! fire!" cried De Boigne, +exasperated by his slowness. The Creole pulled the trigger. For an instant +Dujarier stood erect. The next, he fell, huddled up on to the ground. The +doctor rushed towards him. His practised eye told him that the wound was +mortal. The bullet had entered near the bridge of the nose, and broken the +occipital bone, so as to produce a concussion of the spine. De Guise +assured Dujarier the wound was not serious and told him to spit. He tried +in vain to do so. Bertrand summoned the carriage to approach. De Boigne +leant over his friend, and asked him if he suffered much pain. Dujarier, +already inarticulate, nodded; his eyelids dropped, and he fell back in the +physician's arms. He was dead. + +D'Ecquevillez, seeing Dujarier fall, offered Bertrand his assistance. He +was rebuffed, told to gather up his pistols, and to go. He hurried off +with the other second and his principal, who murmured: "Mon Dieu! Mon +Dieu!" as he passed his late adversary. "How have I conducted myself?" he +asked his second. + +"I hope I shall always act in similar circumstances as you did," was the +reassuring reply. + +Meanwhile, Dumas had gone, full of anxiety, to the Rue Laffitte, to find +that his friend had left the house, with what object he guessed. He +noticed as a sinister omen that there was blood on the banister. He went +away, sad at heart, to await the result of the combat. + +Lola, on the receipt of her lover's note, hurried at once to his house. +She burst into his bedroom and saw two pistols--Alexandre's, no +doubt--lying upon the quilt. Gabriel, Dujarier's servant, who had followed +her, shook his head sadly, and said, "My master knows very well he will +not return." In an instant Lola was again outside the house, driving to +her good friend, Dumas's. The novelist told her that it was with De +Beauvallon, not with De Beauvoir, that their friend had gone to exchange +shots. "My God!" she cried, "then he is a dead man!" + +She rushed back to the Rue Laffitte. She spent half an hour in agony of +mind, when the sound of a carriage stopping fell upon her ears. She flew +into the street, and opened the carriage door. A heavy body lurched +against her bosom. It was her dead lover. + + + + +XV + +THE RECKONING + + +It was not in fair fight that Dujarier had fallen. Before even he had been +carried to his grave, with Balzac, Méry, Dumas, and De Girardin as his +pall-bearers, the suspicions of all his friends had been aroused. At Dr. +Vérons, the morning of his death, Bertrand showed Dumas his finger-tip +still blackened by the barrel of De Beauvallon's pistol. Would a pistol +which had not been charged with ball leave such a stain? Experts present +said no. The suspicion that De Beauvallon had made doubly sure of killing +his adversary by trying his weapon beforehand ripened in the minds of many +into conviction. How, too, had the Creole spent the early part of the +morning? Why did he not come with his seconds to the Rue Pinon. What was +he doing while Dujarier was awaiting him in the Bois? The affair began to +wear a very sinister complexion. Representations were made to the police. +Enquiries were set on foot, and De Beauvallon and D'Ecquevillez promptly +retired across the Spanish frontier. + +Lola had sustained a staggering blow. She was sincerely attached to +Dujarier, who had been more to her than any other man had been. The memory +of her husband was hateful. Liszt had flashed suddenly across her path, +to disappear a few weeks later. Besides, he had given her up of his own +accord. But this man had shared her life for months, had loved her to the +last, had cared for her both as a lover and a husband. In his will he left +her eighteen shares in the Palais Royal Theatre, representing twenty +thousand francs. She referred, years after, and no doubt sincerely, to his +death as a loss that could never be made up to her. + +The luxury of grief is allowed in scant measure to those who minister to +the public's amusement. They must dry their tears quickly. Three weeks +after the fatal duel, Lola made her appearance at the Porte-St.-Martin +Theatre, in _La Biche au Bois_. The audience was no less critical than at +the Opera. She was hissed, and with her usual audacity, she exasperated +the public still more by expressing her contempt for them upon the stage. +So ended her career as a _danseuse_ in the French capital. + +She lingered on in Paris, notwithstanding, frequenting the society of her +dead lover's friends in accordance with his last wishes. The legacy had +relieved her for the moment of the necessity of earning her living. She +longed to see retribution overtake the man who had robbed her of all that +life held dear. Justice seemed for a time to pursue the slayer with leaden +feet. In July the Royal Court of Paris practically exonerated the seconds, +and De Beauvallon thought it safe to surrender voluntarily. The +explanations he gave as to his movements on the 10th and 11th March did +not, as he had hoped they would, satisfy the authorities. The Court of +Cassation quashed the decision of the lower court, and sent the accused +for trial, on the charge of murder, before the Assize Court of Rouen. + +The case is one of the most celebrated in the annals of French justice. It +all turned on the article in the code of honour that forbids a duellist to +make use of arms which he has already tried, and with which he is +proficient. All the witnesses--among whom were professed experts--agreed +that this rule was absolute. The case, which raised many other nice points +of law, was heard before the President of the Tribunal, Monsieur Letendre +de Tourville. The prosecution was conducted by the King's Procurator +(General Salveton), the Advocate-General, and two very able counsel, +Maîtres Léon Duval and Romiguière. But the defence had a tower of strength +in the great advocate Berryer, the defender of Ney, Lamennais, +Châteaubriand, and Louis Napoléon--the greatest pleader and, after +Mirabeau, the greatest orator his country has produced. + +A trial whereat Alexandre Dumas and Lola Montez, to say nothing of the +lesser lights of the literary and theatrical world, appeared as witnesses, +excited immense interest. Dumas produced a sensation which must have +rejoiced his heart on entering the witness-box. He was asked his name and +profession. "Alexandre Dumas, Marquis Davy de la Pailleterie," he replied +with evident complacency; "and I should call myself a dramatist if I were +not in the country of Corneille." + +"There are degrees in everything," replied the learned President. + +Claudin, who heard these oft-quoted words, gives it as his opinion that +Dumas expressed himself thus from a genuine sense of modesty, and that the +judge did not succeed in being funny. + +The great Alexandre was in very good form throughout the whole trial, +which lasted from the 26th to the 30th March 1846, inclusive. He +expounded the laws and principles of the duel, with copious commentaries. +He quoted an authoritative work on the subject, drawn up by a body of +noblemen and gentlemen--a work which the judge dryly observed he did not +intend to add to his library. At the conclusion of the first part of his +evidence (the gist of which we know) he solicited leave to return to +Paris, to assist at the representation of one of his dramas in five acts. +Dumas never lost an opportunity of advertising himself. He managed also to +drag his son into the box, though the latter had really nothing to say. + +The frail, fair ladies of the supper-party also had to run the gauntlet of +examination and cross-examination. The virtuous ladies of Rouen, anxious +to hear the most scandalous details of the case, filled the space reserved +for the public, and having feasted their eyes on the _demi-mondaines_, +obstinately refused to let these find seats among them. Mademoiselle +Liévenne appeared in a charming toilette of blue velvet, with a red +Cashmere shawl, and a pearl-grey satin hood. Lola, as befitted the +melancholy occasion, wore the garb of mourning, and never, perhaps, showed +to more advantage than in her close-fitting black satin costume and +flowing shawl. She was the cynosure of all eyes. Though a year had passed +since the event now being discussed, her utterance was choked with sobs, +and the reading of Dujarier's last note caused her to shed floods of +tears. She declared that had she known it was De Beauvallon with whom her +lover intended to fight, she would have communicated with the police and +prevented the duel. "I would have gone to the rendezvous myself," she +cried with characteristic spirit. In her Memoirs, she adds that she would +have fought De Beauvallon herself, and her life-story testifies that this +was no empty gasconade. + +That Dujarier's death had been premeditated by his antagonist was +abundantly proved at the trial. The pistols which the dead man's seconds +had been led to believe belonged to D'Ecquevillez were now admitted to be +the property of the accused's brother-in-law, Monsieur Granier de +Cassagnac. They had been in the possession of De Beauvallon since the eve +of the encounter. Circumstantial evidence went to show that he was +familiar with the weapons, and had practised with them on the fatal +morning. But the testimony of the witnesses, the facts themselves, the +skilful pleading of Duval, prevailed not against the eloquence of Berryer. +His magical powers of oratory brought the jury round to his point of view, +and De Beauvallon was acquitted of the charge of murder, though cast in +damages of twenty thousand francs towards the mother and the sister of his +victim. + +The affair did not end there. The friends of Dujarier refused to be +diverted from the trail of vengeance. Fresh and conclusive evidence came +to light, and De Beauvallon and D'Ecquevillez were placed on their trial +for perjury during the first hearing. As regarded D'Ecquevillez, it was +established that he was no viscount, but a _bourgeois_ of doubtful +antecedents named Vincent, that his rank in the Spanish service was merely +that of a militia captain, and that his evidence, in general, was +worthless. It was proved that De Beauvallon had tried the pistols the very +morning of the duel in a garden at Chaillot, taking aim with them not +once, but a dozen times. Dujarier had been the victim of a deliberate +conspiracy. Both the accused were found guilty and condemned (9th October +1847) to eight years' imprisonment. Both escaped from prison during the +Revolution of the following year. The principal criminal returned to his +native isle, where his liberation was judicially sanctioned. His +subsequent appeal to obtain a reversal of his sentence was rejected by the +Court of Cassation in 1855. + +Lola had left France long before the assassin of her lover was finally +brought to justice. + + "In another six months," writes "the Englishman in Paris," "her name + was almost forgotten by all of us, except by Alexandre Dumas, who now + and then alluded to her. Though far from superstitious, Dumas, who had + been as much smitten with her as most of her admirers, avowed that he + was glad that she had disappeared. 'She has the evil eye,' he said, + 'and is sure to bring bad luck to any one who closely links his + destiny with hers, for however short a time. You see what has occurred + to Dujarier? If ever she is heard of again, it will be in connection + with some terrible calamity that has befallen a lover of hers.' We all + laughed at him, except Dr. Véron, who could have given odds to Solomon + Eagle himself at prophesying. For once in a way, however, Alexandre + Dumas proved correct. When we did hear again of Lola Montés, it was in + connection with the disturbances at Munich, and the abdication of her + Royal lover, Louis I. of Bavaria." + + + + +XVI + +IN QUEST OF A PRINCE + + +"The moment I get a nice, round, lump sum of money, I am going to try to +hook a prince." In these words Lola is said to have announced her ambition +to "the Englishman in Paris." That gossipy exile, whoever he was in this +particular instance, was no friend of hers, and took care, no doubt, to +render her expressions as brutally as possible. I do not doubt that he has +interpreted her meaning truthfully enough. It is clear that Lola was an +inordinately ambitious woman, eager to play a leading part in great +affairs. Her association with Dujarier and other active politicians, the +glimpses she had so often obtained of courts and thrones, stimulated this +longing for power. She felt within her the capacity to rule men, and the +ability to surmount great obstacles. A personal courage was hers, such as +would have earned its possessor, if a man, the cross of honour. She feared +not the bright face of danger, dreading only that circumstance might put +the things she coveted beyond her reach. Valour alone, she knew, is seldom +rewarded in a woman. It is considered by the women, and more particularly +the men, who do not possess it, unwomanly. Intellect, again, she had; but +its development had been checked, its faculties neglected, under the +Early Victorian system of women's education. Besides, the most superficial +observer could not have failed to see, that while learning in a man was +accounted a qualification for responsibilities and honours, in a woman it +was regarded as a not altogether enviable peculiarity--like an aquiline +nose, or the gift of sword-swallowing. In the five years Lola had passed +in the various capitals of Europe, it had become very plain to her that +what men supremely prize in women is physical beauty. The governing sex +attached no rewards (or, at any rate, the meagrest) to courage and wisdom. +They asked woman only to be beautiful. Some insisted that she should also +be virtuous, by which they meant she should bestow herself upon one of +them exclusively. In other words, they allowed women to influence them +only through the senses; and by the means they had themselves selected, +the ambitious woman had no choice but to attack them. + +Over the grave of Dujarier Lola may well have exclaimed, "Farewell, love!" +Every one of her attachments had ended unhappily--the first ingloriously, +the last tragically. Under such blows, her nature hardened. Ambition +revived as sentiment waned. There was something worth living for still. At +Rouen she heard the murderer of her lover acquitted. Bitter and +disillusioned, she turned her steps towards Germany. Thanks to Dujarier, +she had now "the round, lump sum of money" necessary to the execution of +her project; and in Germany, with its thirty-six sovereigns, she could +hardly fail to encounter a prince. She travelled about from watering-place +to watering-place, from Wiesbaden to Homburg, from Homburg to +Baden-Baden, "punting in a small way, not settling down anywhere, and +almost deliberately avoiding both Frenchmen and Englishmen." At Baden it +was rumoured that the Prince of Orange (probably an old friend of her +Simla days) was among her admirers. There also she met that puissant +prince, Henry LXXII. of Reuss, who straightway fell in love with her. He +invited her to pay a visit to his exiguous dominions, and she went, +probably feeling that she was playing the part of sparrow-hawk. At the +Court of Reuss she suffered agonies of boredom. The etiquette was as +strict as in the palace of the Most Catholic King, and the deference +exacted by Henry LXXII. as profound as though he had been Czar of all the +Russias. True, in his territory, only half as large again as the county of +Middlesex, he wielded a power as absolute as that autocrat's. Of this +pettiness the beautiful stranger soon showed her impatience. Her infirmity +of temper betrayed itself. She infringed His Highness's prerogative by +chastising his subjects--still, this could be overlooked by an indulgent +prince. But when Henry one morning beheld Lola walking straight across his +flower-beds, he felt that it was time to vindicate the outraged majesty of +the throne. With his own august hands he wrote and signed an order, +expelling Mademoiselle Montez from the principality. To this decree effect +was only given when His Highness had satisfied to the last pfennig a +tremendously long bill for expenses, presented to him by the audacious +offender. + +As it is hardly possible to take a long walk without overstepping the +limits of the principality, not many hours elapsed before Lola was beyond +the reach of Henry's wrath. She had the choice of various retreats. The +neighbouring duchy of Saxe-Altenburg she, no doubt, contemptuously +dismissed. To the north lay Prussia; but she could expect no welcome +there. Frederick William, after her memorable adventure at the review, had +given her to understand that his police could be better employed than in +teaching her manners. She avoided Weimar, where her old lover, Liszt, had +established himself in company with the Princess Zu Sayn-Wittgenstein. She +may have lingered awhile in these pretty, petty Thuringian states, with +their charming capitals set in the forest glades; and perhaps have made a +pilgrimage to the Venusberg, near Eisenach, where her prototype ensnared +Tannhäuser. The spirit of that old _minnesänger_ was not altogether dead. +Something of it glowed in the heart of the grey-haired man who reigned +over Bavaria. Deliberately or aimlessly, Lola Montez, the Venus of her +generation, journeyed south towards Munich. + + + + +XVII + +THE KING OF BAVARIA + + +At that time Louis I., who wore the Bavarian crown, was a man sixty-one +years old. He, "the most German of the Germans," as he had been styled, +was by an odd freak of fortune born in France. His father, Max Joseph, +though brother of the Duke of Pfalz-Zweibrücken, commanded a regiment in +the French service, and it was at Strasbourg that the child was born in +1786. His father's grenadiers shaved off their moustaches to stuff his +pillow with. The name bestowed on him in baptism was that of his +godfather, the ill-fated King of France. But the Revolution soon drove him +with his family across the Rhine, to Mannheim and to Rohrbach. Death +quickly cleared the boy a path to the throne. His father presently +succeeded his brother as Duke, and a few years later upon the extinction +of the elder line of the Wittelsbachs, became Elector of Bavaria. + +Even in the stormy first decade of the nineteenth century princes had to +be educated, and in the year 1803 we find Louis at Göttingen, sitting at +the feet of Johannes Müller, who infused him with a lively sense of +nationality and a reverence for all things German. This was to stand the +Prince in good stead in the dark days that followed. Those were years of +profound humiliation for Germany, of poignant suffering for her people. +Even in the 'forties few Germans took pride in the name, some of them +settled in London and Paris, deeming it almost a reproach. In his +country's blackest night the Bavarian prince loudly proclaimed his faith +in a glorious dawn. He exulted in the name of German. He was "teutsch" (as +he always wrote the word) to the very core. + +He was German not least in his passion for the South. Italy was his first, +last, and best-beloved mistress. In her bosom he was inspired with that +love for the arts which was stronger even than his patriotism. Returning +to Germany, he saw with disgust his father embrace the alliance of +Napoleon and turn his arms against Austria--German fighting German. At +Strasbourg, on hearing the news of the capitulation at Ulm, he dared to +say to the Empress Josephine: "The greatest victory for me will be when +this, my native city, is united to Germany." He accompanied Max Joseph to +the Emperor's headquarters at Linz in 1805, when Bavaria was erected by +the conqueror's decree into a kingdom. The new Crown Prince made no secret +of his antipathies. Anxious to win him over, Napoleon carried him off to +Paris, and only succeeded in disgusting him by his irreverence during +divine worship. Louis was a devout and sincere Catholic. From the +Tuileries he intrigued for the overthrow of his host and gaoler with Czar +Alexander. His father got wind of these negotiations and recalled him to +Munich. Thence he was sent to join the Bavarian army in Prussia. With +unspeakable bitterness he heard that the victory of Jena was celebrated at +his father's capital with a _Te Deum_ and public rejoicings. In January +1807, in the train of the conquering army, he reached Berlin. There his +first act was to unveil a bust of Frederick the Great! + + +[Illustration: LOUIS OF BAVARIA. WHEN ELECTORAL PRINCE.] + + +At the beginning of the campaign against Russia, at Napoleon's request, +which was practically a command, Louis took the head of the Bavarian army. +Years after, he refused to sanction the publication of a work on his +military achievements at this time. With the war-weary veteran of De +Vigny's tale, he might have said: "J'ai appris à detester la guerre, en la +faisant avec énergie." For he was no carpet knight. Though compelled to +draw the sword against men of his own race and their allies, he wielded it +well. Under a hot fire he led his troops across the Narew, and at Pultusk +won the Grand Cross of the Order of Max Joseph. Such services could not +blind Napoleon to his lieutenant's real sympathies. In his indignation +against what he considered the ingratitude and treachery of his ally's +son, he is reported to have exclaimed: "Quoi m'empêche de fusilier ce +prince?" He dared not go to such desperate lengths. Instead, he superseded +Louis in the command of the Bavarian army, at the beginning of the +campaign of 1809, by one of his own marshals, Lefebvre, Duke of Danzig. To +the Prince was assigned simply the command of a division. He fought well +at Abensberg, where the _mot d'ordre_ was _Bravoure et Bavière_. "It is to +Germans that the Emperor owes this victory over Germans," he boasted +bitterly. + +In the revolt of the Tyrolese against the Bavarian yoke imposed on them by +the French, his heart went out to the gallant insurgents. He pensioned a +son of the patriot Speckbacher, and condoled with Hofer's wife on the +execution of her husband. Napoleon's indignation knew no bounds. "This +prince," he declared, "shall never reign in Bavaria!" He destined the +crown for Eugène Beauharnais, or one of his children. + +But it was Louis's policy that triumphed in 1813. With delight he beheld +his father desert the sinking ship of France, and from Salzburg (then +belonging to Bavaria) he issued a proclamation, urging all the German +people to rise against the common oppressor. Wrede, with a Bavarian army, +threw himself across the path of the retreating French at Hanau, to find +that the wounded eagle's talons could still snatch a bloody victory. In +the campaigns of 1814 and 1815, Louis took no active part. His father +dreaded that he might fall into the hands of Napoleon, who regarded him +with intense hatred. The Prince had to be content with the part of +Tyrtaeus, and in odes, not deficient in merit, stirred the patriotic +feelings of his countrymen. + +After Waterloo he sheathed the sword that he had wielded reluctantly, but +not ingloriously. "I was never a general," he said, "but a soldier, +yes--with all my heart." He was now free to devote himself to matters +which more strongly, perhaps, appealed to him. At Vienna and London he +watched over the interests of the arts. He pleaded (and not +unsuccessfully) for the restitution of the artistic treasures Napoleon had +carried off, and wrote on the subject of the Elgin marbles with judgment +and critical acumen. He sought the acquaintance of the brilliant and the +learned, presiding over a _côterie_ of painters, sculptors, and +_literati_. The winters of 1817-8 and 1820-1 he spent in the Eternal City, +residing at the Bavarian Embassy or at the Villa Malta on the Pincio. He +knew Canova and Thorwaldsen, and laid the foundations of his firm and +life-long intimacy with the sculptor, Wagner. On the Neue Pinakothek at +Munich is a picture by Catel, representing one of those joyous and +scholarly _réunions_ in which Louis delighted. He is shown seated at a +table in a humble _osteria_ on the Ripa Grande, in the company of +Thorwaldsen, Wagner, the artists Veit, Von Schnorr, and Catel himself, the +architect Von Klenze, Professor Ringseis, Count Seinsheim, and Colonel von +Gumppenberg. It was in such company, and beneath the blue sky of Italy, +that "the most German of the Germans" was happiest. His æsthetic faculties +were altogether exotic. His style of literary composition is compared by +an English writer to a dislocation of all the limbs of a human body. + + "Nothing can be more un-German, more opposed to the genius of the + language, than this extraordinary style, the like of which is not to + be found in the whole range of German literature.[10] It is an + aberration of which we have an English example in 'Carlylese.'" + +Louis succeeded his father as King of Bavaria in October 1825. He was then +in his fortieth year. A shrewd connoisseur, he had devoted nearly all his +income as Prince to the acquisition of objects of art. It was his ambition +to make his capital a new Florence, and to carry out this design the +strictest economy was introduced into all departments of the state. The +Munich we know was mainly his creation. To him we owe the Glyptothek, of +which he had conceived the idea at least as far back as 1805; the +beautiful Au Church, the Royal Chapel, the Ludwigskirche, the Church of +St. Boniface, the splendid throne-room, the bronze monument to the +Bavarian soldiers who fell in the Russian campaigns. The quaint old German +city was completely transformed. Unfortunately, the royal Mæcenas failed +to recognise the worth of native models, such as were to be found in +Nuremberg. All his buildings were duplicates, or close imitations, of +others on the south side of the Alps. The Triumphal Arch in Ludwigstrasse, +with its bronze car drawn by lions, was obviously suggested by the +well-known models of Paris and Rome. To Louis's zeal we are indebted also +for the Pinakothek and the colossal statue of Bavaria. Finally, in 1830, +on the anniversary of the battle of Leipzig, the King laid the +foundation-stone of the Walhalla, the temple of German greatness, thus +accomplishing a design he had formed twenty-five years before. Lofty as +was the execution, the conception was loftier. It took place + + "just after the Emperor Francis II. had uncrowned himself, declaring + that the Holy Roman Empire--the empire of a thousand years--was at an + end. It was at such a time, when the fabric that had stood for ten + centuries had crumbled into dust; when the tramp of the conqueror + threatened to efface all ancient institutions; when every existing + dynasty of the continent of Europe was trembling for its existence; + when principalities were being moulded into kingdoms, kingdoms + dismembered or destroyed, God's very barriers trampled down and + passed; when works of art, the heirlooms of a nation, were torn from + the land that had produced them to deck the capital of the conqueror; + when victory followed victory--Marengo, Hohenlinden, Ulm, Austerlitz, + Jena, Friedland; when king's crowns and mitres, like withered leaves, + lay strewn upon the ground, and when it might well be feared that in + that ancient land soon nothing would be left of its former self to + recognise its identity--at such a moment was it, when devastation + threatened to put out the lights which had been shining for ages, that + the Prince Royal of Bavaria, then twenty-three years of age, resolved + to build a monument to the glory of his country."[11] + +There were the elements of greatness in Louis of Bavaria. In magnanimity +of soul he was very far the superior of those sovereigns to whom +historians have accorded the title of "the great." Nor was he lacking, as +we have seen, in the will and capacity to give to his loftiest conceptions +practical shape. + + "Throughout life," says the writer just quoted, "King Louis ordered + his expenses with the exactness of a debtor and creditor account in a + banker's ledger. The necessary monies for certain undertakings were + assigned beforehand for each coming year. Every separate expenditure + was provided for from specified sources, and each rubric had a + corresponding one belonging to it, whence its expenses were to be + defrayed." + +No Bond Street dealer could be a shrewder judge of the value of a work of +art than the Bavarian prince; he was no wasteful _dilettante_, but brought +to bear on the embellishment of his capital the keenest business +instincts. He watched with unflagging attention the fluctuations in the +prices of the treasures he coveted. We find him comparing Thorwaldsen's +and Canova's estimates of the value of the Barberini Faun, and refusing to +pay an extra scudo for the carriage of a statue. Yet he was not a +niggard. Those he honoured with his friendship he never left to want. A +sick or indigent artist had only to bring his need to the King's notice, +to receive liberal relief. He was a warm-hearted and constant friend. His +last letter to Wagner is as affectionate in tone as the first he addressed +to him forty-eight years before. The permanency of his friendships was in +a great degree due to his good sense in making them. His associates were +men, not only of genius and learning, but of sterling worth and character. +They were not the kind of men to flatter his vanity, or to humour his +foibles. Returning to Rome after his accession, Louis announced his +intention of continuing the course of life he had pursued as Prince, but +thought he ought to assume some little outward state. Wagner replied: "The +King of Spain certainly used to drive about in a coach and six, with +footmen in grand liveries; but, notwithstanding, I never heard that any +one had the least respect for him. Simplicity is most consistent with +dignity: and the course you formerly pursued, sire, will be the best to +pursue in the future." + +To this artist-king Germany owes its first railway. A short but very +important line was constructed by his command from Nuremberg to Fürth in +1835, and was followed up by lines connecting Munich with Augsburg and +Nuremberg with Bamberg. In these projects may be traced the inception of +the whole German railway system. Thanks also to Louis, the steamboat first +ploughed German waters, a service being inaugurated under his auspices on +the Bodensee. The important canal connecting the Danube with the Main, and +affording thereby direct water communication between the North Sea and +the Black Sea, bears the King's name, and was executed at his order. The +idealist, the man whom some writers in their ignorance dismiss as +half-_minnesänger_, half-_virtuoso_, was keenly alive to the material +needs of his subjects. The commercial treaties concluded with Würtemberg +in 1827 and with Prussia in 1833 laid the foundations of the Zollverein, +itself the basis of the political unity of all Germany. The empire owes +much to Louis I. Had he been the monarch of a more powerful state, the +imperial crown might have been his. "Were such a dignity offered to him," +his brother-in-law, Frederick William, is reported to have said, "the King +of Bavaria would accept it for the sake of the picturesque costume!" The +sneer evinced a knowledge of the weaker side of a noble character, but it +is still open to question whether a Wittelsbach would not have more +worthily filled the imperial throne than a Hohenzollern. Humanity and the +arts would surely have been gainers. + + + + +XVIII + +REACTION IN BAVARIA + + +All generous ideals took root and blossomed in the heart of the Bavarian +prince. He loved his country, he loved the arts, he venerated the Catholic +faith, and (oddest of all in a German prince) he loved liberty. The +beginning of his reign was marked by the most liberal administration. +Extensive reforms were carried out in every department of state. Many old +feudal institutions and privileges which had survived the Napoleonic +deluge were swept away, including a multitude of archaic courts and +jurisdictions. The powers of the censorship of the Press were considerably +curtailed and recognition extended to the Protestants in the departments +of public worship and instruction. Retrenchment and economy were enforced +upon Louis by his great expenditure on public works. A million florins +were saved in the army estimates, and official salaries were seriously cut +down. An economy, not so commendable, was also effected by reducing the +pensions to retired civil servants and their widows, whose complaints were +distinctly heard above the chorus of approbation that greeted the +administration of the Liberal King. Looking, perhaps, too, to the rapid +development of the railway system, he suffered the roads of Bavaria to +fall into a deplorable state of neglect. + +Louis was not a Liberal of the Manchester School. His sympathy with +freedom and progress was genuine, and he loyally observed the provisions +of a not very democratic constitution. But there can be no doubt that he +believed rather in government for the people than by the people. In the +particular instance he was abundantly justified, for in general +enlightenment he was several centuries ahead of his subjects. Five years +after his succession to the throne, his good resolutions were rudely +shattered by the Revolution of July. Why that event should have arrested +him in the path of progress it is not easy to divine, for Charles X. lost +his crown through obstinately opposing, not by stimulating, Liberal +tendencies. In the Revolution the reactionary or Ultramontane party of +Bavaria saw their chance, however, and gained the King's ear. They dwelt +on the natural alliance of throne and altar, and the identity of +liberalism in religion with liberalism in politics. Only in a religious +people, they argued, could a king place his trust. Secure of royal +protection and encouragement, friars, nuns, and ecclesiastics of all kinds +came flocking into Bavaria. Monasteries, convents, and church schools +threatened to become as numerous as they are now in England. Some made +light of this black-robed invasion, and attributed it to the King's +well-known fondness for the mediæval and the picturesque. But a real +change had come over Louis. Germany was seething with discontent, and +revolution was in the air. The King remembered the fate of his godfather, +and decided to take the side of reaction. The censorship of the Press was +again enforced. Those who were found guilty of _lèse-majesté_ were +condemned to make a public apology to the King's portrait or statue--an +almost Gilbertian penalty. Soldiers, Protestants and Catholic, were alike +ordered to kneel when the Host was carried past. Repressive laws were +enacted against the Lutherans and Calvinists, and Germany seemed on the +point of passing once more under the sway of Rome. Louis had lost his +head. A few clod-hoppers brawling over their beer appeared to him an +attempt at revolution. It justified him in closing the university and +calling out the reserves. He established a star-chamber at Landshut, where +anonymous accusations were entertained and every accusation entailed +conviction. The Jesuits were supposed to have inspired this policy. The +rumour was probably true in substance. The children of Loyala are not +allowed to do evil that good may come, or to indulge in verbal +equivocations, as their enemies allege; but it is their aim to bring the +whole world into real and sincere submission to the Roman Church, and to +achieve that end they have certainly not hesitated to sacrifice political +and social ideals dear to all the rest of mankind. The Jesuit is a +Christian produced to his utmost logical extremity. Naturally, the order +is very unpopular with people who like to profess Christianity without any +intention of bringing their views and conduct into line with it. + +A true son of the Church was Carl Abel, a politician of some repute, to +whom Louis handed the portfolio of the Interior in April 1858. He was, it +is interesting to note, one of those Bavarian ministers who had +accompanied the King's son, Otho, to Greece in the 'twenties, and assisted +in schooling the renascent nation in its new political status. He it was +who enacted the "knee-bending" order to which allusion has been made; he +again who substituted the word "subjects" for "citizens" in the royal +decrees and proclamations. His policy was frankly Ultramontane. The +publication of Strauss's "Life of Jesus," three years before, had given a +powerful stimulus to rationalistic tendencies, and these the Bavarian +Government determined at all costs to eradicate. It was in the world of +thought and education that they saw the struggle must be waged, and they +wisely strove to bring the schools entirely within their control. To +prevent the spread of dangerous opinions it was decreed that all the books +used in the universities and schools, even in those of the lowest grade, +must be purchased from the official Government depôt. A bad time followed +for the booksellers and for every one suspected of liberal opinions. The +editor of the Bernstorff papers speaks of Abel's administration as a +scandal to all Europe. It was not considered such by the majority of the +Bavarian people, who were probably more in sympathy with their ruler's +present mood than with his earlier aspirations towards a Grecian polity +and culture. The Jesuits reigned supreme, but it was not without certain +faint misgivings that their chiefs heard the news of Lola's arrival in +Munich. The dauntless adventuress was a factor that had to be reckoned +with. + + + + +XIX + +THE ENTHRALMENT OF THE KING + + +The Court Theatre of Munich, thanks to the King's critical faculty and +liberal patronage, had a very high reputation throughout Europe, and +seemed to Lola a very proper place for the display of her charms and +accomplishments. She applied accordingly to the Director, who upon an +exhibition of her powers, announced that they did not come up to his +standard. This was probably true; but had Lola danced like Taglioni, she +would no doubt have been rejected all the same by an official of this +strictly clerical Government. Full of wit and resource, she saw in her +rebuff the very opportunity she sought of bringing herself to the notice +of a sovereign. She had made a few friends among the _jeunesse dorée_ of +the Bavarian capital, and through one of these, Count Rechberg, a royal +aide-de-camp, she craved an audience of His Majesty. Louis was indisposed +to grant it, despite his usually gracious bearing towards foreign +_artistes_. "Am I expected to see every strolling dancer?" he asked +pettishly. "Your pardon, sire," said Rechberg, "but this one is well worth +seeing." The King hesitated. While he did so Lola Montez stood before him. +Tired of waiting in the antechamber, and anticipating a refusal, she had +coolly followed an aide-de-camp into the royal presence. Now she stood +before the astonished King, dazzlingly beautiful, with downcast eyes, a +suppliant mien, and a smile of triumph at the corners of her mouth. + +To a passionate admirer of beauty like Louis her loveliness was an +all-sufficient excuse for her amazing audacity. His aide-de-camp was +right. The woman was well worth seeing. As he gazed upon her youth glowed +anew in his sixty-year-old frame, the blood coursed as fiercely as in the +time long gone by. Those who saw Lola knew a second spring. Collecting his +faculties, the King granted the dancer's prayer--she received his command +to appear at the Court Theatre; but he was in no haste to dismiss the +suppliant. Lola, says one writer, came, saw, and conquered. The King +yielded to her at the first shot. Lola's detractors relate that, glancing +at her magnificent bust, he asked in wonder if such charms could be of +nature's making, whereupon the lady, there and then ripping up her +corsage, dispelled his doubts. They can believe the story who like to; it +sounds in the highest degree improbable. But from this first interview +dated the enthralment of the King. + +Not only grey-headed rulers but tiny school-girls felt the power of the +enchantress. Louise von Kobell tells us how, when a child, she saw Lola +Montez.[12] + + "On the 9th October, 1846, as I was going down Briennerstrasse, near + the Bayersdorf Palace, I saw coming my way a lady, gowned in black, + with a veil thrown over her head, and a fan in her hand. Suddenly + something seemed to flash across my vision, and I stood stock still, + gazing into the eyes that had dazzled me. They shone upon me from a + pale countenance, which assumed a laughing expression before my + bewildered stare. Then she went, or rather swept on, past me. I forgot + all my governess's injunctions against looking round, and stood + staring after her, till she disappeared from view. Like her, I told + myself, must have been the fairies in the nursery tales. I returned + home breathless, and told them of my adventure. 'That,' said my + father, grimly, 'must have been the Spanish dancer, Lola Montez.' + + "I went to the Court Theatre on Saturday, the 10th October; I came + much too early to my seat, and read full of eagerness the + announcement: '_Der verwunschene Prinz_, a play in three acts, by J. + von Plötz. During the two _entr'actes_, Mademoiselle Lola Montez of + Madrid will appear in her Spanish national dances.' Full of impatience + I saw the curtain rise, sat through the first act, and saw the curtain + fall again. Now it rose once more, and I saw my fairy of + yesterday--Lola Montez. + + "In the pit they clapped and hissed; the last, explained my neighbour, + because of the rumours abroad that Lola was an emissary of the English + Freemasons, an enemy of the Jesuits--a coquette, too, who had had + amorous adventures in all parts of the world, according to the + newspapers. + + "Lola Montez took the centre of the stage, clothed not in the usual + tights and short skirts of the ballet girl, but in a Spanish costume + of silk and lace, with here and there a glittering diamond. Fire + seemed to shoot from her wonderful blue eyes, and she bowed like one + of the Graces before the King, who occupied the royal box. Then she + danced after the fashion of her country, swaying on her hips, and + changing from one posture to another, each excelling the former in + beauty. + + "While she danced she riveted the attention of all the spectators, + their gaze followed the sinuous swayings of her body, in their + expression now of glowing passion, now of lightsome playfulness. Not + till she ceased her rhythmic movements was the spell broken.... + + "On 14th October, 1846, Lola Montez appeared for the second and last + time at the Court Theatre. She danced the 'Cachucha' in the comedy, + _Der Weiberfeind von Benedix_, and danced the 'Fandango' with Herr + Opfermann in the _entr'acte_ of the play _Müller und Miller_. In order + to drown any manifestations of displeasure, the pit was occupied by an + organised _claque_ of policemen in plain clothes and theatre + attendants. The precaution was unnecessary, as Lola Montez exercised a + universal charm. The King had received her in audience, as he was + accustomed to receive foreign _artistes_; her beauty and her + stimulating conversation captivated Louis I." + +"I know not how--I am bewitched," His Majesty said frankly to one of his +ministers two days after his first interview with Lola. He had worshipped +at the altar of Venus all his life, and might reasonably have believed +himself immune against passion, now he had entered his seventh decade. The +vision of the radiant stranger haunted him. He sought for some excuse to +have her about his person. He had long meditated and spoken of a journey +to Spain. He would learn Spanish, and Lola should be his teacher. He +discussed the idea with some of his more intimate advisers, who said +nothing to dissuade him. Other hearts than his beat more rapidly at the +dancer's approach. Dr. Curtius, the royal physician, was of opinion that +Señora Montez would be an admirable person to teach the King the Castilian +tongue; the aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Nüssbaum, was eager to convey the +royal summons to the lady. Lola did not refuse the office of instructress, +though the situation was not without its irony, seeing that her knowledge +of Spanish was but slight. The reading of Calderon and Cervantes was +enlivened and interrupted by her humorous sallies, her unexpected _jeux +d'esprit_, by the thousand and one delightful turns and mannerisms by +which as much as by her beauty Lola intoxicated men. She was full of the +elusive quality that her pseudo-countrymen call _sal_. Her intense +vitality effervesced, fizzed, and sparkled like champagne, and every +bubble that reached the surface caught a different tint. Taking lessons +from a charming woman is one of the shortest ways I know to falling in +love with her. Louis's was a very bad case. His emotional capacity by an +unusual coincidence, had developed in proportion to his intellect. "His +soul is always fresh and young," Lola declared, no doubt quite sincerely. +He had not retained a very large measure of the good looks that +distinguished him when a young man, but his bearing was dignified, +courtly, gracious--in a word, kingly--and his frank, grey-blue +all-embracing eyes had in them something appealing. His personality, in +short, is summed up by Frau von Kobell as "interesting." His manner was as +animated as Lola's, and corresponded to every movement of his mind. I do +not see why such a man, even if he be sixty-one years old, should not win +a woman's love. Moreover, the staunchest Republican must admit that if +there is no divinity, there is a glamour or fascination about a king. He +is, at least, uncommon--even in Germany; he holds aloof, his inner life is +to some extent veiled in mystery; his setting is spectacular, and he +rarely appears at a disadvantage. He is never seen rolling in the mire in +the football field, affording sport to counsel and reporters in the +witness-box, or in any of those undignified situations in which we so +often meet our fellows. Above all, he represents power, a faculty more +attractive even to women than to men. Ambition prompted Lola to hook a +prince, but she found it quite easy to like one for his own sake. + +The exact nature of the relations between individual men and women is not +in general a legitimate matter for curiosity or speculation. It is a +question which concerns the parties only. In this instance, however, it +may be in the interests of Louis and Lola to observe that their relations +were in all probability what is called platonic. The King's nature was +æsthetic, poetical, sentimental; he was eminently capable of that +unsensual affection that seems to have animated Dante and Michelangelo. It +must not be forgotten, too, that he was sixty years of age. "The sins of +youth," he said "are the virtues of age." He affirmed publicly and +solemnly that Lola had been his friend, never his mistress; and the word +of Louis of Bavaria is not to be lightly disregarded. Lola repeatedly said +the same thing. Nothing to the contrary was ever alleged by the King's +immediate _entourage_; and--most significant fact of all--the Queen, +Therese of Sachsen-Hildburghausen, never manifested the slightest jealousy +of her husband's friend, but, on the contrary, more than once expressed +her sympathy with her policy and actions. + +It was not, of course, to be expected that the public would take this view +of Louis's relations with the famous adventuress. Least of all would it +find acceptance with the Roman Catholic clergy, whose tendency it has ever +been to exaggerate the sensual instincts in man's nature and to ignore the +subtler, finer phases of passion. Puritan and prurient are generally +synonymous terms. Nor were the King's ministers and clerical advisers at +all anxious to place a favourable construction on Lola's presence at the +court. + +The Jesuits' agents in different capitals reported unfavourably on the +dancer. They professed to believe, as we have seen--perhaps, they did +believe--that she was an emissary of the Freemasons, a body which in +England is regarded as a gigantic goose club, but by the Catholic world as +the most dangerous of secret anti-clerical societies. Now from what Frau +von Kobell tells us, it is plain that the Jesuits looked on Lola as a foe +from the moment she set foot in Munich. We must seek for some antecedent +cause. The lady's own explanation is improbable, but worth repeating. She +alleges that while in Paris she was approached by the agents of the +Society, and invited to assist in the conversion of Count Medem, a Russian +nobleman. This proposal, possibly because of her inherited dislike of the +Roman Church, she declined; and communicated the matter to Monsieur +Guizot, then Prime Minister, who had long been puzzled by the +ever-increasing numbers in which the Russian nobility in Paris were going +over to Rome. Their conversion is attributed by Catholics to the apostolic +zeal of Madame Swetchine, a Russian lady of some literary attainments, +whose _salon_ was the rendezvous of the clerical party in Paris. Vandam's +informant (if he ever existed in the flesh) and one or two writers with an +Ultramontane bias suggest that the feud between Lola and the Jesuits arose +simply because it was impossible for the latter to give any countenance to +a King's mistress. But we know that they recognised her as their enemy +before she became the royal favourite; moreover, German writers say that +the clericals had never made any remonstrances or raised any difficulties +respecting her predecessors in His Majesty's affections. I see no reason +to doubt that Lola's anti-clerical or anti-Catholic sentiments were +genuine and frankly expressed; we find similar instances of the _odium +theologicum_ in Nell Gwynne and Louis de Kèroual. Intercourse with Liszt +and Dujarier would have strengthened such a prejudice. In Lola's haughty +disregard, too, of the etiquette of courts and fearlessness in the +presence of the great, we may detect the temperament, which would find its +political expression in advanced Liberalism. + +The rumour that she was an agent of "the English Freemasons," if by that +term we may understand the English Liberals, is not to be dismissed as +altogether preposterous. Our Government at that time was more or less +actively hostile to the ultra-legitimist and clerical tendencies paramount +in Central Europe: we backed the Swiss Confederation against the +Sonderbund; we sympathised with the Italians in their struggles for +freedom; English volunteers fought for the Liberal Christinos against the +Ultramontane Carlists. Lola's well-known sympathies, her knowledge of +continental courts, above all, her personality, would have recommended her +as a most valuable agent to our Foreign Office. We shall see presently +that she became the honoured guest of an English ambassador, and how legal +proceedings afterwards instituted against her in this country were +mysteriously suffered to collapse, as if in obedience to orders from +above. Lola never describes herself, it is true, as a secret agent of our +Government, but she would naturally have preferred to appear as the +independent, irresponsible dictatrix of a nation's policy. + +Whatever the cause may have been, antagonism manifested itself between +Lola Montez and the King's advisers, official and clerical, within a very +few days of her arrival at his court. Louis is said to have introduced her +to his ministers as his best friend. The Jesuits immediately circulated +the report that she was his mistress, and endeavoured to inflame the +Bavarian people against her. In obedience to their principle of the Church +first and political consistency a long way after, they instigated a +general attack upon King and favourite through the clerical press of +Germany. It was truly remarked in one of the independent organs of opinion +that the most extreme radical could not have shown less regard for the +person of the sovereign than these champions of legitimacy. Caricature, +that pitiable prostitution of a divine art, was assiduously employed. +Louis was represented as a crowned satyr, a pug-dog, an ass with a crown +tied to his tail; Lola was treated with even less regard for decency. The +ape that lurks in every man gibbered in every clerical rag. The curious +may inspect some choice examples of this simian humour in Herr Fuchs's +interesting work.[13] + +Ridicule, so far from killing, as is so often said, can be proved by +history to be the least potent instrument of attack and persecution +wielded by man. Skits break neither bones nor thrones. Ridicule is +generally on the side of authority and reaction, and as such, in the long +run, on the losing side. Puritanism survived the raillery of +seventeenth-century wags; the North triumphed, despite the loathsome +scurrilities of _Punch_; "Napoleon the Little," succumbed to German +strategy, not to Victor Hugo's satiric force; Teetotalism, Socialism, and +the Cause of Woman wax stronger daily, in spite of the humorists of the +music halls and the racing rags. The King of Bavaria was not to be shamed +or affrighted by all the gutter journalists of Germany. But his smile +became a little grim. Archbishop Diepenbrock remonstrated with him as to +his assumed relations with the dancer. "Stick to your _stola_, bishop," +was the Plantagenet-like answer, "and leave me my Lola." He claimed for +his domestic affairs the privacy enjoyed by the meanest of his subjects. +His regard for Lola and respect for her opinion grew stronger daily. +Dismay spread through the clerical camp. As vilification failed to produce +any sensible effect, bribery was attempted. At the instance, no doubt, of +Metternich, Louis's sister, the Dowager Empress Karoline Augusta, offered +the favourite two thousand pounds if she would quit Bavaria. The offer was +rejected, in what terms our knowledge of Lola's character enables us to +imagine. She did not lack money, nor did she crave for it. She loved power +for its own sake, and power she now possessed. Under her influence Louis +recovered his sanity. The liberal instincts of his youth and prime +revived. He became once more the Grecian, and the mediæval fever left him. +His impatience of clerical control grew more evident daily. + + "And lo, a blade for a knight's emprise + Filled the fine empty sheath of a man.-- + The Duke grew straightway brave and wise." + + + + +XX + +THE ABEL MEMORANDUM + + +The King's change of policy first found official expression in the Royal +Decree of 15th December 1846, transferring the control of the Departments +of Education and Public Worship from Abel, the Minister of the Interior, +to Baron von Schrenk. The effect of this measure was practically to remove +the schools from the power of the Jesuits. Abel saw in it a blow aimed at +him by the detested _Andalusierin_. He addressed a letter to the King, +reminding him of his zeal and devotion to the Crown, of his attachment to +his person, of the unpopularity he had willingly incurred in order to +subject the people more thoroughly to royal control. Louis was not greatly +affected by this letter; we seldom earn the gratitude of others by +reminding them that we have taken upon ourselves blame which ought rightly +to be theirs. He was ungrateful enough to say that he had no sympathy with +Abel's policy, but that he found him a convenient man to work with. The +minister hoped that the King, like Henri Quatre, would prefer his servant +to his favourite, but he was disappointed. He next put his trust in +Louis's disinclination to take an active part in the Government; but here +again he was deceived. The King, stimulated by Lola, began to exhibit the +vigour and activity of youth, and showed a disposition to rule as well as +to reign. Baron von Pechmann, the Chief of the Munich Police, was less +patient than Abel, and ventured to protest against the consideration shown +to "a mere adventuress." The King's blue eyes kindled. "Begone!" he +exclaimed angrily; "you will find the air of Landshut purer!" It was a +sentence of banishment which the minister had no choice but to obey. + +This opposition on the part of the clericals determined Louis to +regularise his new favourite and counsellor's position in his kingdom, and +to establish her social rank. He proposed to raise her to the peerage, and +as a preliminary measure he signed letters patent, conferring upon her the +status and rights of a Bavarian citizen. According to the constitution +this decree had to be countersigned by a minister. The document was placed +before Abel for his signature. The crisis had come. The King must now +finally decide between minister and favourite, in other words, between +reaction and progress. Abel summoned his colleagues to a council and the +following remarkable memorandum to His Majesty was the result of their +deliberations.[14] + + "SIRE,--There are circumstances in which men invested with the + inappreciable confidence of their sovereign, and charged with the + direction of affairs, are called upon either to renounce their most + sacred duties or to expose themselves, at the bidding of their + consciences, to the risk of incurring the displeasure of their beloved + monarch. This is the sad necessity to which your ministers find + themselves reduced by the royal determination to grant to Señora Lola + Montez letters of naturalisation. We are incapable of forgetting the + oaths we took to your Majesty, and our resolution has never been for a + moment doubtful. The proposed naturalisation of Señora Montez was + openly characterised by Councillor von Maurer as the greatest calamity + with which Bavaria could be afflicted. This was the conviction of the + whole Council, and the opinion of all your Majesty's faithful + subjects. Since December last the eyes of the nation have been fixed + on Munich. The respect for the sovereign becomes weaker and weaker in + all minds, because on all sides nothing is heard but the bitterest + blame and disapprobation. National feeling is wounded: Bavaria + believes itself to be governed by a foreign woman, whose reputation is + branded in public opinion. Men like the Bishop of Augsburg [Dr. + Richarz], whose devotion to your Majesty cannot be disputed, daily + shed bitter tears for what is passing before their eyes; the ministers + of the Interior and of Finance have witnessed his profound affliction. + The Prince Bishop of Breslau [Dr. Diepenbrock], hearing of a rumour + that he had countenanced the actual state of things, has written to + persons in Munich formally and most emphatically expressing his + disapprobation. His letter is no longer a secret, and will soon be + known to the whole country. Foreign journals every day relate the most + scandalous anecdotes, and make the most degrading attacks on your + Majesty. The copy of the _Ulner Chronik_, which we subjoin, is a proof + of our assertions. In vain do the police attempt to stop the + circulation of these journals, which are everywhere read with avidity. + The impression which they leave on men's minds is by no means + doubtful. It is the same from Berchtesgaden and Passau to + Aschaffenburg and Zweibrücken. It is the same throughout Europe, in + the cabin of the poor and the palace of the rich. It is not alone the + glory and well-being of your Majesty's Government that is compromised, + but the very existence of royalty itself. It is this which explains + the joy of the enemies of the throne, and the profound grief and + despair of all who are faithfully attached to your Majesty, and who + are alive to the dangers greater than any to which it has been + exposed. In this state of things, it is inevitable that what is + passing will influence the army, and if this bulwark should give way, + where would be our resource? The statement, which the undersigned, + whose hearts are torn with anguish, venture to place before your + Majesty, is not the product of a terrified imagination, but of + observations which each has made within the circle of his + attributions, during several months. The effect of these circumstances + in the ensuing parliamentary session may easily be foreseen. Each of + the undersigned is ready to sacrifice for your Majesty his fortune and + his life. Your ministers believe that they have given you proofs of + their fidelity and attachment, but it is for them a doubly sacred duty + to point out to your Majesty the ever-increasing danger of this + situation. We beg you to listen to our humble prayer and not to + suppose that it is dictated by any desire to thwart your royal will. + It is directed only against a state of things which threatens to + destroy the fair fame, power, and future happiness of a beloved King. + Your ministers are convinced, after earnest deliberation, that if your + Majesty should not deign to give ear to their supplications, they are + bound to resign the positions to which the kindness and confidence of + their sovereign has called them, and to pray your Majesty to remove + the portfolios with which they are entrusted, + + (Signed) VON ABEL. VON SEINSHEIM. + VON GUMPPENBERG. VON SCHRENK. + + MUNICH, _11th February 1847_." + +This extraordinary address exhibits the courage, if not the tact and sense +of humour of the signatories; but none of them cared to present it. Abel +sent it by messenger to the King, who perused it with mingled amusement +and indignation, and then locked it in his desk. He asked Abel if this +was the only copy existing, and was answered in the affirmative. But a day +or two later the memorandum appeared in print in the columns of the +_Augsburger Zeitung_. A preliminary draft had been sent by Abel to a fifth +minister, Herr Von Giese, who had left it carelessly upon his bureau. Here +it was scanned with interest and curiosity by his elderly sister, and was +carried off by her, to be proudly exhibited at a tea-party. Handed round +among the guests for examination, it was not long in finding its way into +the Press. It was reproduced in the French and English papers. The _Times_ +devoted an editorial to its contents, and compared the excessive +sensibility of the Bishop of Augsburg with the hardened indifference of +the English hierarchy to the transgressions of the fourth George and +William. The lachrymose prelate contributed hugely to the gaiety of +nations. Bernstorff, the Prussian Ambassador, considered the address +wanting in respect to the sovereign; by another statesman it was qualified +as unbecoming, injudicious, and crude. More heads than one, it was +remarked, had been lost over Lola. No one could have been more amused than +the lady herself by this astonishing memorandum. + +She had indeed good cause for mirth. The indiscretion of the Cabinet +brought about the complete triumph of her policy. The King allowed Abel +twenty-four hours to reconsider his attitude, and as the minister stood to +his guns, he was formally dismissed from office on 16th February. His fall +involved his colleagues. Louis's return to his earlier ideas, consequent +upon his relations with Lola, was made evident in his choice of new +ministers. The portfolio of the Interior was entrusted to Baron Zu Rhein, +with the intimation that His Majesty wished to be served by men sincerely +attached to their religion, but determined to resist any encroachment by +the Church upon the rights of the State. Councillor Maurer became Minister +of Justice, having presumably recanted the views attributed to him by his +late colleagues in the memorandum. He was a man of learning and Liberal +tendencies, and was the first Protestant to hold Cabinet rank in Bavaria. +The portfolios of finance and war were given respectively to Councillor +Zenetti and Major-General von Hohenhausen. The whole Cabinet was frankly +Liberal. Lola had coaxed the King back to sanity, and inflicted a signal +defeat upon the clericals. All over Germany she was acclaimed as the +heroine of Liberalism. Metternich groaned over the deplorable state of +things at Munich, and wrote that this woman had become an instrument of +the Radical party. Bernstorff received the news of the fall of Abel's +Ministry with satisfaction, accompanied, as it was, by Maurer's assurance +that the reign of the Jesuits in Bavaria was at an end. + +It was at her evening reception at her house in Theresienstrasse that +Louis came to announce to Lola the dismissal of his old ministers, and his +unalterable attachment to her and to her policy. "I will not give Lola +up," he declared; "I will never give up that noble princely being. My +kingdom for Lola!" Maurer was obliged to consent to the naturalisation +that he had described as a national calamity. Lola was soon after raised +to the peerage with the titles of Countess of Landsfeld[15] and Baroness +Rosenthal. She is described in the register of Bavarian nobility as Maria +Dolores Porris y Montez, the daughter of a Carlist officer and Cuban lady. +(That the daughter of a follower of Don Carlos should be a deadly foe of +all that was Ultramontane must have struck her friends and opponents as +odd.) Her titles conveyed with them an estate of importance, and certain +feudal rights--the middle and the low justice, perhaps--over two thousand +souls. She was made a canoness of the aristocratic order of St. Theresa, +of which the Queen was the head. To enable her to support this dignity the +King endowed her with an annuity of twenty thousand florins. With this and +the money bequeathed her by Dujarier she was now rich. A palace befitting +her position was ordered to be built for her in Bärerstrasse after the +design of the architect, Metzger, who was one of her most impassioned +admirers. Her portrait was painted by royal command, and placed in the +Gallery of Beauties, where Louis, it is said, was accustomed to spend +hours in rapturous contemplation. + + + + +XXI + +THE INDISCRETIONS OF A MONARCH + + +Louis, being a lover of the old school, resorted to verse as an expression +of his sentiments towards his new favourite. The editor of the _Times_, +years after, described His Majesty as something of a poet, in a small way. +How very small that way was the following effusions will show. They were +translated by Mr. Francis, afterwards editor of the _Morning Post_ and +other journals. Unfortunately, or fortunately, they convey no idea of the +odd contortions of language characteristic of the original. + + "TO THE ABSENT LOLITA + + "The world hates and persecutes + That heart which gave itself to me: + But however much they may try to estrange us, + My heart will cling the more fondly to thine. + + "The more they hate, the more thou art beloved; + And more and more is given to thee. + I shall never be torn from thee. + + "Against others they have no hate; + It is against thee alone they are enraged; + In thee everything is a crime; + Thy words alone, as deeds, they would punish. + + "But the heart's goodness shows itself-- + Thou hast a highly elevated mind; + Yet the little who deem themselves great + Would cast thee off as a pariah. + + "For evermore I belong to thee; + For evermore thou belongest to me: + What delight! that like the wave + Renews itself out of its eternal spring. + + "By thee my life becomes ennobled, + Which without thee was solitary and empty; + Thy love is the nutriment of my heart, + If it had it not, it would die. + + "And though thou mightest by all be forsaken, + I will never abandon thee; + For ever will I preserve for thee + Constancy and true German faith." + +The next verses relate to the Countess of Landsfeld, in her character as a +Liberal martyr. + + "From thee, beloved one, time and distance separate me, + But however distant thou might'st be, + I should ever call thee my own, + Thou eternally bright star of my life. + + "The wild steed, if you try to daunt him. + Prances, the bolder only, on and on: + The ties of love will tie us so much closer, + If the world attempt to tear thee from me. + + "And every persecution thou endurest + Becomes a new link in the chain + Which, because thou art struggling for truth, + Thou hast, for the rest of my life, cast around me. + + "Whether near or far off, thou art mine, + And the love which with its lustre glorifies + Is ever renewed and will last for ever. + For evermore our faith will prove itself true." + + +[Illustration: LOUIS I. KING OF BAVARIA.] + + +The following lines are a sonnet in the original, addressed to:-- + + "LOLITA AND LOUIS + + "Men strive with restless zeal to separate us; + Constantly and gloomily they plan thy destruction; + In vain, however, are always their endeavours, + Because they know themselves alone, not us. + Our love will bloom but the brighter for it all-- + What gives us bliss cannot be divorced from us-- + Those endless flames which burn with sparkling light, + And pervade our existence with enrapturing fire. + Two rocks are we, against which constantly are breaking + The adversaries' craft, the enemies' open rage; + But, scorpion-like, themselves, they pierce with deadly sting-- + The sanctuary is guarded by trust and faith; + Thy enemies' cruelty will be revenged on themselves-- + Love will compensate for all that we have suffered. + +"In the following sonnet," comments the translator, "the royal poet does +not clearly intimate whether he has renounced the political or the +personal rivals of the fair Lolita:-- + + "'If, for my sake, thou hast renounced all ties, + I, too, for thee have broken with them all; + Life of my life, I am thine--I am thy thrall-- + I hold no compact with thine enemies. + Their blandishments are powerless on me, + No arts will serve to seduce me from thee; + The power of love raises me above them. + With thee my earthly pilgrimage will end. + As is the union between the body and the soul, + So, until death, with thine my being is blended. + In thee I have found what I ne'er yet found in any-- + The sight of thee gave new life to my being. + All feeling for any other has died away, + For my eyes read in thine--love!'" + +The final example of the King's lyrical genius might be inscribed to +"Lolita in Dejection." It is dated the evening of 6th July 1847. + + "A glance of the sun of former days, + A ray of light in gloomy night! + Have sounded long-forgotten strings, + And life once more as erst was bright. + + "Thus felt I on that night of gladness, + When all was joy through thee alone; + Thy spirit chased from mine its sadness, + No joy was greater than mine own. + + "Then was I happy for feeling more deeply + What I possessed and what I lost; + It seemed that thy joy then went for ever, + And that it could never more return. + + "Thou hast lost thy cheerfulness, + Persecution has robbed thee of it; + It has deprived thee of thy health, + The happiness of thy life is already departed. + + "But the firmer only, and more firmly + Thou hast tied me to thee; + Thou canst never draw me from thee-- + Thou sufferest because thou lovest me." + +The King of Bavaria was not a poet; but, as a critic said of Emile Auger, +in some remote corner of his being, something was singing. + + + + +XXII + +THE MINISTRY OF GOOD HOPE + + +The Ultramontanes had no intention of taking their defeat lying down. The +Jesuits were fighting for their very existence just over the frontier in +Switzerland; the Sonderbund or Catholic League was threatened with an +attack at any moment by the forces of the Confederation. Austria and +France could do nothing for the League through fear of Palmerston, but it +is very probable that help was expected from Bavaria, on which England +could not have brought any direct pressure to bear. Munich was the asylum +of Ultramontane exiles from all parts of Europe--of French Legitimists, +Polish Catholics, and Swiss Jesuits. In Lola's action they detected the +hand of the arch-enemy, Palmerston. Liberally supplied with gold from +Austria (as Bernstorff did not hesitate to allege), these champions of +legitimacy sedulously strove to inflame the people with hatred of the +favourite. Lola's unfortunate temper aided their exertions. The citizens +of Munich disliked being boxed on the ears even by the most beautiful of +her sex, and Baron Pechmann, who had endeavoured to avenge them, had been +banished. Lola, like all people of a rich, generous nature, was fond of +dogs. In London she had bought a bull-dog from a man who told Mark Lemon, +with a very proper professional reservation, that the lady was the most +beautiful thing he had ever seen--_on two legs_. The animal, being +indisposed, was sent by his devoted mistress to the Veterinary Hospital at +Munich. The patient did not progress very rapidly towards recovery, and +Lola remonstrated with the medical man in attendance. His reply was too +brusque for her taste. Her ears having been offended, she promptly boxed +his. She then carried off her darling, who was soon restored to health and +vigour. So complete was his recovery that a week or two later, while +accompanying his mistress in the streets of Munich, he prepared himself to +attack a carrier who was walking beside his cart. The man anticipated the +onslaught by flicking the bull-dog with his whip. The enraged Lola at once +smote the man on the ear. The assault was witnessed by several passers-by, +whose threatening attitude compelled her to take refuge in a neighbouring +shop. From this dangerous situation she was delivered only by the police. +Lola and the King laughed good-humouredly over these incidents; the people +of Munich were disposed to look upon them as deadly outrages. + +The new favourite, then, was not likely to become popular with the masses; +and her enemies could turn with some confidence to the educated classes, +as far as they were represented at the University. Students in France, +Russia, Italy, and indeed most civilised countries, are admittedly +hot-blooded, enthusiastic champions of freedom and progress; in some +states they are the very backbone of the revolutionary party. In Bavaria +at this time, on the contrary, the students, like those of our English +universities, displayed fervent devotion to the ideals of their +grandmothers, and held tenaciously by the standards of the nurseries they +had so lately quitted. Munich rivalled Oxford and Cambridge in its zeal +for Conservatism and obsolete canons. Professor Lassaulx, therefore, was +only voicing the sentiments of the University generally when he presented +an address to Councillor von Abel, deploring that minister's retirement, +and congratulating him upon his adherence to Ultramontane principles. This +was tantamount to a vote of censure on the sovereign. Lassaulx was at once +deprived of his chair, despite (it is said by Dr. Erdmann) Lola's earnest +entreaties with the King. The professor received a tremendous ovation from +the students. On the 1st March 1847 they collected in the morning outside +his house in Theresienstrasse, cheering him vociferously. Lola, unluckily, +was then living in the same street, and having expressed their sympathy +with the professor, it occurred to the students that they might as well +express their disapprobation of the woman to whom they attributed his +downfall. Lola was at lunch when howls and hoots and cries of "Pereat +Lola!" brought her to the window. She was received with yells from the +throats of two hundred stout, beer-drinking, Bavarian _burschen_. Amused +at the sight, and undismayed, as she ever was, she derisively toasted the +mob in a glass of champagne and ate chocolates while she watched their +gyrations. Her coolness would have disarmed the enmity of an English +crowd, and sent it away cheering. But the sportsman-like qualities are not +specially inculcated by the disciples of Loyola, nor were perhaps highly +esteemed in the Germany of that date. Presently the King himself came +along the street, and, unmolested and unnoticed, quietly elbowed his way +through the mob. He stood at Lola's door composedly contemplating his +excited subjects. He turned to Councillor Hörmann, whom the noise of the +disturbance had also brought to the spot. "If she were called Loyola +Montez," remarked His Majesty, "I suppose they would cheer her." Then he +quietly entered the house. The street was cleared by the mounted police. +Louis remained all the afternoon at his favourite's house, and when night +fell, attempted to return to the palace on foot, and unattended, as he had +come. He was compelled to abandon the attempt. He was received with howls +and threats, and could only reach his residence by the aid of a military +escort. The streets were filled with the most dangerous elements in the +city. A crowd collected before the palace, and cheered the Queen, who, +poor lady! must have been embarrassed by this demonstration of sympathy +with the emotions of wifely jealousy and injured dignity to which she was +a stranger! Before day broke order had been restored by the sabres of the +cuirassiers. + +Lola, knowing the temper of her countrymen, saw in this attack on a woman +a sure means of enlisting their sympathies. She wrote a letter to the +_Times_ in which she gave her own version of affairs in Bavaria in the +following terms:-- + + "I had not been here a week before I discovered that there was a plot + existing in the town to get me out of it, and that the party was the + Jesuit party. Of course, you are aware that Bavaria has long been + their stronghold, and Munich their headquarters. This, naturally, to a + person brought up and instructed from her earliest youth to detest + this party (I think you will say naturally) irritated me not a + little. + + "When they saw that I was not likely to leave them, they commenced on + another tack, and tried what bribery would do, and actually offered me + 50,000 francs yearly if I would quit Bavaria and promise never to + return. This, as you may imagine, opened my eyes, and as I indignantly + refused their offer, they have not since then left a stone unturned to + get rid of me, and have never for an instant ceased persecuting me. I + may mention, as one instance, that within the last week a Jesuit + professor of philosophy at the University here, by the name of + Lassaulx, was removed from his professorship, upon which the party + paid and hired a mob to insult me and break the windows of my palace, + and also to attack the palace; but, thanks to the better feeling of + the other party, and the devotedness of the soldiers to His Majesty + and his authority, this plot likewise failed." + +It was, in fact, as disastrous to its instigators as the famous +memorandum. The King perceived the University to be a hot-bed of +clericalism, and promptly invited the majority of the professors to +transfer their services to other seats of learning, or to abandon this +particular sphere of usefulness altogether. Their chairs were filled by +men of moderate views. At the same time the University was freed from the +oppressive surveillance of the Ministry; the obnoxious decrees affecting +the sale of books were withdrawn; and even the undergraduates felt +constrained to testify their gratitude to the liberal King by means of a +torchlight procession. + +Louis and his new ministers were not wanting in firmness. Several officers +and civil servants were transferred to distant stations, and otherwise +made to feel the weight of the royal displeasure for having taken part in +an Ultramontane gathering at Adelholz, in the Bavarian Highlands, where a +protest was raised against Lola's elevation to the peerage. With the bulk +of the people, notwithstanding, the King's popularity knew no diminution. +He received an enthusiastic greeting at Bruckenau, Kissingen, and +Aschaffenburg, where he passed the summer. He wrote to his secretary in +Munich, on 27th June 1847: "I am very satisfied with my reception +throughout my whole progress;" and on 31st August: "I was surprised, +agreeably surprised, by my evidently joyful reception in the Palatinate." +In Franconia, inhabited largely by Protestants, the King's change of +policy was naturally welcome. Lola's popularity likewise increased by +leaps and bounds, though her uncontrollable temper continued to lead her +into mischief. A furious quarrel with the commandant of the Würzburg +garrison interrupted her journey north to join the Court at Aschaffenburg. +The Queen, meanwhile, was the object of a demonstration of sympathy at +Bamberg, really directed against the favourite. Certain sections of the +aristocracy held aloof from the Countess, with that steadfast devotion to +virtue that has always characterised their order. Lola complained of their +attitude to His Majesty. Questioned by him they alluded to the lady's +doubtful antecedents as sufficient justification for their refusal to +present her to their wives. The King's answer was that of a chivalrous man +of the world: "What other woman of so-called high standing would have +conducted herself better, had she been abandoned to the world, young, +beautiful, and helpless? Bah! I know them all, and I tell you I don't rate +too highly the much-belauded virtue of the inexperienced and untried." +Louis was a gentleman as well as a prince, and had the courage to protect +the woman he loved. "Mark well," he wrote to a person of rank, "if you +are invited to the house the King frequents, and you do not come, the King +will see in this an offence against his dignity, and his displeasure will +follow." Louis's rule for his courtiers was, in short: "Love me, love +Lola." + +Social distinction and wealth were not enough to satisfy the Countess of +Landsfeld. She was not content to pull the wires; she wanted the +appearance of power, as well as its substance. She longed to display +openly her talents as a ruler. She was galled by the affected indifference +of statesmen, who could not in reality put a single measure into execution +without her sanction. While all Germany acclaimed her as the Liberal +heroine, Zu Rhein was able afterwards to affirm publicly in the Chamber +that the favourite had at no time come between the Cabinet and the +sovereign, nor had in any way governed its policy. This statement may be +accepted as far as it goes, but the ministers could have done nothing +without the King's co-operation, and the King never denied that he was +accustomed to consult the Countess on all affairs of state. The credit of +the Zu Rhein-Maurer administration rightly, therefore, belongs in great +measure to her. She was always by the King to keep him in the straight way +of reform, to safeguard him against a relapse into Ultramontanism. She not +unnaturally chafed at what must have seemed the ingratitude of the +ministers. She had not yet forgiven Maurer for his reference to her +proposed naturalisation as a calamity. Now she regarded him as a puppet +which had the impudence to ignore its maker. He got the credit of reforms, +she told herself, that she had initiated. Meantime, the clerical Press +bombarded her with low abuse. She demanded the enforcement of the +censorship and the suppression of the offending journals. Such steps as +these, a professedly Liberal Government was loth to take. A collision took +place between the favourite and "the Ministry of Good Hope," as it was +derisively called. Lola found an instrument ready to her hand in +Councillor von Berks, whose devotion to her was warmer than a merely +political allegiance. In December, the King decided to reconstitute the +Ministry. He appointed Berks to the Department of the Interior, and to +Prince Wallerstein, lately Bavarian representative at Paris, he gave the +portfolio of foreign affairs. The new Cabinet was composed entirely of men +wholly in sympathy with the views of both sovereign and favourite. By its +opponents it was derisively dubbed the Lola Ministry. The _Münchner +Zeitung_ welcomed its frank and whole-hearted Liberalism as a guarantee of +the solution of all the problems of Bavaria's internal and foreign policy. +Wallerstein was even more anti-clerical than his predecessors. The +Sonderbund was crushed in November by the strategy of Dufour, and the +Jesuits came flying from Switzerland into Bavaria. They were forbidden to +remain in the country more than a few days. The Press was not gagged, but +conciliated. Lola was acclaimed as the good genius of Bavaria. The German +Liberals hailed her as a valued ally. To her influence was attributed the +tardy addition of Luther's bust to the collection of German worthies in +the Walhalla. _Punch_, as a suggestion for a colossal statue of Bavaria, +represents Lola upholding a banner inscribed "Freedom and the Cachuca." +The "good little thing" of Simla wielded the sceptre, and wielded it +well. + + + + +XXIII + +THE UNCROWNED QUEEN OF BAVARIA + + +George Henry Francis, an English journalist, a resident of Munich at that +time, and afterwards editor of the _Morning Post_, contributed the +following account of Lola's manner of life at this period to _Fraser's +Magazine_ for January 1848:-- + + "The house of Lola Montez at Munich presents an elegant contrast to + the large, cold, lumbering mansions, which are the greatest defect in + the general architecture of the city. It is a _bijou_, built under her + own eye, by her own architect,[16] and it is quite unique in its + simplicity and lightness. It is of two storeys, and, allowing for its + plainness, is in the Italian style. Elegant bronze balconies from the + upper windows, designed by herself, relieve the plainness of the + exterior; and long, muslin curtains, slightly tinted, and drawn close, + so as to cover the windows, add a transparent, shell-like lightness to + the effect. Any English gentleman (Lola has a great respect for + England and the English) can, on presenting his card, see the + interior; but it is not a 'show place.' The interior surpasses + everything, even in Munich, where decorative painting and internal + fitting has been carried almost to perfection. We are not going to + write an upholsterer's catalogue, but as everything was done by the + immediate choice and under the direction of the fair Lola, the general + characteristics of the place will serve to illustrate her character. + Such a tigress, one would think, would scarcely choose so beautiful a + den. The smallness of the house precludes much splendour. Its place is + supplied by French elegance, Munich art, and English comfort. The + walls of the chief room are exquisitely painted by the first artists + from the designs found in Herculaneum and Pompeii, but selected with + great taste by Lola Montez. The furniture is not gaudily rich, but + elegant enough to harmonise with the decorations. A small winter room, + adjoining the larger one, is fitted up, quite in the English style, + with papered walls, sofas, easy-chairs, all of elegant shape. A + chimney, with a first-rate grate of English manufacture, and rich, + thick carpets and rugs, complete the illusion; the walls are hung with + pictures, among them a Raphael. There are also some of the best works + of modern German painters; a good portrait of the King; and a very bad + one of the mistress of the mansion. The rest of the establishment + bespeaks equally the exquisite taste of the fair owner. The + drawing-rooms and her boudoir are perfect gems. Books, not of a + frivolous kind, borrowed from the royal library, lie about, and help + to show what are the habits of this modern Amazon. Add to these a + piano and a guitar, on both of which she accompanies herself with + considerable taste and some skill, and an embroidery frame, at which + she produces works that put to shame the best of those exhibited for + sale in England; so that you see she is positively compelled at times + to resort to some amusement becoming her sex, as a relief from those + more masculine or unworthy occupations in which, according to her + reverend enemies, she emulates alternately the example of Peter the + Great and Catharine II. The rest of the appointments of the place are + in keeping: the coach-house and stabling (her equipages are extremely + modest and her household no more numerous or ostentatious than those + of a gentlewoman of means), the culinary offices, and an exquisite + bath-room, into which the light comes tinted with rose-colour. At the + back of the house is a large flower-garden, in which, during the + summer, most of the political consultations between the fair Countess + and her sovereign are held. + + "For her habits of life, they are simple. She eats little, and of + plain food, cooked in the English fashion; drinks little, keeps good + hours, rises early, and labours much. The morning, before and after + breakfast, is devoted to what we must call semi-public business. The + innumerable letters she receives and affairs she has to arrange, keep + herself and her secretary constantly employed during some hours. At + breakfast she holds a sort of _levée_ of persons of all + sorts--ministers _in esse_ or _in posse_, professors, artists, English + strangers, and foreigners from all parts of the world. As is usual + with women of an active mind, she is a great talker; but although an + egotist, and with her full share of the vanity of her sex, she + understands the art of conversation sufficiently never to be + wearisome. Indeed, although capable of violent but evanescent + passions--of deep but not revengeful animosities, and occasionally of + trivialities and weaknesses very often found in persons suddenly + raised to great power--she can be, and almost always is, a very + charming person and a delightful companion. Her manners are + distinguished, she is a graceful and hospitable hostess, and she + understands the art of dressing to perfection. + + "The fair despot is passionately fond of homage. She is merciless in + her man-killing propensities, and those gentlemen attending her + _levées_ or her _soirées_, who are perhaps too much absorbed in + politics or art to be enamoured of her personal charms, willingly pay + respect to her mental attractions and conversational powers. + + "On the other hand, Lola Montez has many of the faults recorded of + others in like situations. She loves power for its own sake; she is + too hasty and too steadfast in her dislikes; she has not sufficiently + learned to curb the passion which seems natural to her Spanish blood; + she is capricious, and quite capable, when her temper is inflamed, of + rudeness, which, however, she is the first to regret and to apologise + for. One absorbing idea she has which poisons her peace. She has + devoted her life to the extirpation of the Jesuits, root and branch, + from Bavaria. She is too ready to believe in their active influence, + and too early overlooks their passive influence. Every one whom she + does not like, her prejudice transforms into a Jesuit. Jesuits stare + at her in the streets, and peep out from the corners of her rooms. All + the world, adverse to herself, are puppets moved to mock and annoy her + by these dark and invisible agents. At the same time she has, + doubtless, had good cause for this animosity; but these restless + suspicions are a weakness quite incompatible with the strength of + mind, the force of character, and determination of purpose she + exhibits in other respects. + + "As a political character, she holds an important position in Bavaria, + besides having agents and correspondents in various Courts of Europe. + The King generally visits her in the morning from eleven till twelve, + or one o'clock; sometimes she is summoned to the palace to consult + with him, or with the ministers, on state affairs. It is probable that + during her habits of intimacy with some of the principal political + writers of Paris, she acquired that knowledge of politics and insight + into the manoeuvres of diplomatists and statesmen which she now + turns to advantage in her new sphere of action. On foreign politics + she seems to have very clear ideas; and her novel and powerful method + of expressing them has a great charm for the King, who has himself a + comprehensive mind. On the internal politics of Bavaria she has the + good sense not to rely upon her own judgment, but to consult these + whose studies and occupations qualify them to afford information. For + the rest, she is treated by the political men of the country as a + substantive power; and, however much they may secretly rebel against + her influence, they, at least, find it good policy to acknowledge it. + Whatever indiscretions she may, in other respects, commit, she always + keeps state secrets, and can, therefore, be consulted with perfect + safety, in cases where her original habits of thought render her of + invaluable service. Acting under advice, which entirely accords with + the King's own general principles, His Majesty has pledged himself to + a course of steady but gradual improvement, which is calculated to + increase the political freedom and material prosperity of his kingdom, + without risking that unity of power, which, in the present state of + European affairs, is essential to its protection and advancement. One + thing in her praise is, that although she really wields so much power, + she never uses it either for the promotion of unworthy persons or, as + other favourites have done, for corrupt purposes. Her creation as + Countess of Landsfeld, which has alienated from her some of her most + honest Liberal supporters, who wished her still to continue in rank, + as well as in purposes, one of the people, while it has exasperated + against her the powerless, because impoverished, nobility, was the + unsolicited act of the King, legally effected with the consent of the + Crown Prince. Without entrenching too far upon a delicate subject, it + may be added, that she is not regarded with contempt or detestation by + either the male or the female members of the Royal family. She is + regarded by them rather as a political personage than as the King's + favourite. Her income, including a recent addition from the King, is + seventy thousand florins, or little more than five thousand pounds. + While upon this subject of her position, it may be added, that it is + reported, on good authority, that the Queen of Bavaria (to whom, by + the way, the King has always paid the most scrupulous attentions due + to her as his wife) very recently made a voluntary communication to + her husband, apparently with the knowledge of the princes and other + member of the Royal family, that should the King desire, at any + future time, that the Countess should, as a matter of right, be + presented at Court, she (the Queen) would offer no obstacle. + + "The relation subsisting between the King of Bavaria and the Countess + of Landsfeld is not of a coarse or vulgar character. The King has a + highly poetical mind, and sees his favourite through his imagination. + Knowing perfectly well what her antecedents have been, he takes her as + she is, and finding in her an agreeable and intellectual companion, + and an honest, plainspoken councillor, he fuses the reality with the + ideal in one deep sentiment of affectionate respect." + + + + +XXIV + +THE DOWNFALL + + +This view of the King's sentiments towards his favourite was not +acceptable to that lady's political enemies. It is to be observed, also, +that the champions of orthodox morality are the hardest to persuade of the +actual existence or possibility of virtue in the individual. It would seem +at times that they doubt the efficacy of baptismal waters to wash out +original sin. Morality finds strange champions in all lands. The House of +Lords, the racing papers, the transpontine stage, and the Irish +moon-lighters have all been found at one time or another on the side of +the angels. In Bavaria in 1848 the University students, still for the +greater part leavened by Ultramontane doctrines, posed as the vindicators +of Christian morality, and spoke of Lola as the Scarlet Woman. With +singular inconsistency they continued to profess their devotion to the +King, who must have obviously been in their eyes, a partner in the woman's +guilt. The Catholic Church does not discriminate between the sexes as +regards this particular offence; moreover, evil example in a prince is +held by all moralists to be more serious than in a private person. Lola, +also, was believed to be single; Louis was living with his wife. The man's +offence, then, would seem from every point of view to have been graver; +nor could it have been excused on the ground of weakness of will or +understanding, for this in a king would itself have aggravated his guilt. +The undergraduates of Munich, however, being pupils of the Jesuits and +presumably skilled in casuistry, would no doubt have been able to explain +an attitude which appears inconsistent to the non-academic mind. + +All the members of the University were not under the thumb of the +clericals. Two or three students of the corps Palatia (Pfalz)--probably +Protestants--did not hesitate to appear at the Countess of Landsfeld's +_salon_, which was the resort of the most brilliant people in Munich. +Lola's fancy was taken by the colours of the corps, and she playfully +stuck one of the young fellows' caps on her pretty head. The students +were, in consequence, expelled from their association. A large number of +Liberal students thereupon seceded from their respective corps and formed +a new one, appropriately called Alemannia. The new body was at once +recognised by the King, and endowed with all the privileges of an ancient +corps. Lola insisted upon providing every member with an exceedingly smart +uniform, at her own expense, and with delight saw them establish their +head-quarters in a house backing upon her own. The Alemannia became her +devoted bodyguard. They watched her house, they escorted her in the +street. She graced their festivals, dressed in the close-fitting uniform +of the corps. Berks entertained them to a banquet at the palace of +Nymphenburg, and in a stirring speech publicly commended their zeal for +the cause of enlightenment, humanity and progress. + +Conflicts between the Alemannen and the other corps were frequent. The +University was split into two bitterly, venomously hostile camps, and +Lola's partisans, being the fewer, seemed likely to have the worst of it. +The Rector, Thiersch, intervened, and publicly took the new corps under +his protection. For this act he was thanked by the King. But the mutual +hatred of the factions knew no abatement. Now the wires began to feel the +touch of other operators than the Jesuits. The revolutionary party was +gathering strength in the winter of 1847-8. Any rod was good enough to +beat a King with, and no means or agents were to be despised which would +weaken his authority, and the respect in which he was held by his +subjects. As to the Countess of Landsfeld, she had played her part: she +had struck a mortal blow at the Jesuits, she had kept Bavaria in leash +while Switzerland throttled the Sonderbund. Now, the Liberals could do +without her. Her downfall would involve the King's. The situation was +promising. The Radicals determined to let the Clericals pull the chestnuts +out of the fire. + +The death of Görres, a former revolutionary who had turned mystic and +Ultramontane in his latter years, was the signal for a formidable +explosion. The police forbade any speech-making at his funeral, which took +place on 31st January 1848, but were unable to prevent a pilgrimage to his +grave, organised by the Ultramontane students, a week later. The corps +Franconia, Bavaria, Isar, and Suabia, turned out in force. The procession +soon resolved itself into a demonstration against the King's favourite. +The fierce hostile murmur of the mob reached the ears of Lola in her +palace in Barerstrasse. She could, without loss of honour or dignity, have +ignored the demonstration: an angry mob is a foe which a brave man +hesitates to meet single-handed. But Lola Montez knew not the meaning of +fear. With incredible rashness and magnificent courage she deliberately +went out into the street to meet her enemies face to face. She was +received with groans and insult. "Very well," she cried, "I will have the +University closed!" This haughty threat maddened the crowd. A rush was +made for her. A gallant band of Alemannen closed round to defend her. +Their leader, Count Hirschberg, attempted to use a dagger in his own +defence, but it was wrested from him, and he was severely injured. Lola, +forced at last to yield before superior numbers, retreated into the Church +of the Theatines. The Catholic rowdies, not daring to violate the right of +sanctuary, laid siege to the building, and were dispersed with difficulty +by the military. The Ultramontanes reckoned it a glorious day; it was +such, indeed, for the Countess of Landsfeld, who displayed a courage on +this occasion of which no king or prince has ever given proof in any +revolutionary crisis. The picture of this woman, attended only by two or +three students, deliberately going out to meet a band of her infuriated +enemies, is one which deserves a place in the gallery of heroic deeds. + +The King immediately gave effect to Lola's threat. On 9th February he +signed a decree closing the University, and ordered all students not +natives of the city to leave it within twenty-four hours. The edict threw +all Munich into consternation. The departure of upwards of a thousand +young men, many of them wealthy and well-connected, meant a serious blow +to trade and a rending of innumerable social ties. The students marched, +singing songs of adieu, to present a valedictory address to the Rector. +The citizens bestirred themselves, and to the number of two thousand +signed a petition, imploring His Majesty to reconsider the decision. Louis +inclined a favourable ear to their prayers, and announced on 10th February +that the University would remain closed only for the summer term. + +This act of weakness cost Louis I. his mistress and his crown. + +The revolutionary party perceived that this was the moment to strike. The +King had yielded; the students were exultant and conscious of their +strength; the townsfolk were weary of this ceaseless conflict between the +Countess and her foes. Your good, old-fashioned burgher cares nothing for +the rights and wrongs of a public dispute; he wishes to be left in peace +to turn a penny into three half-pence, and to achieve that end is as ready +to sacrifice the innocent as the guilty. Jacob Vennedey, a publicist and +Radical famous in his day, writing from Frankfort, did his utmost to fan +the flame of revolution. + + "The King of Bavaria," so ran an article, "wastes the sweat of the + poor country on mistresses and their followers. Everybody knows that + the jewellery which Lola wore lately at the theatre cost 60,000 + guldens; that her house in the Barerstrasse is a fairy palace; that + the Cabinet, the Council of State, and the whole civil service are at + her beck and call; that the _gendarmerie_ and military are her + particular escort; that the best Catholic professors at the University + have been dismissed at her caprice. For the people nothing is done." + +The last statement was untrue. If, too, the sixty thousand guldens had +come out of the people's pockets, Lola had well earned them by her +services in emancipating the country from its clerical oppressors. + +Louis's concession came too late--if it should have been made at all. On +the morning of 11th February, Munich was in insurrection. Students and +citizens flew to arms, and mustered in dense masses before the palace, and +in the squares, loudly demanding the expulsion of the Countess of +Landsfeld and the immediate reopening of the University. The situation, +ministers thought, was critical. The King summoned a Cabinet Council, and +was prevailed upon to accede to the demands of his insurgent subjects. He +who had sworn before all the world that he would never give up Lola, now +signed a decree for her banishment from Munich. To save his crown he broke +all the solemn pledges he had given her. It was a base capitulation. But +Louis of Bavaria was an old man, sixty-two years of age. His vows had been +those of a young lover; but he wanted the youthful strength of will and +hand that should have defended his mistress against an armed nation. +Peace--peace--is ever the craving, the last and strongest passion of age. + +The King's surrender to their demands was made known at midday to the +angry crowds before the Rathaus. The silly mob hailed with delight the +downfall of the woman who had set them free to keep their own consciences, +and speak their minds. The King's decision was communicated to Lola by an +aide-de-camp. She was commanded to withdraw at once from the capital. The +intrepid woman could with difficulty be persuaded to credit the officer's +words. Such pusillanimity was incomprehensible to her. She could not +believe that the King would abandon her without drawing the sword. +Lieutenant Nüssbaum, at the outbreak of the disturbance, had been locked +by a friend in an upper storey room to keep him out of danger, but at the +risk of breaking his neck, the young officer had jumped from the window +and hastened to offer his sword to the defenceless woman; but the King of +Bavaria had surrendered without striking a blow. His own signature at last +satisfied Lola of this. She looked up and down the street. No--there was +not a single soldier or _gendarme_ to protect her. Not for an instant did +her nerve forsake her. With a smiling face she quitted the house where she +had for nearly a year directed the fortunes of a kingdom. She took the +Augsburg train, as if _en route_ for Lindau; but alighted at a wayside +station and drove to Blutenburg, a few miles from Munich, three of her +faithful Alemannen--Peisner, Hertheim, and Laibinger--escorting her. + +The rabble, who feared her manlike valour, did not attempt to molest her +in her retreat, but having made sure that she was gone, they broke into +her house, pillaging and wrecking. A curious, unaccountable impulse drew +the King to the spot, where he must have passed many of the happiest hours +of his life. With strange emotions he must have watched the human swine +routing in this bower of Venus. He stood there, a pathetic figure--an old +man surveying the wreckage of his last and supreme passion. Unheeded and +seemingly unrecognised, he was suddenly dealt a violent blow on the head, +probably by a revolutionary agent, and tottered back to his palace, +bruised and dazed. + +The next night, disguised in man's clothes, Lola the intrepid slipped back +into Munich, and took refuge in the house of her loyal partisan, Berks. +She sent a secret message to the King, confident that if she could see +him, she could regain her power. Those must have been anxious moments, +while she was awaiting the reply. It came at last, in the form of a letter +brought by two police commissaries, Weber and Dichtl. The King refused to +see her, and wished that he had come to that decision before. She turned +to the officials. They read an order for her expulsion from Bavaria. Lola +tore the document to pieces and threw them in their faces. Not till they +presented their pistols at her bosom did she consent to accompany them. It +was reported that she had been sent to Lindau on the Bodensee, thence to +be conducted into Switzerland. In reality, Louis had selected for her the +oddest and most fantastic place of seclusion. The mental crisis through +which he had passed seems to have weakened his understanding, and he +actually was persuaded by his new clerical friends that Lola's power over +him was due to witchcraft. These enlightened Ultramontanes repeated some +ridiculous yarn about a great black bird that visited her room by night. +At a place called Weinsberg lived a man named Justinus Kerner, who +exercised the profession of an exorcist or expeller of devils. To this +person's custody was Lola confided on 17th February, as was first learnt +from the charlatan's letters, published some ten or fifteen years ago.[17] +In one of these he says:-- + + "Lola Montez arrived here the day before yesterday, accompanied by + three Alemannen. It is vexatious that the King should have sent her to + me, but they have told him that she is possessed. Before treating her + with magic and magnetism, I am trying the hunger cure. I allow her + only thirteen drops of raspberry water, and the quarter of a wafer. + Tell no one about this--burn this letter." + +To another correspondent Kerner writes:-- + + "Lola has grown astonishingly thin. My son, Theobald, has mesmerised + her, and I let her drink asses' milk." + +That the fiery, man-compelling Countess should have submitted to this +disagreeable tomfoolery, certainly seems to suggest hypnotic influence. It +is not unlikely that from the strain of the preceding few days a nervous +breakdown had resulted. Or, again, she may have lingered on at Kerner's, +in the hope that the King's love for her would revive. But before the +month of February was over she had shaken off for ever the dust of +Bavaria, and was safe in free Switzerland. Peisner, Hertheim, and +Laibinger followed her into exile. Lieutenant Nüssbaum, dismissed from the +Bavarian army because of his devotion to her, found a soldier's grave +before the redoubts of Düppel. + + + + +XXV + +THE RISING OF THE PEOPLES + + +Louis of Bavaria had sacrificed his self-respect and the woman he loved to +wear the crown a few years longer. The sacrifice proved futile. The +expulsion of the strongest personality in Bavaria was merely the first act +in the programme of the revolutionary party. On 24th February the King of +the French was hurled from his throne, and every sovereign in Europe +trembled. The spirit of the Revolution spread from state to state with +amazing rapidity. Encouraged by the King's late compliance, the citizens +of Munich once more gathered in their strength and demanded that the +Chambers should be convoked forthwith. Louis refused to summon a +Parliament before the end of May. Nor would he consent to the dismissal of +Berks. On the 2nd March barricades were erected in the principal streets, +and two days later the arsenal was attacked by the people, and carried +after a short struggle. Again Louis yielded to his fears, and dismissed +the unpopular minister; again the surrender came too late. The spark of +insurrection in Munich had now become absorbed in the mighty flame of a +great European revolution. Everywhere the people were feeling their +strength. The Middle Ages, even in Germany, had at last come to an end. +Six thousand men, armed with muskets, swords, hatchets, and pikes, surged +round the royal palace. In the market-place, the troops were ordered to +fire on the insurgents. They remained motionless, leaning on their +muskets. Some one called for cheers for the Republic; the crowd responded +heartily. Then up rode Prince Charles of Bavaria, the King's brother, and +announced that His Majesty had conceded all the demands of his people and +pledged his royal word to summon the Chambers on the 16th of the month. +With this assurance the excited people feigned to be content, and returned +to their homes. + +But the opening of the Parliamentary session was attended by a renewal of +the disturbances. A report circulated that the Countess of Landsfeld had +returned to the city. The silly people again flew to arms, and demolished +the ministry of police. To calm the tumult the King published a decree, +withdrawing the rights of citizenship from his exiled favourite, and +forbidding her to re-enter his dominions. With this disgraceful act of +violence to his personal feelings, Louis lost all taste for kingship. +Rumours of his impending abdication spread through the capital, and now +the democratic party stood in fear of an Ultramontane conspiracy to defeat +their own policy. More rioting ensued. The Landwehr were eager to rescue +the King from the hands of his supposed enemies in the palace. But the old +man was weary of the whole comedy, and craved only peace. On 21st March +1848 he took leave of his people in the following proclamation:-- + + "BAVARIANS,--A new state of feeling has begun--a state which differs + essentially from that embodied in the Constitution according to which + I have governed the country twenty-three years. I abdicate my crown in + favour of my beloved son, the Crown Prince Maximilian. My government + has been in strict accordance with the Constitution; my life has been + dedicated to the welfare of my people. I have administered the public + money and property as if I had been a republican officer, and I can + boldly encounter the severest scrutiny. I offer my heartfelt thanks to + all who have adhered to me faithfully, and though I descend from the + throne, my heart still glows with affection for Bavaria and for + Germany. + + LOUIS." + +Less than six weeks thus elapsed between the downfall of Lola Montez and +the dethronement of the king who had not been man enough to uphold her. +Had the positions been reversed--had the woman been able to command one +tithe of the forces of which Louis could dispose--not the most powerful +coalition of parties would have driven her from the throne without the +bloodiest of struggles. In her, as was said of the Duchesse de Berry, +there was mind and heart enough for a dozen kings. The country that so +angrily threw off the unofficial yoke of its one strong-minded ruler, has +since acknowledged the sway of two raving madmen. The Bavarians prefer +King Log to King Stork. + +Louis soon recovered his popularity with his late subjects. The cares and +ambitions of kingship put aside, the tempestuous emotions of manhood at +last exhausted, the old man was now free to devote himself wholly to his +first and last love, Art. Though now a private person, his interest in the +embellishment of Munich and the enrichment of the city's collections never +waned. He maintained more than one residence in Bavaria, and was indeed a +familiar and well-liked figure in the streets of his old capital; but +most of his remaining years he spent wandering in Italy and the south of +France. He lived to witness the expulsion of his son, Otto, from the +throne of Greece; the death of his other son and successor, Maximilian +II.; and the humiliation of his country by the arms of ever-broadening +Prussia. But he could always find consolation in the contemplation of the +beautiful, and in the society of men of wit and genius. The last twenty +years of his life were, perhaps, the happiest he had known. He died at +Nice on 29th February 1868, in the eighty-third year of his age. You may +see his equestrian statue at Munich, but the whole city is virtually his +monument. A great man he was not, but he was the greatest king Bavaria has +yet known. So he passed from the stage of history:-- + + "A courteous prince, and sociable, sympathetic gentleman; a poet, too, + in a small way, taking off his diamond collar at Weimar, and putting + it round Goethe's neck; he had a gracious, winning, kingly way of his + own, and many as were his faults and his foibles, neither his son nor + his grandson supplanted him in the affections of the Bavarian + people."[18] + + + + +XXVI + +LOLA IN SEARCH OF A HOME + + + "Her last hope for Bavaria being broken," Lola (to use her own words) + "turned her attention towards Switzerland, as the nearest shelter from + the storm that was beating above her head. She had influenced the King + of Bavaria to withhold his consent from a proposition by Austria, + which had for its object the destruction of that little republic of + Switzerland. If republics are ungrateful, Switzerland certainly was + not so to Lola Montez; for it received her with open arms, made her + its guest, and generously offered to bestow an establishment upon her + for life." + +At Bern, the quaint, beautiful old city of fountains and arcades, the +deposed dictatrix of Bavaria found a pleasant asylum. She was greeted with +especial cordiality by the English Chargé d'Affaires, Mr. Robert Peel (son +of the more celebrated statesman of the same name), whose fine presence, +gaiety of manner, and brilliant conversational powers rendered him a +universal favourite. Peel was a warm supporter of the anti-clerical policy +of the Government to which he was accredited, and on political grounds +alone, must have felt the strongest sympathy for the Countess of +Landsfeld. Peisner, Hertheim, and Laibinger seem to have at last parted +company with Lola at Bern, for a letter in her handwriting is preserved, +dated from that city, 2nd March 1848, alluding to their probable +departure, and directing that a packet be forwarded to Peisner. + +From the terraces of Bern, Lola looked forth over Europe and beheld the +utter discomfiture of her enemies. If she craved revenge, here was enough +and a surfeit. Metternich, the mighty minister, whose gold had contributed +to her undoing, was dismissed and driven into exile after forty years of +unquestioned sway. Everywhere Liberal principles were in the ascendant. +Louis of Bavaria, who had not dared to save her, had now shown himself +unable to defend his own throne. Lola must have been more than human if +she experienced no inward exultation at the downfall of those who had +basely abandoned her. The reign of her clerical foes and conquerors had +indeed been short-lived. Too late did they realise that they had been +merely the instruments of their natural antagonists, the extreme +revolutionary party. + +But if the situation of Europe in the spring of 1848 afforded satisfaction +to Lola's vindictive instincts, it offered little incentive to her +ambition. The men who were shaping the nation's destinies were cast in the +stern, republican mould, and disdained to use the charms and wiles of a +woman in the furtherance of their ends. Issues were being fought out on +the battlefield, not in the boudoir. Nor did any state, from the Baltic to +the Mediterranean, present even such slight evidences of stability as a +high-flying adventuress might found her plans upon. To re-enter the +political arena at such a moment was to plunge headlong into a whirlpool. +The old order had changed. The world, hardly tolerant of kings, would no +longer brook the domination of their favourites, wise or unwise. The +princes pulled long faces, and swore that the Constitution and the +Catechism should be henceforward their only rule of life. They vowed to +live like respectable citizens, indulging their amiable weaknesses only in +privacy. Pericles must no longer converse on affairs of state with Aspasia +in the market place. Beauty must exert what power it could in the boudoir +and on the back stairs. For half a century woman as a political factor +almost ceased to be. Only in our own day has her voice again been heard, +demanding in stern, menacing tones her right to a larger, nobler part in +the councils of the nations than the Pompadours and Maintenons ever +dreamed of. + +Weary, it may be conceived, of affairs of state, of strife and intrigue, +conscious that she had played in her greatest _rôle_, the Countess of +Landsfeld quitted Switzerland, once more to try her fortunes in England. +She had stepped down from the throne for ever. She embarked for London at +Rotterdam on 8th April 1848. By the irony of fate, it was ordered that the +bitterest, and once the most powerful, of her foes, the fallen minister, +Metternich, should be waiting at the same port seeking the same +destination. The news of the Chartist demonstration alone prevented him +sailing by the same vessel. "I thank God," he piously remarks, "for having +preserved me from contact with her." Assuredly, the meeting would have +been a painful and ignominious one for the fallen minister, at any rate. + +Lola's arrival in the troubled state of England passed almost unnoticed. +She determined to try her fortunes once more upon the stage, and found, of +course, as a celebrity, that she was _persona grata_ to the managers and +agents. The directors of Covent Garden conceived the ingenious idea of +presenting her as herself in a dramatic representation of the recent +events at Munich. The play was written and entitled, "Lola Montez, ou la +Comtesse d'une Heure," but the Lord Chamberlain declined to license a +performance in which living royal personages were introduced.[19] The +scheme fell through, and Lola, having a private income to fall back upon, +retired into lodgings at 27 Halfmoon Street, Mayfair. There "she invited a +few men, including myself," writes the Hon. F. Leveson Gower, "to visit +her in the evening. She had lost much of her good looks, but her animated +conversation was entertaining."[20] The journalist, George Augustus Sala, +then a very young man, describes Lola on the contrary, as a very handsome +lady, "originally the wife of a solicitor," whom he met at a little +cigar-shop, under the pillars, in Norreys Street, Regent Street. She +proposed that he should write her life, "starting with the assumption that +she was a daughter of the famous matador, Montes."[21] Lola's imaginative +powers, especially when directed to inventing romantic origins for +herself, rivalled those of the heroine of "The Dynamiter." Lord Brougham, +that learned but relatively susceptible Chancellor, she also claimed +acquaintance with; he lived not far from her, in Grafton Street. It is +probable that a woman of Lola's beauty, wit, and remarkable attainments +would have numbered the most brilliant and distinguished men in London +among her associates, whatever attitude may have been assumed towards her +by the little clique of prigs and prudes that arrogated to itself the +title of Society. + + + + +XXVII + +A SECOND EXPERIMENT IN MATRIMONY + + +The company of any number of agreeable men about town and the amenities of +life in a Mayfair lodging-house were not, however, likely to content a +woman who had lately ruled a kingdom. Experience, it is true, had taught +Lola to set limits to her ambition. She had succeeded in her design of +hooking a prince, but the catch had been torn off the hook with +considerable violence to the angler. It was of no use again to cast her +line into royal waters. The fish were now too wary. After the ordeal +through which she had passed, Lola sighed for some enduring ties and an +established position. She yearned as the most fiery and erratic do at one +time or another, for a home. Some think that they who have loved most, +love best; but I imagine Lola was a trifle weary of love just then, and +longed for some felicity more stable and material. She inclined, in fact, +towards the sweet yoke of domesticity, which was quite a fashionable +institution in England at that time. Among her visitors was a Mr. George +Trafford Heald, son of a rich Chancery barrister, and a cornet in the +Second Life Guards. This gallant officer is described as a tall young man, +of juvenile figure and aspect, with straight hair and small light brown +downy mustachios and whiskers; his turned-up nose gave him an air of great +simplicity. As, however, he had, on his coming of age in January 1849, +inherited a fortune of between six and seven thousand pounds per annum, he +was considered, especially by unattached ladies, in and out of society, a +very interesting person. He was very much in love with the Countess of +Landsfeld who, no doubt, easily persuaded herself that she entertained a +strong affection for so eligible a suitor. In this respect Lola was, it is +safe to say, no more mercenary than half the good and well-brought-up +young ladies who were looking out for a good match that season. Heald +seems to have been what women call a nice boy; in many ways he probably +contrasted favourably with Lola's bolder, more experienced wooers. So when +(with many blushes, and in shy stammering words, I doubt not) he offered +the adventuress his hand and heart and fortune, she was able without any +natural repugnance to consent to be his wife. + +That she ever doubted that she was free to wed again is not to be +supposed. In all likelihood, she had been made acquainted with her divorce +from Captain James only through the medium of the newspapers, and these +would lead any one to believe that the divorce had been made absolute. It +was, therefore, without any apprehension that she married Cornet Heald at +St. George's, Hanover Square, on 19th July 1849. As she left the church on +the arm of her youthful husband, she must have thought half-regretfully of +the career of adventure that was ended, and yet looked forward with +complacency to the life of respectability and affluence that seemed to +stretch before her. + +Vain hope! By the common domestic women of her time Lola was regarded with +bitter hatred. It is unnecessary to analyse this species of animosity. It +is compounded, apparently, of jealousy, of some vague religious sentiment +of inherited prejudice, and of the trade-unionist's dislike for the +blackleg. This attitude, though instinctive, is not unreasonable on the +part of the vast numbers of women who consider marriage a profession, but +it is more difficult to understand in the case of an aged lady, long since +resigned to celibacy. Such a spinster was Miss Susanna Heald, of +Headington Grove, Horncastle, the aunt of Cornet George. This lady +manifested great displeasure at her nephew's marriage; and, certain facts +having been communicated to her by Lola's numerous enemies, she forthwith +set in motion that efficient engine of man's injustice, the English law. + +The honeymoon of the newly-wed pair, if they had one at all, was brief, +for it was on 6th August, at nine o'clock in the morning, as the Countess +of Landsfeld was stepping into her carriage, at 27 Halfmoon Street, that +Police Sergeant Gray and Inspector Whall quietly requested a word or two +with her. They explained that they held a warrant for her arrest on a +charge of bigamy, she having intermarried with Cornet Heald while her +lawful husband, Captain James, was still alive. Lola replied that she had +been divorced from the captain by an act of Parliament. She added with +characteristic petulence: "I don't know whether Captain James is alive or +not, and I don't care. I was married in a wrong name, and it wasn't a +legal marriage. Lord Brougham was present when the divorce was granted, +and Captain Osborne can prove it. What will the King say?" she murmured, +as an after-thought, and referring no doubt to her late royal protector. + +They drove to the police-station, and thence to Marlborough Street Police +Court. The rumour of the arrest had spread abroad, and the approaches to +the court were thronged with people, eager to get a glimpse of the famous +Countess of Landsfeld. The "respectable married women" in the crowd no +doubt exulted at the anticipated downfall of the woman who could bind +men's hearts without the chains of law or Church. + + "About half-past one o'clock," says the reporter, "the Countess of + Landsfeld, leaning on the arm of Mr. Heald, her present husband, came + into court, and was accommodated with a seat in front of the bar. Mr. + Heald was also allowed to have a chair beside her. The lady appeared + quite unembarrassed, and smiled several times as she made remarks to + her husband. She was stated to be 24 years of age on the police-sheet, + but has the look of a woman of at least 30. [She was, in fact, 31.] + She was dressed in black silk, with close fitting black velvet jacket, + a plain white straw bonnet trimmed with blue, and blue veil. In figure + she is rather plump, and of middle height, of pale dark complexion, + the lower part of the features symmetrical, the upper part not so + good, owing to rather prominent cheek bones, but set off by a pair of + unusually large blue eyes with long black lashes. Her reputed husband, + Mr. Heald, during the whole of the proceedings, sat with the + countess's hand clasped in both of his own, occasionally giving it a + fervent squeeze, and at particular parts of the evidence whispering to + her with the fondest air, and pressing her hand to his lips with + juvenile warmth."[22] + +The magistrate, Mr. Peregrine Bingham, having taken his seat, Mr. +Clarkson opened the case for the prosecution. "Sir," he began, "however +painful the circumstances under which the lady who sits at my left (Miss +Heald) is placed, she has felt it to be a duty to her deceased brother, +the father of the young gentleman now in court, to lay before you the +evidence of this young gentleman's marriage with the lady at the bar, and +also other evidence which has led her to impute the offence of bigamy to +that lady." The learned counsel then went on to state that Lola had been +married to Thomas James in Ireland, in July 1837, that a divorce only a +_toro et mensâ_ (_i.e._, a judicial separation) had been pronounced by the +Consistory Court in 1842, and that Captain James was alive in India +thirty-six days before the celebration of the second marriage with Heald. +He deprecated any sort of allusion to the defendant's distinction or +notoriety, concluding: "I am further bound to state that this proceeding +is on the part of the aunt, Miss Heald, without the consent of Mr. Heald, +her nephew, who would, no doubt, if he could, prevent these proceedings +from being carried on. No one, I think, will venture to impugn the motives +or the purity of the intentions of Miss Heald in taking this step. My +application is for the lady at the bar to be remanded till we can get the +proper witnesses from India to come forward." + +Miss Heald, who went into the witness-box, explained her relationship to +the accused's second husband, said she had been his guardian, and stated +she considered it was her duty to prosecute this enquiry. When old ladies +do any one a bad turn or make themselves a nuisance, they always explain +that they are prompted by a sense of duty. For my part, I take up the +challenge thrown down sixty years ago by Mr. Clarkson, and I impugn the +purity of his client's motives. If it had been her object to prevent any +family complications in the future, such as might have arisen from the +birth of children to Lola and her nephew, she could have laid the facts +before them in private; and if they had refused to separate, she should +have remained for ever silent. I entertain no doubt whatever that Miss +Susanna Heald wished to ruin the Countess of Landsfeld, and that this was +at any rate one of her motives in instituting police court proceedings. + +The rest of the evidence was purely formal, and included the testimony of +Captain Ingram, in whose ship Lola had come to England seven years before. + +Mr. Bodkin appeared on behalf of the lady, who had been dragged that +morning to a station-house, to answer a charge which, in all his +professional experience, was perfectly unparalleled. He never recollected +a case of bigamy in which neither the first nor the second husband came +forward in the character of a complaining party. The matter, would, +however, undergo investigation, and if anything illegal had been done, +those who had done the illegality would be held responsible for their +conduct. As far as the proof had gone he was willing to admit enough had +been laid before the court to justify further enquiry. At the proper time +he should be prepared to show that the marriage with Mr. Heald was a +lawful act. It would seem that the lady had been married when about +fifteen or sixteen years old, and that a divorce had taken place. It was +evident that the lady had a strong impression that a divorce bill had been +obtained in the House of Lords. This, however, might be a mistake, into +which the lady would be likely to fall from her ignorance of our laws. +Enough had been stated to show that even had the imputed offence been +committed, it had been committed in circumstances that appeared to justify +the act. He asked the court to admit the lady to bail, to appear upon such +a day as might be agreed upon. It was in the highest degree improbable +that the parties most interested would attempt to evade an enquiry of this +sort. He made no reflection on the motives of the prosecution, but it must +be clear that a private and not a public object originated the +proceedings. + +Mr. Bodkin had not detected the flaw in his adversary's case, and he had +conceded too much to the prosecution. The magistrate's decision must have +mortified his professional feelings as much as it chagrined the amiable +Miss Heald. + + "Mr. Bingham, after a short consultation with Mr. Hardwick, said: 'It + is observable in the present case that the person most immediately + interested (a person of full age and holding a commission in Her + Majesty's army) is not the person to institute or to countenance the + prosecution. It is quite compatible with the evidence now produced + that the accused may have received by the same mail from India a few + hours later than the official return, a letter communicating the death + of Captain James from cholera or some other casualty. The law presumes + she is innocent till the usual proof of guilt is brought forward. Here + that proof is wanting, and the magistrate is requested to act on a + presumption of guilt. I feel great reluctance in doing so, even to the + extent of a remand without an assurance on the part of the prosecutor + that the evidence necessary to ensure a conviction will certainly be + producible on a future occasion. No such assurance can be given in + this case, because between the 13th June and the last marriage, a + period of nearly six weeks, Captain James may have been snatched from + life by any of those numerous casualties by which life is beset in a + military profession and a tropical climate. However, upon the express + admission of the advocate that in his judgment sufficient ground has + been laid for further enquiry, and upon his offer to find security, I + shall venture to order a remand, and to liberate the prisoner, upon + finding two sureties in £500 each, and herself £1,000, for her + reappearance here on a future day.' + + "Bail was immediately tendered and accepted. The Countess of Landsfeld + and her husband were allowed to remain some time in court in order to + elude the gaze of the crowd." + +Her counsel's blunder had cost Lola and her husband two thousand pounds. + +The prosecution succeeded in ruining the beautiful woman against whom it +was directed. A spiteful old lady had taken advantage of a bad law. The +whole proceedings were cruel and vindictive. A law framed by bigots and +administered by idiots condemned a woman to lose her conjugal rights; and +when she attempted to contract new ties and create for herself a home, it +threatened her with the punishment of a felon. Decrees like that of Dr. +Lushington impose on women the alternatives of celibacy and prostitution. +Lola, who was too human for the one, and too highly organised for the +other, was accordingly bludgeoned, defamed, and driven out of society. +Somewhere between this world and Nirvana there should be a flaming hell +for the makers of our ancient English law; though, perhaps, we should seek +them in the limbo of unbaptized innocents and idiots. + +Lola did not share the magistrate's belief in the probability of Captain +James having been carried off by accident or fever. On the contrary, she +thought it likely that Miss Heald would succeed in producing him in court. +To defeat the malice of her enemies, she and Heald took their departure +for the continent, _via_ Folkestone and Boulogne, the day after her +appearance at Marlborough Street, as an announcement in the _Morning +Herald_ testifies. For the next two years we have no reliable information +as to the movements or the doings of the pair. Certain particulars are +supplied by Eugène de Mirecourt, a wholly untrustworthy writer, who speaks +ill of everybody, especially of Lola, and is again and again to be +convicted of palpable and serious errors. According to his version,[23] +the newly married couple proceeded in the first instance to Spain, where +two children were born to them. Here Monsieur de Mirecourt makes the first +heavy draft on our credulity, for we can find elsewhere no trace of or +allusion to the existence of any children of Lola Montez, who could have +had no possible interest in abandoning or repudiating them, since they +would have constituted a powerful claim on her wealthy young husband and +his affluent relatives. Despite these pledges of affection, we are told, +the domestic life of the Healds was troubled by violent quarrels. At +Barcelona, in an access of fury, Lola stabbed her husband with a stiletto. +The wounded man took to flight, but, unable to stifle his love for his +wife, returned to her with assurances of renewed affection. However, he +soon found reason to regret this step, and at Madrid again deserted the +conjugal roof. Lola advertised for him as for a lost dog, and rewarded +the person who found and restored him to her. Here Monsieur de Mirecourt's +effervescent Gallic humour seems to have betrayed him into what is at +least unplausible. + + "Paris," he goes on to say, "had next the honour of sheltering this + extraordinary couple. Madame sate for her portrait to Claudius + Jacquand, but was obliged to interrupt the sitting every day on word + being brought that her husband was about to take to flight. On one + occasion she was obliged to pursue him as far as Boulogne. Claudius + Jacquand painted them both together [this rather conflicts with the + sense of the foregoing sentences], the husband presenting his wife + with a rich _parure_ of diamonds. When a definite rupture of their + relations was decided upon, Heald wished the canvas to be cut in two, + as he objected to appearing beside Lola. She, however, obtained + possession of the picture in its entirety, and kept it in her room, + with its face turned to the wall. 'My husband,' she explained, 'ought + not to see everything I do. It wouldn't be decent.' + + "The husband, upon his return to London, obtained a decree of nullity + of marriage, and the year following was drowned at Lisbon, the swell + of a passing steamer swamping the skiff in which he was taking his + pleasure." + +Our delightfully unreliable informant adds that Captain James died in +1852, whereas he lived to witness the Franco-German war. De Mirecourt +aimed rather at being funny than accurate, and succeeded in being neither +one nor the other. In substance his carefully-seasoned story is true. Lola +herself refers to her marriage with Heald as another unfortunate +experience in matrimony. There was, no doubt, a fundamental difference in +their temperaments, and the vagrant life in France and Spain must have +brought out only too well the wife's capacity for adventure, as much as it +must have bored and irritated the well-connected young Englishman. In +London they might have pulled together very well. He would have had his +club and his race-meetings; she would have had her well-appointed +household, her _salon_, and her box at the Opera. Miss Susanna Heald's +interference destroyed Lola's dream of an established position, and +wrecked two lives. + + + + +XXVIII + +WESTWARD HO! + + +In the year 1851, the Countess of Landsfeld might well have reflected, +with Byron-- + + "Through Life's dull road, so dim and dirty, + I have dragged to three-and-thirty. + What have these years left to me? + Nothing--except thirty-three." + +She had practically exhausted the possibilities of the old world. In Paris +she met with an American agent, named Edward Willis, who made her an offer +(in theatrical parlance) for New York. Such a proposal appealed at once to +this restless woman, in whom no series of misfortunes could extinguish the +thirst for novelty and adventure. Other and more distinguished exiles who +had been worsted in the fight with Europe's archaic traditions were also +turning their faces westward. The _Humboldt_, in which Lola sailed from +Southampton on 20th November 1851, bore, as its most illustrious +passenger, the patriot Kossuth. Of this great Magyar our adventuress saw +little, for he was confined to his cabin during the greater part of the +voyage with seasickness; what she did see she seems to have liked little. +She thought him (so she told the reporter of the _New York Tribune_) +sinister and distant. She, on an element with which she had been familiar +since childhood, was brilliant and sprightly. + +The _Humboldt_ arrived at New York on Friday, 5th December 1851, and was +received with a salute of thirty-one guns--in honour, it need hardly be +said, of Kossuth, not of the Countess of Landsfeld. She was not altogether +overlooked in the transports of enthusiasm and public rejoicings with +which the American people hailed the exiled hero. She was promptly +interviewed by the newspaper men, who were surprised to find that she was +not a masculine woman, but rather slim in her stature. + + "She has," continues the report, "a face of great beauty, and a pair + of black [_sic_] Spanish eyes, which flash fire when she is speaking, + and make her, with the sparkling wit of her conversation, a great + favourite in company. She has black hair, which curls in ringlets by + the sides of her face, and her nose is of a pure Grecian cast, while + her cheek bones are high, and give a Moorish appearance to her face. + + "She states that many bad things have been said of her by the American + Press, yet she is not the woman she has been represented to be: if she + were, her admirers, she believes, would be still more numerous. She + expresses herself fearful that she will not be properly considered in + New York, but hopes that a discriminating public will judge of her + after having seen her, and not before."[24] + +New York and its people in the middle of the last century have been +portrayed unkindly, but I do not think unfairly, by Charles Dickens. That +great novelist visited the country for the first time only seven years +before Lola landed, and his impressions are largely embodied in "Martin +Chuzzlewit." With the type of American delineated therein, it is evident +that the Countess of Landsfeld knew exactly how to deal. She succeeded at +once in disarming an intensely puritanical people by enthusiastic appeals +to their childlike national vanity, by delighted acquiescence in their +laughable self-righteousness. Colonel Diver and General Choke could with +difficulty have bettered her allusion to their Great Country as "this +stupendous asylum of the world's unfortunates, and last refuge of the +victims of the tyranny and wrongs of the Old World! God grant," devoutly +prays the Countess, "that it may ever stand as it is now, the noblest +column of liberty that was ever reared beneath the arch of heaven!" At the +conclusion of her autobiography the American people are told that the +pilgrim from the effete forms of Europe must look upon their great +Republic with as happy an eye as the storm-tossed and shipwrecked mariner +looks upon the first star that shines beneath the receding tempest. These +words, indeed, are Mr. Chauncy Burr's, but the sentiments beyond doubt are +those that Lola constantly affected. Her mastery over men, as is always +the case, was due not so much to her physical charms as to her skill in +detecting their weakest sides. It says much for her shrewdness that she +who had hitherto found it safest to appeal to men through their passions, +perceived that the cold Yankee was most vulnerable through so artificial +and dispassionate a sentiment as patriotism. Every other woman of her +experience would have assumed that the animal predominated in all men, of +whatever race or country. + + +[Illustration: LOLA MONTEZ. (After Jules Laure).] + + +No amount of judicious flattery could, however, blind the Great and +Critical American Public to the fair stranger's imperfections as an +actress and a dancer. On 27th December she appeared in the title _rôle_ of +_Betly, the Tyrolean_, a musical comedy written especially for her, at the +Broadway Theatre. It was expected that she would prove a powerful +attraction, and seats for the first performance were put up to public +auction on the preceding Saturday. But the piece was withdrawn on 19th +January 1852, public curiosity having by then been satisfied, and what +taste there was in New York not much gratified. Lola, however, secured an +engagement at the Walnut Street Theatre, at Philadelphia, that dull, +colourless city, which formed the most incongruous of all possible +settings for her personality. In May, when a faint breath of romance seems +to rustle the trees even in Union Square, she went back to New York. On +the 18th she appeared again at the Broadway Theatre in a dramatised +version of her career in Munich, written by C. P. T. Ware. She appeared as +herself, in the characters of the Danseuse, the Politician, the Countess, +the Revolutionist, and the Fugitive. The part of King Louis was sustained +by Mr. Barry, and Abel--the villain of the piece--by F. Conway. The play +ran five nights only. Even during these brief runs, and though the prices +at New York theatres did not exceed a dollar in those days, Lola had +amassed a considerable sum of money; but she was by nature prodigal, and +easily outpaced the swiftest current of Pactolus. She now hit on a +somewhat original scheme, which quickly replenished her exchequer. She +organised receptions, to which any one paying a dollar was admitted for +the space of a quarter of an hour, to shake her by the hand, gaze upon her +in all the splendour of her beauty, and converse with her in English, +French, German, or Spanish. The function was hardly consistent with the +Countess's dignity, but it revealed in a striking manner her knowledge of +the American character. To shake hands with a well-known personage is +esteemed by your average Yankee a greater privilege than visiting the +Acropolis or wading in the Jordan. + +From New York Lola proceeded to New Orleans, that queer old city of +creoles and canals. + + "A Canadian named Jones," relates De Mirecourt, "acted as her agent, + and as there was reason to fear that in this deeply religious state, + her scandalous history might dispose the public against her, the + following plan was devised. + + "It was reported in the Louisiana journals that the Countess of + Landsfeld, who had recently arrived in America, was distributing alms + in abundance to the poor, the sick, and the captive, to make amends + for her misspent life. + + "This announcement having taken some effect, the newspapers went on to + inform the public that the famous Countess was shortly about to enter + religion; the best informed went so far as to name the day on which + she would take the veil. + + "But on the appointed day, behold a third and startling item of news! + + "Señora Lola Montez, yielding to that instinct of inconstancy so + strong in her sex, is announced to have chosen the Opera instead of + the Cloister. + + "That evening the theatre was crowded to suffocation, and the + following days the receipts were enormous." + +De Mirecourt, who pronounced young Heald's desire to marry Lola in due and +proper form, _idée d'Anglais_, must be allowed his sneer. We who know in +what spirit the adventuress ended her career, and to what strange impulses +she was subject, may hesitate to dismiss her momentary attraction to the +cloister as a mere advertising manoeuvre. The woman was disillusioned, +sore at heart, and world-weary; her restlessness bespeaks a mind ill at +ease; her beauty showed signs of fading, she had no home, no ties, no +kindred. It is likely that for a moment her resolve to end her days in the +supposed tranquillity of the convent was genuine enough. It passed; as yet +the joy of living was too strong in her to be crushed down. + + + + +XXIX + +IN THE TRAIL OF THE ARGONAUTS + + +The Creole City at that time swarmed with gold-seekers on their way to or +returning from the newly-found Ophir of the Occident. Though the first +headlong rush to California was over, it still drew its thousands every +month, and Greeley's famous advice to the young man was followed without +having been asked. Lola became infected with the fever. There was much of +the gambler in her nature, and her zest for adventure was keener than of +old. At this time, too, a positive distaste for civilisation appears to +have possessed her. It may have been the vision of a wild, unfettered life +in a virgin land that dispelled the sickly hankerings for the cloister. + +She sailed across the Gulf of Mexico to San Juan del Norte, or Greytown, +as it is now called, the newly opened halfway-house to the gold-fields. +Thence the route lay across the beautiful savannahs of Nicaragua to the +Pacific shore. She passed the white-walled towns of Leon and Rivas, which +Walker and his filibusters two years later harried with fire and sword. +This was an alternative route to that across the isthmus of Panama, which +she was fabled to have followed in a book by Russell, the +war-correspondent, called the "Adventures of Mrs. Seacole." Lola refers +to this mendacious romance in her little autobiography, and quotes the +following passage in order to characterise it at the finish as a base +fabrication from beginning to end:-- + + "Occasionally some distinguished passengers passed on the upward and + downward tides of ruffianism and rascality that swept periodically + through Cruces. Came one day Lola Montez, in the full zenith of her + evil fame, bound for California with a strange suite. A good-looking, + bold woman, with fine, bad eyes and a determined bearing, dressed + ostentatiously in perfect male attire, with shirt collar turned down + over a velvet lapelled coat, richly worked shirt-front, black hat, + French unmentionables, and natty polished boots with spurs. She + carried in her hand a handsome riding-whip, which she could use as + well in the streets of Cruces as in the towns of Europe; for an + impertinent American, presuming, perhaps not unnaturally, upon her + reputation, laid hold jestingly of the tails of her long coat, and, as + a lesson, received a cut across his face that must have marked him for + some days. I did not see the row which followed, and was glad when the + wretched woman rode off on the following morning." + +The incident is a spicy little bit of fiction, such as is so easily +invented by the fertile journalistic brain. The adjectives applied to Lola +also illustrate, in a mildly diverting manner, the strictly orthodox +notions of morality entertained by the newspaper press, and the pontifical +confidence with which journalists pronounce on questions of conduct.[25] + +On the long journey to the golden gate, Lola had as a fellow-passenger a +young man named Patrick Purdy Hull, a native of Ohio, and editor of the +_San Francisco Whig_. The acquaintance thus formed soon ripened into an +attachment. Though, upon her arrival in California, the Countess +immediately went on tour among the mining camps, her new victim did not +lose sight of her. For the third time Lola went through the ceremony of +wedlock. On 1st July 1853 she married Hull at the Church of the Mission +Dolores, "in presence," runs the report, "of a select party, among whom +were Beverly C. Saunders, Esq., Judge Wills, James E. Wainwright, Esq., A. +Bartol, Esq., Louis R. Lull, S. A. Brinsmade, and other prominent +citizens"--all among the most remarkable men in that country, no doubt. +"The bride and groom have since visited Sacramento, and are now in +domestic retirement at San Francisco."[26] + +From the reports of remarkable men and prominent citizens shooting each +other in the public streets, of bandits raiding the suburbs, of fires and +floods, that accompany this announcement, we should imagine that domestic +retirement in San Francisco was at that time subject to frequent and +unpleasant interruption. On this account, perhaps, Mr. and Mrs. Hull spent +much of their time hunting in the valley of the Sacramento. Lola was in +search of new sensations, and for the moment the bear seemed a more +attractive quarry than the man. But before long a German medical man, +named Adler, himself a mighty hunter, came across her path. His prowess +excited her admiration, and he at once fell a victim to the shafts from +her quiver. Hull was discarded and the German reigned in his stead. + +In these American _amours_ we seem to detect the last flickerings of the +flame of passion--the woman's last strenuous efforts to find a real and +lasting interest in life. But Lola had played too much with love. That +mighty force which she had so often exploited and exerted to the +furtherance of her ambitions was no longer at her command. Her capacity +for love was exhausted; by passion she was no more to rule or to be ruled. + +She had hardly time to tire of her German lover, who accidentally shot +himself while following the chase--no bad death for a hunter. It might +have been expected that Lola would now quit California and return to more +congruous surroundings. But a distaste for men and cities, for the +restraints of civilisation, had grown strong within her. Just then she was +sick of love and sick of the world. At her best, a splendid animal, with +fierce elemental passions, she turned almost instinctively, to draw fresh +supplies of vitality from "the green, sweet-hearted earth." She made +herself a home in a cabin at Grass Valley, a lawless mining camp, among +the foot-hills of the Sierra Nevada. All her life she had loved animals, +and these she now made her special friends and companions, finding in +their marvellous stores of affection and devotion ample compensation for +the muddy evanescent emotion that men call love. She did not, of course, +lead the life of a hermit. We catch glimpses of her in a despatch from +Nevada City, dated 20th January 1854:-- + + "The merry ringing of sleigh bells has been heard for several days + past in our city. Several sleighs have been fitted up, and the young + gentlemen have treated the ladies to some dashing turn-outs. On + Tuesday last, Lola Montez paid us a visit by this conveyance and a + span of horses, decorated with impromptu cowbells. She flashed like a + meteor through the snowflakes and wanton snowballs, and after a tour + of the thoroughfares, disappeared in the direction of Grass Valley." + +There she continued to dwell during the rest of that year, her liking for +the simple life unabated. A correspondent of the _San Francisco Herald_, +who visited her on 13th December, describes her as-- + + "living a quiet, and apparently cosy life, surrounded by her pet + birds, dogs, goats, sheep, hens, turkeys, pigs, and her pony. The + latter seems to be a favourite with Lola, and is her companion in all + her mountain rambles. Surely it is a strange metamorphosis to find the + woman who has gained a world-renowned notoriety, and has played a part + upon the stage of life with powerful potentates, and with whose name + Europe and the world is familiar, finally settled down at home in the + mountain wilds of California." + +A strange change, indeed, but no unpleasant life it could have been. What +memories, what scenes, must have supplied food for the lonely woman's +musings, as she galloped over the hills, or, seated with her dogs, gazed +into her great fire of resinous logs! In communion thus with our great +mother, treading these virgin forests, and breathing an air hardly yet +inhaled by man, she might have attained to a higher, truer plane of +existence than that which she finally took to be firm ground. But luck was +against her here, as always. A fire swept away the township of Grass +Valley, and with it Lola's little homestead--the only home that she had +ever known. Her animals were dispersed, she was without funds. But she had +renewed her stock of vitality at Nature's fountains. She went on her +travels again, reinvigorated: a coarser woman, no doubt, thanks to her +contact with miners and hunters, but, perhaps, a better one. She still +loved the new auriferous lands. In the track of the sun she would continue +to journey, and in June sailed from California across the ocean to +Australia. + + + + +XXX + +IN AUSTRALIA + + +Even to the antipodes--in the 'fifties unconnected by the telegraph with +the rest of the world, and distant a three months' journey from +England--the fame of the Countess of Landsfeld had extended. Her name had +travelled completely round the world, and was as familiar to the people of +Sydney as to those of London and Paris. Lola found that her prolonged rest +cure had weakened in no way her hold on public curiosity. The moment for +her arrival in New South Wales was not, however, well chosen. Commerce and +agriculture were alike depressed, and the mind of the Colonists was +preoccupied with the business of constitution-making. The city lay, too, +under the spell of a celebrated Irish singer, Miss Catherine Hayes, "the +sweet swan of Erin." It is, perhaps, worth noting that this vocalist was +born at the same town as Lola, was married at the same church (St. +George's, Hanover Square), and was to die the same year; that she made her +_début_ under the same manager (Benjamin Lumley), at the same theatre, and +that the two women had for the last year or two trodden undeviatingly in +each other's footsteps. Miss Hayes had been in possession of the Prince of +Wales's Theatre nearly a fortnight, when Lola's arrival startled the +eldest Australian city. The newcomer was engaged by Tonning of the +Victoria Theatre, and was announced to appear, together with Mr. Lambert, +Mr. Falland, and Mr. C. Jones, on 23rd August 1855, in the four-act drama, +_Lola Montez in Bavaria_. The theatre was crowded to excess. + + "The Countess looked charming, and acted very archly. She was cheered + vociferously, and recalled before the curtain, when she delivered a + short address. Mr. Lambert (well known in London) created quite a + sensation in the King of Bavaria (by which name he is now known), and + at the end of the performance the Countess presented him with a + handsome bundle of cigarettes--a very great compliment, as she is an + inveterate smoker, and seldom gives any cigars away. + + "The excitement about her immediately empties the Prince of Wales's + Theatre, and Miss Hayes is then taken suddenly ill. Two nights after + the Countess of Landsfeld is seriously indisposed, and Miss Hayes + recovers. Her recovery restores Lola Montez to perfect health."[27] + +On 27th August she appeared in _Yelva, or the Orphan of Russia_, "a new +and exciting drama" she had herself translated from the French. On +Wednesday, 6th September, she took a benefit, playing in _The Follies of a +Night_, and two farces. Into one of these she introduced her "Spider +Dance," which seems to have outraged colonial opinion. We need not condemn +it on that account as immodest, for in our own day we have seen a +performance interdicted as offensive to public morals in Manchester, and +pronounced (rightly) to be the quintessence of mobile grace and the truest +poetry of motion in the not less considerable city of London. Immodesty +in the minds of many people definitely connotes that which pleases the +eyes and the senses. + +Business continued dull at Sydney, and Lola departed in the second week of +September for Melbourne. A dispute had arisen between her and another +member of her company, Mrs. Fiddes, who issued a writ of attachment +against her. Brown, the sheriff, went aboard the steamer to apprehend +Lola, who retired to her cabin till the vessel was well under weigh. She +then sent word that the officer could arrest her if he would, but she was +obliged to tell him that she was quite naked. The bold expedient was, of +course, successful. "Poor Brown," we are told, "blushed and retired, and +was put on shore at the Heads, about twenty miles from Sydney, and was +greeted on his return to the city with roars of laughter." The sheriff +evidently did not object to repeating a good story, even at his own +expense. + +At Melbourne, Lola must have been vividly reminded of California. The gold +fever was at its height. The population of the Port Philip district had +swollen in five years from 76,000 to 364,000, of which number at least +two-thirds were men. Men, too, they were, of every nationality under the +sun, and of every class, though the more criminal and dangerous elements +were in the ascendant. In '55 life and property were, notwithstanding, +somewhat more secure here than in California, thanks to the firmer, less +corrupt administration of British officials. Prices were, it need not be +said, extravagantly high, though the barest necessities of decent life +were hardly obtainable outside Melbourne and Geelong. A goldfield would +seem to be one of the most brutalising environments to which a human +being can adapt himself. + +For our knowledge of Lola's doings in the Victorian capital, we are +indebted to the _Era's_ local correspondent. He writes:-- + + "Lola Montez made her _début_ on 21st September, in a short drama + allusive to her own Bavarian transactions, but the piece might well + have borne curtailment. There was a very crowded audience. The + _ci-devant_ Countess of Landsfeld seemed determined to preserve her + notoriety intact by the selection, but entrenched so far upon decorum + in the 'Spider Dance' on a subsequent evening, that she did not face + the clamour raised in consequence till the objectionable portions were + agreed to be omitted. She is certainly a very singular character, but + there is an ever lively and brusque style in her action that seems to + catch general approbation for the time being. + + "After a brief stay, Lola departed for Geelong; but there, I learn, + her performances were freely condemned. Indeed, their laxness was also + much canvassed with us, and the more staid of the visitors openly + enough expressed their censure. Subsequently to the performance, Dr. + Milman demanded of the Mayor at the City Court, in the name of an + outraged community, that a warrant be issued against all repetition of + the performances of Mme. Lola Montez at the Theatre Royal. The Mayor + referred the matter to the private room of the magistrates, + considering that should be the proper place for its discussion. The + bench declared that the law would not sustain them in issuing a + warrant unless the Doctor had actually witnessed the performance, and + had his information properly attested by witnesses. This he declared + he would do." + +The methods of these self-constituted champions of outraged morality are +the same in every age. They condemn first, and collect evidence +afterwards--if at all. + +Opinion in Geelong does not seem to have been as hostile as the _Era's_ +correspondent supposed. In the _Geelong Advertiser_ of 10th October is to +be found the following paragraph:-- + + ILLNESS OF LOLA MONTEZ + + "Owing to severe indisposition, this talented actress is unable to + appear before a Geelong audience. When competent to perform, her + reappearance will be duly notified. Madame is suffering from severe + cold and bronchitis, and is now under the care of Dr. Thompson, of + Melbourne. To previous indisposition was superadded a severe attack + induced by exposure to the thunderstorm on Saturday." + +Lola's illness was of a passing character. That it in no way impaired her +vigour we shall presently see. From Melbourne she proceeded to the +goldfields, moving among the most desperate characters of the two +hemispheres undismayed and unafraid, a woman capable of defending herself +with whip and tongue. A singular character, in truth was hers, thus +equally at home in kings' courts and miners' camps, able to parry and to +counterplot against the schemes and intrigues of Metternich, able to +subdue and to tame the half-savage ex-convicts and desperadoes of the +Australian diggings. + +At Ballaarat occurred the celebrated fracas with Mr. Seekamp. This man was +the editor of the local newspaper (the _Times_), and upon Lola's arrival +in the town, he published an article, putting the worst construction on +the episodes of her past life, and reflecting in uncomplimentary terms on +her character. He was, no doubt, another guardian of public morality, +which in mining camps is, of course, a very delicate growth. A few +evenings afterwards, he was so rash as to call at the United States Hotel, +where the woman he had traduced was staying. Being informed that he was +below, Lola ran downstairs with a riding-whip, and laid it across his back +with right good will. The journalist also held a whip, with which he +defended himself lustily. Before long the combatants had each other +literally by the hair. The bystanders interposed, and the two were +separated, but not before life-preservers and revolvers had been produced. +It seems to us an unedifying performance, though a woman, if insulted, has +undoubtedly the right to chastise her offender physically, if she is able. +Such was the view taken by the miners of Ballaarat. At the theatre that +evening she was the object of an ovation, which she acknowledged at the +conclusion of the performance. + + "I thank you," she said, "most sincerely for your friendship. I regret + to be obliged to refer again to Mr. Seekamp, but it is not my fault, + as he again in this morning's paper repeated his attack upon me. You + have heard of the scene that took place this afternoon. Mr. Seekamp + threatens to continue his charges against my character. I offered, + though a woman, to meet him with pistols; but the coward who could + beat a woman, ran from a woman. He says he will drive me off the + diggings; but I will change the tables, and make Seekamp _de_camp + (applause). My good friends, again I thank you."[28] + +This conduct was "unladylike," no doubt, but courageous; ungracious, but +absolutely necessary. + +Seekamp, bruised and humiliated, thirsted for revenge. We find him +publishing a story of his conqueror's defeat in the _Ballaarat Times_. The +authority can hardly be regarded as unimpeachable, but with amusing +simplicity it has been accepted as such by all who have written about +Lola. According, then, to the ungallant Mr. Seekamp, the Countess of +Landsfeld was engaged by a manager, named Crosby--of what theatre is not +stated. At "treasury" the actress had a misunderstanding with this +gentleman, and flew into a violent rage. At this opportune moment a relief +force appeared in the person of Mrs. Crosby, armed with a whip. With this +she chastised Lola so severely that the weapon broke. The antagonists then +threw themselves upon each other, and the rest (says the delicately-minded +journalist) may be imagined rather than described. Mr. Seekamp's recent +experience should indeed have enabled him to imagine such a scene without +difficulty; in fact, he probably imagined this one. He concludes: "At last +this terrible virago has found, not her master, but her mistress, and for +many a long day will be incapable of performing at any theatre." + +These words were written, possibly, while Lola was on her way to Europe. +She appears to have quitted Australia in March or April 1856. With her +arrival in France in August that year, she completed her trip round the +world. + + + + +XXXI + +LOLA AS A LECTURER + + +We have no knowledge of the business that took Lola once more to France on +this occasion. She probably went there to spend, in the most agreeable way +possible, the considerable sums she had amassed in her Australian tour. It +may be supposed that she spent some time at Paris, renewing the +acquaintance of her old friends. Dumas, Méry, De Beauvoir, were all +living, and death had made few gaps in her circle of friends during the +past ten years. In August, Lola followed the fashionable crowd to the +southern watering-places, and stayed at St. Jean de Luz, within easy reach +of the imperial court at Biarritz. Hence she addressed this extraordinary +letter to the _Estafette_:-- + + "ST. JEAN DE LUZ, HÔTEL DU CYGNE, + "_2nd September, 1856_. + + "The Belgian newspapers, and some French ones, have asserted that the + suicide of the actor, Mauclerc, who, it is reported, has thrown + himself from the summits of the Pic du Midi, was caused by domestic + troubles for which I was responsible. This is a calumny which M. + Mauclerc himself will be ready to refute. We separated amicably, it is + true, after eight days of married life, but urged only by our common + and imperious need of personal liberty. It is probable that the + tragedy of the Pic du Midi exists only in the imagination of some + journalist on the look-out for sensational news. Trusting to your + sense of fairness to insert this explanation in your excellent + journal, I remain, yours, etc., + + LOLA MONTEZ." + +This letter was copied by _La Presse_, which De Girardin still edited, and +was presently noticed by the person most interested. His reply was duly +published:-- + + "BAYONNE, _9th September, 1856_. + + "SIR,--I read in your issue of the 7th. inst. a letter from Lola + Montez, wherein there is talk of a suicide of which I have been the + victim, and a marriage in which I have been principal actor. I am a + complete stranger to such catastrophes. I have never had the least + intention of throwing myself from the Pic du Midi, or from any other + peak, and I do not recollect having had the advantage of + marrying--even for eight days--the celebrated Countess of + Landsfeld,--Yours, etc., + + MAUCLERC."[29] + +The simplest and most probable explanation of this affair is to set it +down as a hoax. Bayonne and St. Jean de Luz are neighbouring towns, and it +is possible that the actor had (perhaps unwittingly) incurred the anger of +the Countess, who devised this rather elaborate means of revenge. + +Soon after, Lola returned to the United States, a country for which she +had conceived a strong liking. She considered it her home, says the Rev. +F. L. Hawks, and had a sincere admiration for its institutions. Lola was +by nature a republican, and intimacy with sovereigns had not much awakened +her distaste for them. + + "To Freedom ever true, true, true, + All his long life was Harlequin!" + +On 2nd February 1857 we find her fulfilling a week's engagement at the +Green Street Theatre at Albany, acting in _The Eton Boy_, _The Follies of +a Night_, and _Lola in Bavaria_. She was not unknown at the state capital, +having appeared there, with a _troupe_ of twelve dancers, at the Museum, +in May 1852. On the present occasion she gave another proof of her +dare-devil courage, by crossing the Hudson River in an open skiff among +the floating ice. + + "She got over in safety, but part of her wardrobe was carried down + stream. By going to Troy she could have avoided all danger, but her + love of notoriety led her to offer a hundred dollars to be carried + across here."[30] + +This recklessness may have proceeded from that want of interest in life, +that utter sense of desolation, which assailed her whenever she was not +distracted by travel and adventure. A lonely, disenchanted woman, without +any ties or hold on life, she found herself now on the verge of forty. Her +days for adventure had passed. At times she must have sighed for her home +among the Californian foothills. Surely it was wise and dignified, for one +who had exhausted her strength and vitality in the struggles of an +artificial society, to throw herself on the placid bosom of our common +mother? There, in time, she would have awakened to fuller comprehension of +man's place in the universe, and have learned at once the true value of +all her past actions, and the futility of remorse. But in New York no one +listened for the whisperings of Nature; instead, they fancied they heard +voices from some other world. Women who have lost their hold on life +readily give ear to visionaries: having exhausted the joys of this world, +they wish to test those of another. Lola became a believer in +spiritualism. The imagined touch of some fatuous phantom would thrill her +as no man's had power to do. One day she announced that the spirits had +directed her to abandon the stage, and to become a lecturer. Apparently, +however, she had no confidence in their ability to inspire her on the +platform, for she caused her lectures to be written by the Rev. C. Chauncy +Burr. At the _séances_ she seems to have been brought into touch (in two +senses) with several of the clergy of various Protestant denominations. +Her first lecture was delivered at a place of worship called the Hope +Chapel, 720 Broadway, New York, on 3rd February 1858. + + "Lola Montez at Hope Chapel is good," chuckles a reporter. "It is + plain that the scent of the roses hangs round her still. We have heard + some queer things in that conventicle in our time, and have now and + then assisted at an entertainment there twice as funny, but not half + so intellectual nor half so wholesome, as the lecture our desperado in + dimity gave us last night." + +The New York pressman was more easily pleased than is the modern reader. +Lola's lectures were published that same year in book form, together with +her autobiography, and they may be pronounced very poor stuff. They are +respectively headed, "Beautiful Women," "Gallantry," "Heroines of +History," "The Comic Aspect of Love," "Wits and Women of Paris," and +"Romanism." Here and there their dullness is enlivened by a flash of +Lola's own native wit, or a shrewd observation that only her experience +could have supplied. Sometimes she begins by what is evidently an +exposition of her own views, winding up with some trite moralisings +calculated to appease her audience. Speaking, for instance, of the +heroines of history, she dwells with enthusiasm on the valour of Margaret +of Anjou, the sagacity of Isabel the Catholic, the administrative ability +of Elizabeth, the diplomatic skill of Catharine II., and recollects +herself in time to impress on her hearers that one + + "who is qualified to be a happy wife and a good mother, need never + look with envy upon the woman of genius, whose mental powers, by + fitting her for the stormy arena of politics, may have unfitted her + for the quiet walks of domestic life." + +As might have been expected, Lola spoke somewhat disdainfully of women who +preferred to vote rather than to cajole the men who voted. The lecturer +forgot, perhaps, that all her sisters were not as well equipped as she for +the business of fascination, and that to some of them the personal +exercise of the franchise might seem less unwomanly and objectionable than +the arts of blandishment and intimidation. + +Lola was bold enough to tell her American audience that the palm of beauty +must be awarded to Englishwomen, and that the Yankees were too mercantile +and practical to entertain the old spirit of gallantry. She mollified her +hearers by adding that, after all, in America, "love dived the deepest +and came out dryest"--a dark saying, from which she derived the conclusion +that love in the United States was as brave, honest, and sincere a passion +as elsewhere. The lecture on Romanism will not be regarded as a very +formidable instrument of attack upon the Catholic Church. It concludes: +"America does not yet recognise how much she owes to the Protestant +principle. It has given the world the four greatest facts of modern +times--steam-boats, railroads, telegraphs, and the American Republic!" + +We can imagine with what enthusiasm this sentiment was received in Hope +Chapel, where the lecture was delivered in October 1858, in aid of a fund +for a church which should be open free to the poor and unfortunate (as, by +the way, all Roman Catholic churches are). By this time Lola appears to +have been weaned of her spiritualistic heresies, and had become interested +in Methodism. In her new zeal for her own soul's welfare she did not, +however, forget the corporal needs of her fellows, and with native +generosity, stimulated by religious considerations, she showered the money +earned at her lectures upon the poor and afflicted. To replenish her +store, and encouraged by the success of her new enterprize in New York, +she resolved to try her luck once more on the other side of the Atlantic. + + + + +XXXII + +A LAST VISIT TO ENGLAND + + +Lola landed from the American steam-ship, _Pacific_, at Galway on 23rd +November 1858. She had not set foot in her native land since she left it, +the bride of Thomas James, more than twenty years before. In Dublin she +had last appeared as a _débutante_ at the viceregal court; now, on 10th +December, she appeared there, on the boards of the Round Room, as a public +curiosity, as a woman whose fame not one among her auditors would have +envied. But they flocked to see her in hundreds, and the opening promised +a highly profitable tour. In her regenerate frame of mind the lecturer was +distressed by the publication in the _Freeman_ of a long article referring +to her connection with Dujarier and the King of Bavaria. Being the +daughter of an Anglo-Indian officer, Lola had inherited a tendency to +write to the papers on every possible occasion, and she at once sent a +letter to the journal, defending her character. Her relations with +Dujarier and Louis were, she insisted, absolutely proper and regular: to +the former she was engaged; of the latter she was merely the friend and +the adviser. The aspersions of her fair fame she attributed to the +intrigues of Austria. She was in Ireland, and it was as well not to refer +to the Jesuits. + +At the new year she crossed over to England, beginning her tour at +Manchester. We hear of her at Sheffield, Nottingham, Leicester, +Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Leamington, Worcester, Bristol, and Bath. She +drew crowded houses, though everywhere she went she had to contend with a +strong counter-attraction in the person of Phineas T. Barnum, the +celebrated showman, who was also touring England. Of course, she +disappointed expectation. The public wanted to see the dashing, dazzling +dare-devil of other days, not a rather sad woman, slightly tinged with +Yankee religiosity. She arrived at last in London, where she lectured at +St. James's Hall. Two or three of the writer's friends faintly recollect +having seen her on this occasion. For the impression she produced on her +audience, I prefer, however, to rely on the notice in the _Era_, under +date 10th April 1859. + + "Following closely upon the heels of Mr. Barnum, Madame Lola Montez, + parenthetically putting forth her more aristocratic title of Countess + of Landsfeld, commenced on Thursday evening [7th April 1859] the first + of a series of lectures at the St. James's Hall. Revisiting this + country, she has first felt her footing as a lecturer in the + provinces, and now venturing upon the ordeal of a London audience, she + has boldly added her name to the list of those who have sought, + single-handed, to engage their attention. If any amongst the full and + fashionable auditory that attended her first appearance fancied, with + a lively recollection of certain scandalous chronicles, that they were + about to behold a formidable-looking woman of Amazonian audacity, and + palpably strong-wristed, as well as strong-minded, their + disappointment must have been grievous; greater if they anticipated + the legendary bull-dog at her side and the traditionary pistols in her + girdle and the horsewhip in her hand. The Lola Montez who made a + graceful and impressive obeisance to those who gave her on Thursday + night so cordial and encouraging a reception, appeared simply as a + good-looking lady in the bloom of womanhood, attired in a plain black + dress, with easy, unrestrained manners, and speaking earnestly and + distinctly, with the slightest touch of a foreign accent that might + belong to any language from Irish to Bavarian. The subject selected by + the fair lecturer was the distinction between the English and the + American character, which she proceeded to demonstrate by a discourse + that must be pronounced decidedly didactic rather than diverting. With + most of the characteristics mentioned as illustrative of each country, + we presume the majority of her hearers had, in the course of their + reading or experience, become already acquainted. That America looked + to the future for her greatness, England to the past; that Americans + believed in the spittoon as a valuable institution, and speed as the + great condition of success in all things--it hardly needed a Lola + Montez to come from the West to inform us. The excitable temperament + of our transatlantic brethren, their readiness to raise idols and to + demolish them, the great liberty of opinion that there prevails, and + the little toleration of its expression, were the leading points of a + lecture lasting an hour and a quarter, blended with a compliment to + the American ladies, a tributary acknowledgment of the virtues of our + own, and a digression into American politics as connected with + everything. There was no attempt to weave into the subject a few + threads of personal interest, no mention of any incident that had + happened to her, and no anecdote that might have enlivened the + dissertation in any way. The lecture might have been a newspaper + article, the first chapter of a book of travels, or the speech of a + long-winded American ambassador at a Mansion House dinner. All was + exceedingly decorous and diplomatic, slightly gilded here and there + with those commonplace laudations that stir a British public into the + utterance of patriotic plaudits. A more inoffensive entertainment + could hardly be imagined; and when the six sections into which the + lady had divided her discourse were exhausted, and her final bow + elicited a renewal of the applause that had accompanied her entrance, + the impression on the departing visitors must have been that of having + spent an hour in company with a well-informed lady who had gone to + America, had seen much to admire there, and, coming back, had had over + the tea-table the talk of the evening to herself. Whatever the future + disquisitions of the Countess of Landsfeld may be, there is little + doubt that many will go to hear them for the sake of the peculiar + celebrity of the lecturer." + + + + +XXXIII + +THE MAGDALEN + + +That celebrity was very far from corresponding to the present dispositions +and aspirations of the ex-adventuress. While travelling from town to town +the transmutation of her emotions into religious fervour had gone on +unchecked. The love she had once borne to men found an object in the +unseen God; the wondering disgust excited by the memory of her relations +with men she had learned to dislike became translated into repentance for +sin; latent ambition now leaped up at the thought of a crown to be won +beyond the tomb. Christianity offers us new worlds for old, promises new +joys to those who have lost all zest for the old, proposes an objective +which may be pursued to the brink of the grave, and assures every human +being of the tremendous importance of his own destiny. For these reasons +religion has always appealed with especial force to women in Lola's +situation, who, moreover, being usually deficient in the logical and +critical faculties, are the less able to resist its appeal to their +emotions. + +During her stay in England Lola kept a spiritual diary, some fragments of +which have been preserved to us. It is certainly illustrative of the depth +and earnestness of her religious convictions, and it would be a +cold-blooded act to analyse and to dissect the state of mind it portrays. +The sentiments are often morbid in the extreme, as might be expected from +one whose ideas of religion were derived from teachers of the extreme +evangelical school. She writes:-- + + "Oh, I dare not think of the past! What have I not been? I lived only + for my own passions; and what is there of good even in the best + natural human being? What would I not give to have my terrible and + fearful experiences given as an awful warning to such natures as my + own! And yet when people generally, even my mother, turned their backs + upon me and knew me not, Jesus knocked at my heart's door. What has + the world ever given to me? (And I have known _all_ that the world has + to give--_all_!) Nothing but shadows, leaving a wound on the heart + hard to heal--a dark discontent. + + "Now I can more calmly look back on the stormy passages of my life--an + eventful life indeed--and see onward and upward a haven of rest to the + soul. I used once to think that heaven was a place somewhere beyond + the clouds, and that those who got there were as if they had not been + themselves on the earth. But life has been given to me to know that + heaven begins in the human soul, through the grace of God and His holy + word. Those who cannot feel somewhat of heaven here will never find it + hereafter." + +On another page we find:-- + + "To-morrow (the Lord's day) is the day of peace and happiness. Once it + seemed to me anything but a happy day, but now all is wonderfully + changed in my heart.... What I loved before now I hate. Oh! that in + this coming week, I may, through Thee, overcome all sinful thoughts, + and love every one. + + "Thankful I am that I have been permitted to pray this day. Three + years ago I cried aloud in agony to be taken; and yet the great, + All-Wise Creator has spared me, in His mercy, to repent. All that has + passed in New York has not been mere illusion. I feel it is true. The + Lord heard my feeble cry to Him, and I felt what no human tongue can + describe. The world cast me out, and He, the pure, the loving, took me + in. + + "To-morrow is Sunday, and I shall go to the poor little humble chapel, + and there will I mingle my prayers with the fervent pastor, and with + the good and true. There is no pomp or ceremony among these. All is + simple. No fine dresses, no worldly display, but the honest Methodist + breathes forth a sincere prayer, and I feel much unity of soul. What + would I give to have daily fellowship with these good people! to teach + in the school, to visit the old, the sick, the poor. But that will be + in the Lord's good time, when self is burned out of me completely." + +The following entry is dated Saturday, in London:-- + + "Since last week my existence is entirely changed. When last I wrote I + was calm and peaceful--away from the world. Now, I must again go + forth. It was cruel, indeed, of Mr. E. to have said what he did; but I + am afraid I was too hasty also. Ought I to have resented what was + said? No, I ought to have said not a word. The world would applaud me; + but, oh! my heart tells me that for His sake I ought to bear the + vilest reproaches, even unmerited. + + "Good-bye, all the calm hours of reflection and repose I enjoyed at + Derby! My calm days at the cottage are gone--gone. But I will not look + back. Onward! must be the cry of my heart. + + "Lord, have mercy on the weary wanderer, and grant me all I beseech of + Thee! Oh, give me a meek and lowly heart!" + +It seems from this final extract that some painful circumstance compelled +the writer against her will to go on her travels again. The diary affords +proof that she was in England as late as September 1859; and the following +year, she was again at New York. + + + + +XXXIV + +LAST SCENE OF ALL + + +Lola the saint was no more provident than Lola the sinner. She dissipated +the large sums she had amassed in her English tour in the space of a few +months, and with a mind tormented by remorse and religious scruples, could +turn her thoughts to no system of livelihood. Threatened with poverty, and +in a state of deep dejection, she was one day met in the streets of New +York by a lady and gentleman who stopped and considered her attentively. +Finally, evidently at the man's suggestion, his wife stepped up to Lola, +and recalled herself to her recollection as an old school-fellow and +playmate of her Montrose days. She was now the wife of Mr. Buchanan, a +florist of some standing. Lola was deeply affected by this meeting. This +voice from her childhood supplied the human note in her present state of +spiritual desolation and exaltation. The friendship begun thirty years +before in far-off Scotland was renewed. To the penitent Lola Mrs. +Buchanan's recognition of her seemed an act of amazing kindness and +condescension. But the florist and his wife were not only religious but +good people. They made provision for the ex-adventuress, perhaps by a +judicious investment of the little money that remained to her; and Mrs. +Buchanan sympathising warmly with her old friend's spiritual regeneration, +was able to calm her doubts and scruples, and to divert her piety into +practical channels. + +The wayward, troubled soul of Lola Montez at last tasted peace--thanks, +perhaps, as much to the consolations of true friendship as to those of +religion. She abandoned the Methodist connection, and embraced the +possibly less gloomy tenets of the Episcopal Church of America. She passed +much of her time in deep retirement, reading and studying the Bible. One +who knew her at this time says that her bearing was calm, graceful, and +modest; of her beauty there remained no trace except her deep, lustrous +Spanish eyes. A conviction that she was soon to die of consumption +possessed her, and she spent the rest of the year 1860 in preparation for +her end. + + "So far as outward actions could show," says her spiritual adviser, + Dr. F. L. Hawks, "with her 'old things had passed away, and all things + had become new.' With a heart full of sympathy for the poor outcasts + of her own sex, she devoted the last few months of her life to + visiting them at the Magdalen Asylum, near New York, warning them and + instructing them with a spirit which yearned over them, that they, + too, might be brought into the fold. She strove to impress upon them + not only the awful guilt of breaking the divine law, but the + inevitable earthly sorrow which those who persisted with thoughtless + desperation in sinful courses were treasuring up for themselves. Her + effort was thus to redeem the time as far as she could; and the result + of her labours can only be known on that day when she will meet her + erring sisters at the impartial tribunal of the Eternal Judge." + +Lola's premonition was verified. In December 1860 she was suddenly struck +down--not by consumption, but by partial paralysis. She was conveyed to +the Asteria Sanatorium, where Mrs. Buchanan took charge of her. She +lingered in great pain, patiently borne, for several weeks, and it was +seen that there was no hope of her recovery. Dr. Hawks visited her +frequently. To him, her chosen confidant at this final stage of her +chequered life, and the most fitted to sympathise with the ideas that then +dominated her, may be left the description of her last hours. + + "In the course of a long experience as a Christian minister, I do not + think I ever saw deeper penitence and humility, more real contrition + of soul and more of bitter self-reproach than in this poor woman. + Anxious to probe her heart to the bottom, I questioned her in various + forms; spoke as plainly as I could of the qualities of a genuine + repentance; set forth the necessity of the operations of the Holy + Spirit really to convert from sin to holiness, and presented Christ as + all in all--the only Saviour. For myself I am quite satisfied that God + the Holy Ghost had renewed her sinful soul into holiness. + + "There was no confident boasting, however. I never saw a more humble + penitent. When I prayed with her, nothing could exceed the fervour of + her devotion; and never had I a more watchful and attentive hearer + than when I read the Scriptures. She read the blessed volume for + herself, also, when I was not present. It was always within reach of + her hand; and, on my first visit, when I took up her Bible from the + table, the fact struck me that it opened of its own accord to the + touching story of Christ's forgiveness of the Magdalene in the house + of Simon. + + "If ever a repentant soul loathed past sin, I believe hers did. + + "She was a woman of genius, highly accomplished, of more than usual + attainments, and of great natural eloquence. I listened to her + sometimes with admiration, as with the tears streaming from her eyes, + her right hand uplifted, and her regularly expressive features (her + keen blue eyes especially) speaking almost as plainly as her tongue, + she would dwell upon Christ, and the almost incredible truth that He + could show mercy to such a vile sinner as she felt herself to have + been, until I would feel that she was the preacher and not I. + + "When she was near her end, and could not speak, I asked her to let me + know by a sign whether her soul was at peace, and she still felt that + Christ would save her. She fixed her eyes on mine, and nodded her head + affirmatively." + +Thus, on 17th January 1861, in the odour of sanctity, died Lola Montez, +Countess of Landsfeld, Baroness Rosenthal, Canoness of the Order of St. +Theresa, sometime ruler of the kingdom of Bavaria, in the forty-third year +of her age. She, whose fame had filled three continents, was committed to +the custody of Mother Earth in Greenwood Cemetery, two days later, with +the rites and ceremonial of the Episcopal Church. Her grave was marked by +a tablet, bearing the inscription: "Mrs. Eliza Gilbert, born 1818, died +1861." The men who had risked crowns and fortune for her love would have +hardly recognised her in her last part or under her last homely +description. + + * * * * * + +At the bar of God Lola Montez pleaded guilty. I, as her advocate in the +court of Humanity, may enter another plea. + +For half a century the world has taken this woman at her own last +valuation, and dismissed her as a criminal and a sinner. The orthodox +Christian reproaches her with unchastity, exaggerating, as is his wont, +the gravity of this particular transgression of his code. He would have +had her waste her glorious beauty, made to gladden the hearts of men, and +refuse the _rôle_ of woman which nature had assigned her--because, +forsooth! a petty English tribunal would not set her free from a tie it +should never have allowed her to contract. The law was made for man; the +claims and instincts of womanhood must override the decrees of any +Consistory Court. Lola Montez was pre-eminently and essentially a +woman--specially fitted and charged, therefore, to bring the great +happiness of love to men. This which was her glory the sexless moralist +makes her reproach. For him the perfect woman is the most unhuman; he +admires the woolless sheep and the scentless flower. + +Hers was a capacity for immense passion, happiness, and power. She longed +not only to charm men but to rule them. By the happiness she procured +them, she enslaved them. She exploited their passions, it will be said; +and since when have we ceased to exploit the weakness of woman? In the +pursuit of power we use the instruments easiest to our hands, we attack +our opponents' most vulnerable points. This Lola did; this did every +strong man of whom history has any record. Her qualities of mind, as +evinced in the administration of Bavaria, were of a high order, and in a +man would have commanded success; but men were dazzled by her beauty, and +cried out to be influenced by that alone. We esteem in our own sex the +faculties by which we are helped, led, and ruled; in the other, we prate +of chastity, and value only that which ministers to our vanity, comfort, +and sensuality. Women must be human in just so far as may conform to our +individual needs. When we prize intellectual worth in women as highly as +physical beauty, it will be time to protest against the methods of Lola +Montez. + +She subdued men by their passions, but she ruled them well. She challenged +history to adduce a case where a woman had wielded so much power so wisely +and so disinterestedly. She was no Pompadour or Du Barry to whom the +scurrile De Mirecourt compared her. Guilty at moments, as we all are, of +derelictions from her principles, she was throughout life a lover of +liberty in thought, word, and deed. When Europe lay under the feet of +Metternich and the Ultramontanes, she, almost single-handed, struck a blow +for freedom. The wiles of the cleverest intriguers in Europe proved +powerless against her bold policy. At scheming she was no adept, trusting, +as the strong will ever trust, to her force and personality to defeat the +manoeuvres of her foes. Had Louis of Bavaria not bowed before the storm, +she and his kingdom would have played a great part in European history. As +it was, to her intervention Switzerland partly owes the freedom of her +institutions from clerical control. The terms in which she speaks of that +country and of the United States, though purposely exaggerated, display +her profound sympathy with the principles of democracy. Setting aside the +qualities of the woman, let us gratefully acknowledge that Lola Montez, on +a small stage and for a brief period, proved herself an able and humane +administratrix and a staunch friend to liberty. In her we have another of +the many instances of capacity for government as the concomitant of an +intensely feminine temperament. + +She was valiant as an antique worthy. She was never at an end of her +resources, never unnerved by catastrophe. Disaster after disaster left +unexhausted her marvellous powers of recuperation. She could adapt herself +to all men and all circumstances. She was at home in the courts of +emperors and kings, in the _salons_ of the learned, in the backwoods of +California, in the mining camps of Australia, in the conventicles of New +York. To the life of a recluse in a primeval wilderness she adapted +herself as readily as to a London drawing-room. She was eloquent in many +tongues, witty and light-hearted, adding to the world's gaiety. She was +kindly and compassionate, cherishing dogs, and all four-footed things, +visiting the sick and the afflicted, saying a kind word for the despised +coolies of India. Her money she showered with reckless generosity on all +who stood in need. Her excellences were her own; her faults lie at the +door of society. + + + + +SOURCES OF INFORMATION + + +_The files of the following newspapers_: Times, Morning Herald, Era, +Illustrated London News; Le Constitutionnel, Le Figaro, Le Journal des +Debats; New York Tribune; Sydney Morning Herald, Melbourne Argus. + +_"Autobiography and Lectures of Lola Montez" (by C. Chauncy Burr); "An +Englishman in Paris" (Vandam); "Letters from Up-Country" (Hon. Emily +Eden); "You have heard of them?" (Q). "History of the 44th Regiment" +(Carter); "Revelations of Russia" (Henningsen); "Life and Adventures" +(George A. Sala); "Bygone Years" (Leveson Gower); "Fraser's Magazine," +1848; "Players of a Century" (Phelps); "New York Stage" (Ireland); "Story +of a Penitent" (Hawks); "Dictionary of National Biography."_ + +_"Les Contemporains" (De Mirecourt); "Mes Souvenirs" (Claudin); +"Souvenirs" (Theodore de Banville); "Histoire de l'Art Dramatique en +France" (Théophile Gautier); "Dictionnaire Larousse."_ + +_"Ein Vormarzliches Tanzidyll" (Fuchs); "Ludwig Augustus" (Sepp); "Ludwig +I." (Heigel); "Unter den vier ersten Königen Bayerns" (Kobell); "Lola +Montez und die Jesuiten" (Erdmann); "Bayern's Erhebung"; "Franz Liszt als +Mensch ung Künstler" (Ramann); Metternich's Memoirs: Bernstorff Papers; +etc., etc._ + + + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Historical Record of the 44th, or East Essex Regiment (1864), by +Thomas Carter, of the Adjutant-General's Office. + +[2] Dodwell and Miles, Indian Army List, 1760-1834. + +[3] "You have Heard of Them," New York, 1854. + +[4] _Morning Herald_, 8th June 1843. + +[5] "An Englishman in Paris," 1892. The author of this book was A. D. +Vandam, who could not have had this from Lola personally, seeing that he +was born in 1842. + +[6] Vandam, "An Englishman in Paris." + +[7] De Mirecourt (_Contemporains_) fixes the date of this episode in 1843, +and bases it in reports in the _Constitutionnel_, which I have been unable +to trace. + +[8] All the statements made concerning Lola in "An Englishman in Paris" +must be received with caution, as they can only be taken at the best as +hearsay evidence transcribed by Vandam. + +[9] The foregoing section may seem more in the style of a novel than a +biography, but, the dialogue not excepted, it is an exact _résumé_ of the +evidence given at the subsequent trial. + +[10] It is imitated by Heine in some ironical verse, condoling with +Frederick William of Prussia on Lola's preference for Louis. + +[11] _Morning Herald_, 3rd March 1868. + +[12] "Unter den vier ersten Königen Bayerns," 1894. + +[13] "Ein Vormärzliches Tanzidyll." Berlin. + +[14] I have used and slightly abridged the translation given in the +_Morning Herald_. + +[15] Frau Von Kobell calls her Countess of Landsberg, a place to be found +on the map, which Landsfeld is not. + +[16] This was the house built by Metzger, now number 19 Barerstrasse. + +[17] Fuchs, "Ein Vormärzliches Tanzidyll." + +[18] Times, 4th March 1868. + +[19] So says Mr. Boase in the "Dictionary of National Biography," but +quotes no authority. + +[20] "Bygone Years," 1905. + +[21] "Life and Adventures of G. A. Sala," 1896. + +[22] _Times_, 7th August 1849. + +[23] _Les Contemporains_, Paris, 1857. No sources of information are +indicated. De Mirecourt's real name was Jacquot. + +[24] _New York Tribune_, 6th December 1851. + +[25] By way of digression I cannot refrain from instancing the absurd +practice obtaining in some newspapers of printing the title Mrs., when +applied to a woman not legally married, in inverted commas, in spite of +the dictum of English law which says that any one can call themselves by +any description they please. + +[26] _New York Tribune_, 10th August 1853. + +[27] _Era_, 6th January 1856. + +[28] _Morning Herald_, 7th May, 1856. + +[29] De Mirecourt. + +[30] Phelps, "Players of a Century." + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Lola Montez, by Edmund B. d'Auvergne + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOLA MONTEZ *** + +***** This file should be named 38512-8.txt or 38512-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/5/1/38512/ + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Lola Montez + An Adventuress of the 'Forties + +Author: Edmund B. d'Auvergne + +Release Date: January 6, 2012 [EBook #38512] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOLA MONTEZ *** + + + + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/cover.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p> </p><p> </p><p> </p> + +<h1><span class="u">LOLA MONTEZ</span></h1> +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/deco.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p> </p><p> </p><p> </p> +<div class="vertsbox"> +<p class="hang"><b>UNIFORM LIBRARY EDITION OF THE WORKS OF GUY DE MAUPASSANT</b>, newly +translated into English by Marjorie Laurie.</p> + + +<p><b>Volume 1. BEL-AMI.</b></p> + +<p class="blockquot">“Bel-Ami” is an extraordinarily fine full-length portrait of an +unscrupulous rascal who exploits his success with women for the +furtherance of his ambitions. The book simmers with humorous +observations, and, as a satire on politics and journalism, is no less +biting because it is not bitter.</p> + +<p><b>Volume 2. A LIFE.</b></p> + +<p class="blockquot">This story of a woman’s life, harrowed first by the faithlessness of +her husband and later by the worthlessness of her son, has been +described as one of the saddest books that has ever been written; it +is remorseless in its utter truthfulness.</p> + +<p><b>Volume 3. “BOULE DE SUIF”</b> and other Short Stories.</p> + +<p class="blockquot">A story of the part played by a little French prostitute in an +incident of the war of 1870. It was published in a collection of tales +by distinguished French writers of the day, and was so clearly the gem +of the collection that it established the Author at once as a master.</p> + +<p><b>Volume 4. THE HOUSE OF TELLIER.</b></p></div> + + + +<p> </p><p> <a name="frontis" id="frontis"></a></p><p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img1.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="center">LOLA MONTEZ.<br />Countess of Landsfeld</p> +<p> </p><p> </p><p> </p> + + + +<p class="center"><span class="giant">LOLA MONTEZ</span></p> +<p class="center"><span class="large">AN ADVENTURESS OF THE ’FORTIES</span></p> +<p> </p> +<p class="center"><small>BY</small><br /> +<span class="large"><span class="smcap">EDMUND B. d’AUVERGNE</span></span></p> +<p> </p> +<p class="center">ILLUSTRATED</p> +<p> </p> +<p class="center">LONDON<br /> +T. WERNER LAURIE, LTD.<br /> +30 NEW BRIDGE STREET, E.C.4</p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<p class="center"><i>First Printed April 1909<br /> +Second Edition, December 1909<br /> +Third Impression, November 1924<br /> +Fourth Impression, February 1925</i></p> +<p> </p> +<p class="center"><i>Printed in Great Britain by<br /> +Fox, Jones & Co., at the Kemp Hall Press, Oxford, England</i></p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span></p> +<h2>PREFACE</h2> + +<p>The story of a brave and beautiful woman, whose fame filled Europe and +America within the memory of our parents, seems to be worth telling. The +human note in history is never more thrilling than when it is struck in +the key of love. In what were perhaps more virile ages, the great ones of +the earth frankly acknowledged the irresistible power of passion and the +supreme desirability of beauty. Their followers thought none the less of +them for being sons of Adam. Lola Montez was the last of that long and +illustrious line of women, reaching back beyond Cleopatra and Aspasia, +before whom kings bent in homage, and by whose personality they openly +confess themselves to be swayed. Since her time man has thrown off the +spell of woman’s beauty, and seems to dread still more the competition of +her intellect.</p> + +<p>Lola Montez, some think, came a century too late; “in the eighteenth +century,” said Claudin, “she would have played a great part.” The part she +played was, at all events, stirring and strange enough. The most +spiritually and æsthetically minded sovereign in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span> Europe worshipped her as +a goddess; geniuses of coarser fibre, such as Dumas, sought her society. +She associated with the most highly gifted men of her time. Equipped only +with the education of a pre-Victorian schoolgirl, she overthrew the ablest +plotters and intriguers in Europe, foiled the policy of Metternich, and +hoisted the standard of freedom in the very stronghold of Ultramontane and +reactionary Germany.</p> + +<p>Driven forth by a revolution, she wandered over the whole world, +astonishing Society by her masculine courage, her adaptability to all +circumstances and surroundings. She who had thwarted old Europe’s skilled +diplomatists, knew how to horsewhip and to cow the bullies of young +Australia’s mining camps. An indifferent actress, her beauty and sheer +force of character drew thousands to gaze at her in every land she trod. +So she flashed like a meteor from continent to continent, heard of now at +St. Petersburg, now at New York, now at San Francisco, now at Sydney. She +crammed enough experience into a career of forty-two years to have +surfeited a centenarian. She had her moments of supreme exaltation, of +exquisite felicity. Her vicissitudes were glorious and sordid. She was +presented by a king to his whole court as his best friend; she was dragged +to a London police-station on a charge of felony. But in prosperity she +never lost her head, and in adversity she never lost her courage.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span>A splendid animal, always doing what she wished to do; a natural pagan in +her delight in life and love and danger—she cherished all her life an +unaccountable fondness for the most conventional puritanical forms of +Christianity, dying at last in the bosom of the Protestant Church, with +sentiments of self-abasement and contrition that would have done credit to +a Magdalen or Pelagia.</p> + +<p>In my sympathy with this fascinating woman, it is possible that I have +exaggerated the importance of her <i>rôle</i>; probable, also, that I have +digressed too freely into reflections on her motives and on the forces +with which she had to contend. Those who prefer a bare recital of the +facts of her career, I refer at once to the admirable epitome to be found +in the “Dictionary of National Biography.” Here I have not hesitated to +include all that seemed to me to throw light on the subject of my sketch, +on the people around her, and on the influences that shaped her destiny.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Edmund B. d’Auvergne.</span></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a></span></p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</a></span></p> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="table"> +<tr><td><small>CHAP.</small></td><td> </td><td align="right"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#I">I.</a></td><td>CHILDHOOD</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#II">II.</a></td><td>A RUNAWAY MATCH</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_11">11</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#III">III.</a></td><td>FIRST STEPS IN MATRIMONY</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_17">17</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#IV">IV.</a></td><td>INDIA SEVENTY YEARS AGO</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_21">21</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#V">V.</a></td><td>RIVEN BONDS</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_31">31</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#VI">VI.</a></td><td>LONDON IN THE ’FORTIES</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_39">39</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#VII">VII.</a></td><td>WANDERJAHRE</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_47">47</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#VIII">VIII.</a></td><td>FRANZ LISZT</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_59">59</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#IX">IX.</a></td><td>AT THE BANQUET OF THE IMMORTALS</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_65">65</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#X">X.</a></td><td>MÉRY</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_75">75</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XI">XI.</a></td><td>DUJARIER</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_79">79</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XII">XII.</a></td><td>THE SUPPER AT THE FRÈRES PROVENÇAUX</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_83">83</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XIII">XIII.</a></td><td>THE CHALLENGE</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_87">87</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XIV">XIV.</a></td><td>THE DUEL</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_95">95</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XV">XV.</a></td><td>THE RECKONING</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_101">101</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XVI">XVI.</a></td><td>IN QUEST OF A PRINCE</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_107">107</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XVII">XVII.</a></td><td>THE KING OF BAVARIA</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_111">111</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XVIII">XVIII.</a></td><td>REACTION IN BAVARIA</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_121">121</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XIX">XIX.</a></td><td>THE ENTHRALMENT OF THE KING</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_125">125</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XX">XX.</a></td><td>THE ABEL MEMORANDUM</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_135">135</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[Pg x]</a></span><a href="#XXI">XXI.</a></td><td>THE INDISCRETIONS OF A MONARCH</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_143">143</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XXII">XXII.</a></td><td>THE MINISTRY OF GOOD HOPE</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_149">149</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XXIII">XXIII.</a></td><td>THE UNCROWNED QUEEN OF BAVARIA</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_157">157</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XXIV">XXIV.</a></td><td>THE DOWNFALL</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_163">163</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XXV">XXV.</a></td><td>THE RISING OF THE PEOPLES</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_173">173</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XXVI">XXVI.</a></td><td>LOLA IN SEARCH OF A HOME</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_177">177</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XXVII">XXVII.</a></td><td>A SECOND EXPERIMENT IN MATRIMONY</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_181">181</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XXVIII">XXVIII.</a></td><td>WESTWARD HO!</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_193">193</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XXIX">XXIX.</a></td><td>IN THE TRAIL OF THE ARGONAUTS</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_199">199</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XXX">XXX.</a></td><td>IN AUSTRALIA</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_205">205</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XXXI">XXXI.</a></td><td>LOLA AS A LECTURER</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_213">213</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XXXII">XXXII.</a></td><td>A LAST VISIT TO ENGLAND</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_219">219</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XXXIII">XXXIII.</a></td><td>THE MAGDALEN</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_223">223</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XXXIV">XXXIV.</a></td><td>LAST SCENE OF ALL</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_227">227</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td>SOURCES OF INFORMATION</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_234">234</a></td></tr></table> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[Pg xi]</a></span></p> +<h2>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="table"> +<tr><td>LOLA MONTEZ, COUNTESS OF LANDSFELD</td><td colspan="2" align="right"><a href="#frontis"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td></tr> +<tr><td>NICHOLAS I.</td><td><i>To face page</i></td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_55">54</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>FRANZ LISZT</td><td align="center">"</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_61">60</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>ALEXANDRE DUMAS, SENIOR</td><td align="center">"</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_71">70</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>LOUIS OF BAVARIA, WHEN ELECTORAL PRINCE</td><td align="center">"</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_113">112</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>LOUIS I, KING OF BAVARIA</td><td align="center">"</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_145">144</a></td></tr> +<tr><td>LOLA MONTEZ (AFTER JULES LAURE)</td><td align="center">"</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_196">194</a></td></tr></table> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> +<p class="center"><span class="giant">LOLA MONTEZ</span><br /> +<span class="huge">AN ADVENTURESS OF THE ’FORTIES</span></p> + +<p> </p> +<h2><a name="I" id="I"></a>I</h2> +<p class="title">CHILDHOOD</p> + +<p>The year 1818 was, on the whole, a good starting-point in life for people +with a taste and capacity for adventure. This was not suspected by those +already born. They looked forward, after the tempest that had so lately +ravaged Europe, to a golden age of slippered ease and general stagnation. +The volcanoes, they hoped, were all spent. “We have slumbered seven years, +let us forget this ugly dream,” complacently observed a German prince on +resuming possession of his dominions; and “the old, blind, mad, despised, +and dying king’s” worthy regent expressed the same confidence when he gave +the motto, “A sign of better times,” to an order founded in this +particular year. Yet the child that thus with royal encouragement began +life in England at that time learned before he could toddle to tremble at +the mysterious name of “Boney,” and later on would thrill with fear, +delight, and horror at his nurse’s recital of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> the atrocities and final +glorious undoing of that terrific ogre. Presently he would meet in his +walks abroad, red-coated, bewhiskered veterans who had met the monster +face to face (or said they had); who would recount stories of decapitated +kings, dreadful uprisings, and threatened invasions; who had lost a leg or +an arm or an eye at Waterloo or Salamanca; which victories (they assured +him) were mainly due to their individual valour and generalship. As the +child grew older he would begin to make a coherent story out of these +strange happenings: he would realise through what a period of storm and +stress the world had passed immediately before his advent. He would listen +eagerly at his father’s table to more trustworthy relations of the great +battles by men whose share in them his country was proud to acknowledge. +Waterloo, Trafalgar, the Nile, would be fought over again in the school +playground. For the best part of his life he might expect to have as +contemporaries, men who had seen Napoleon with their own eyes, and shaken +Nelson by his one hand—men who had seen thrones that seemed as stable as +the everlasting hills come crashing down, to be pieced together with a +cement of blood and gunpowder. How often the boy, or, as in this +particular case, the girl, must have longed for a recurrence of those +brave days, and deprecated the peaceful present. But for him (or her) far +more amazing things were in store. His it was to see society emerge from +its worn-out feudal chrysalis, and to take the path which may yet lead to +civilisation. Those born in 1818 could have the delightful distinction of +being carried in the first railway train, of sending the first “wire,” of +boarding the first “penny ’bus.” Born in the age of the coach and the hoy, +they would die in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> the era of the locomotive and mail steamer. Theirs was +an age of transition indeed, most curious to watch, most thrilling to +traverse. And—most valuable privilege of all to those that loved to play +a part in great affairs—they would be in good time to assist at the +widest spread and most terrific upheaval Europe had known since the +downfall of the Roman Empire. To have been thirty years of age in that +year of years, 1848! Those who witnessed the great drama must have felt +that to have come into the world more than three decades before would have +been a mistake the most grievous.</p> + +<p>Among the children fortunate enough, then, to be born when the nineteenth +century was in its eighteenth year was the heroine of our history. +Limerick, the city of the broken treaty, was her birthplace, Maria Dolores +Eliza Rosanna the names bestowed upon her in baptism. Only a year before +(on 3rd July 1817) her father, Edward Gilbert, had been gazetted an ensign +in the old 25th regiment of the line, now the King’s Own Scottish +Borderers. He may have been, as his daughter and only child afterwards +claimed, the scion of a knightly house, but he could boast a far more +honourable distinction—that he rose from the ranks and earned his +commission by valour and good conduct in the long Napoleonic wars.<a name='fna_1' id='fna_1' href='#f_1'><small>[1]</small></a> +Promotion it was, perhaps, that emboldened him to marry in the same year. +His wife was a girl of surpassing beauty, a Miss Oliver, of Castle Oliver, +wherever that may be, and a descendant of the Count de Montalvo, a Spanish +grandee, who had lost his immense estates in the wars. The ancestors of +this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> unfortunate noble (we are told) were Moors, and came into Spain in +the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, which was certainly the worst +possible moment they could have chosen for so doing. For this account of +Mrs. Gilbert’s ancestry we are indebted to her daughter, whose names +certainly suggest a Spanish origin. It was by her mournful second name, or +rather by its lightsome diminutive, Lola, that she was ever afterwards +known. Perhaps she was so called in remembrance of one of the proud +Montalvos. At all events, she never ceased to cherish the belief in her +half-Spanish blood. When she was a romantic young girl—for young girls +<i>were</i> romantic seventy years ago—Spain obsessed the Byronic caste of +mind. It was regarded as the home of chivalry, romance, love, poetry, and +adventure. To be ever so little Spanish was accounted a most enviable +distinction. So it would be ungenerous of us to impugn Lola’s claim to +what she and her contemporaries considered an inestimable privilege. True +or false, the idea was one she imbibed with her mother’s milk—though I +forgot to say that, according to her own statement, she was nourished at +this early period by an Irish nurse. I wish I could say in what religion +the new daughter of the regiment was educated. Somewhere she says that her +mother eloped with her father from a convent. The strong dislike she +manifested in after years for the Roman Catholic Church may have been +inspired by this circumstance, and suggests, at any rate, in one not +keenly sensible of nice theological distinctions, some personal motive +arising from a bitter experience.</p> + +<p>If the baby Lola gave promise of the woman, Edward Gilbert must have been +proud of his child—as proud of her as of his pretty wife and his hard-won +commission.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> But those years in troubled Ireland must have been anxious +ones for him. There is no evidence that he possessed private means, and to +support a wife and child on the pay of an ensign in a marching regiment +would necessitate economies of the most painful description. In the East, +now that Europe was at peace, lay the only hope of immediately increased +pay and rapid promotion. The establishment of the King’s Own Scottish +Borderers was reduced, in August 1822, from ten to eight companies, and +Gilbert was able to obtain, in consequence, a transfer to the 44th of the +line, already under orders for India. His appointment to his new +regiment—now the first battalion Essex regiment—is dated 10th October +1822. With his young wife and child he embarked, accordingly, for the land +of promise. Probably the four-year-old Lola endured best of the three the +unspeakable fatigue and tedium of that long, long journey round the +Cape—a voyage which in those days it was no uncommon thing to prolong by +a call at Rio de Janeiro. It was not till four months had been passed at +the mercy of wind and wave that our weary travellers set foot in Calcutta.</p> + +<p>The regiment was stationed at Fort William, and there the ensign’s hopes +of speedy advancement early received encouragement. At one time seventeen +of his brother officers lay sick with the fever, and before six months had +fled, the last post was sounded over the graves of Major Guthrie, Captain +O’Reilly, and Lieutenants Twinberrow and Sargent. The unspoken question on +every one’s lips was, Whose turn next? In this Indian pest-house there +must have been moments when the young mother, fearful for her husband and +child, longed fiercely for the rain-drenched streets of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> Limerick. At last +the regiment was ordered to Dinapore. The journey was effected, as was +usual in those days, by water, an element to which the Gilberts were now +well accustomed. But here, instead of the monotonous expanse of ocean, +they had slowly unfolded before them the strange and brightly-coloured +panorama of the East—gorgeous, teeming cities, the dreadful, burning +ghâts, rank jungle, dense forests, rich rice-fields. As the flotilla +travelled only 12 or 14 miles a day, the passengers had ample time to +stretch their limbs ashore, and to visit the towns and villages passed <i>en +route</i>. The voyage, too, did not lack incident. On one occasion nine boats +were swamped, and eight British redcoats went to swell the horrible +procession of corpses which floats ever seaward down the Sacred River. +Another night the Colonel’s boat took fire, and the flames, spreading to +other vessels, consumed the regimental band’s music and instruments, which +were so sorely needed to revive the drooping spirits of the fever-stricken +troops.</p> + +<p>However, in the excitement of taking up their new quarters at Dinapore, +these evil omens were, no doubt, forgotten. Pretty women were rare in +India in those days, and Mrs. Gilbert received (from the men, at all +events) a right royal welcome. She was acclaimed queen of the station, +and, as her husband, the Ensign, became, of course, a person of +consequence. This was better than Ireland, after all. Dinapore was a +fairly lively spot, and regimental society was not overshadowed, as at +Calcutta, by the magnates of Government House. So Lola’s mother flirted +and danced, while Lola herself was petted by grey-haired generals and +callow subs., and Lola’s father began to dream of a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> captaincy. One day, +in the early part of 1824, his place at the mess-table was vacant. The +doctor looked in, and said “Cholera,” and a few faces blanched. Craigie, +the Ensign’s best friend, hurried to his bedside. The dying man was +speechless, but conscious. Beckoning to his friend, he placed his weeping +wife’s hand in his, and, having thus conveyed his last wish, died.</p> + +<p>Lola was left fatherless before she was seven years old. She and her +mother, she tells us, were promptly taken charge of by the wife of General +Brown.</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“The hearts of a hundred officers, young and old, beat all at once +with such violence, that the whole atmosphere for ten miles round +fairly throbbed with the emotion. But in this instance the general +fever did not last long, for Captain Craigie led the young widow +Gilbert to the altar himself. He was a man of high intellectual +accomplishments, and soon after this marriage his regiment was ordered +back to Calcutta, and he was advanced to the rank of major.”</p> + +<p>We are thus able to identify Lola’s stepfather with John Craigie of the +Bengal Army, who was gazetted Captain on 11th May 1816, and Major, 18th +May 1825. Four years later he attained the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel.<a name='fna_2' id='fna_2' href='#f_2'><small>[2]</small></a> +He seems to have been a generous, warm-hearted man, who never forgot the +trust placed in him by his dying friend at Dinapore. To him Lola was +indebted for such education as she received in India. That was not of a +very thorough character. With a mother who, we learn, was passionately +fond of society and amusement, little Miss Gilbert must have passed most +of her time in the company of ayahs and orderlies,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> picking up the native +tongue with the facility which distinguished her in after life, and +domineering tremendously over idolatrous sepoys and dignified khansamahs. +I can imagine her on the knees of veterans at her father’s table, +delighting them with her beauty, and still more with her boldness and +childish ready wit. Of course, His Excellency (Lord William Bentinck) +would take notice of the pretty, pert child of handsome Mrs. Craigie, and +it is not to be wondered at that all her life she should hanker after the +atmosphere of a court, remembering the vice-regal glories at Calcutta.</p> + +<p>It seems to have dawned upon Mrs. Craigie, not very long after her second +marriage, that her daughter was, to use a common expression, running wild. +A little discipline, it was felt, would do her good. It was decided to +send her home to her stepfather’s relatives at Montrose. With screams, +sobs, and wild protests, the eight-year-old girl accordingly found herself +torn from the redcoats and brown faces that she loved, once more to +undertake that terrible four months’ journey to a land which she had +probably completely forgotten.</p> + +<p>The contrast between Calcutta, the gorgeous city of palaces, and Montrose, +the dour, wintry burgh among the sandhills by the northern sea, must have +chilled the heart of the passionate child. Yet she does not seem in after +life to have thought with any bitterness of the place, and speaks with +respect, if not affection, of her new guardian, Major Craigie’s father. +She writes:—</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“This venerable man had been provost of Montrose for nearly a quarter +of a century, and the dignity of his profession, as well as the great +respectability of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> his family, made every event connected with his +household a matter of some public note, and the arrival of the queer, +wayward, little East Indian girl was immediately known to all +Montrose. The peculiarity of her dress, and I dare say not a little +eccentricity in her manners, served to make her an object of curiosity +and remark; and very likely she perceived that she was somewhat of a +public character, and may have begun, even at this early age, to +assume airs and customs of her own.”</p> + +<p>That is, indeed, very likely. Further information concerning our heroine’s +stay at Montrose we have little. She does not seem to have retained any +very vivid impressions of her childhood. One of the few events in the +meagre history of the little Scots town she was privileged to witness—the +erection of the suspension bridge from Inchbrayock over the Esk. Here it +was, too, that she formed that friendship with the girl, afterwards Mrs. +Buchanan, which was destined to form her greatest consolation in the +evening of her days. The Craigies were strict Calvinists, and some of her +biographers have assumed, in consequence, that they must have treated the +child with rigour and inspired her with a distaste for religion. She never +said so, as far as I can ascertain. On the contrary, throughout her life +she evinced a marked bias in favour of Protestantism, which is quite as +compatible with an erotic temperament as was the zeal for Catholicism +displayed by the favourite mistress of Charles II.</p> + +<p>Her parents, says Lola, being somehow impressed with the idea that she was +being petted and spoiled (by the gloomy Calvinists aforesaid), she was +removed to the family of Sir Jasper Nicolls, of London. It is to be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> +observed that neither now nor after do we hear of her father’s relatives, +who one would suppose to have been her proper guardians. This circumstance +certainly discountenances the theory of Edward Gilbert’s exalted +parentage. Sir Jasper Nicolls, K.C.B., Major-General, was succeeded by +Major-General Watson in the command of the Meerut Division in 1831, in +which year it may be presumed he returned to England, and took his friend +Craigie’s stepdaughter under his wing. Like most Indian officers, he +preferred to spend his pension out of England, and gladly hurried his +girls off to Paris to complete their education. They missed the July +Revolution by a year; but all France was presently ringing with the +exploits of the brave Duchesse de Berry, who became the idol of the +<i>pensionnats</i>. To Lola, no doubt, she seemed a heroine worthier of +imitation than the young Princess Alexandrina Victoria, who was just then +touring her uncle’s dominions. The romantic fever was at its height in +Paris. To her schoolfellows the beautiful Anglo-Indian girl, with her +Spanish name and ancestry, must have appeared a new edition of De Musset’s +“Andalouse.” The influences about her at this time tended to stimulate all +that was romantic and adventurous in her temperament, and determined, +perhaps, her action in the first great crisis of her life.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="II" id="II"></a>II</h2> +<p class="title">A RUNAWAY MATCH</p> + +<p>It was now fifteen years since Mrs. Craigie had visited England, and +rather more than ten since she had seen her daughter. She had been made +aware that Lola’s beauty far exceeded the promise of her childish years, +and this she took care to make known to all the eligible bachelors of +Bengal. The charms of the erstwhile pet of the 44th were eagerly discussed +by men who had never seen her. Lonely writers in up-country stations +brooded on her perfections, as advertised by Mrs. Craigie, and came to the +conclusion that she was precisely the woman wanted to convert their +secluded establishments into homes. It was difficult to get a wife of the +plainest description in the India of William IV.’s day, and the +competition for the hand of the unknown beauty oversea was proportionately +keen. If marriage by proxy were recognised by English law Lola’s fate +would have been sealed long before she was aware of it. From a worldly +point of view the most desirable of these ardent suitors was Sir Abraham +Lumley, whom our heroine unkindly describes as a rich and gouty old rascal +of sixty years, and Judge of the Supreme Court in India. We see that in +that rude age it was not the custom to speak of sexagenarians as in the +prime of life. To the venerable<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> magistrate Mrs. Craigie promised her +daughter in marriage. Remembering the hard times she had gone through with +her first husband, the penniless ensign, and forgetting, as we do when +past thirty, how those hardships were lightened by love, she no doubt felt +that she had acted extremely well by her daughter. Women’s ideas on the +subject of marriage are usually absolutely conventional, and since unions +between men of sixty and girls of eighteen are not condemned by the +official exponents of religion, you would never have persuaded Mrs. +Craigie that they were immoral. Outside the Decalogue (and the Police +Regulations) all things are lawful. Well pleased with herself, the still +handsome Anglo-Indian lady sailed for home in the early part of the year +1837, proposing to bring her daughter back with her to the bosom of +Abraham.</p> + +<p>She found Lola at Bath, whither she had been sent from Paris with Fanny +Nicolls “to undergo the operation of what is properly called finishing +their education.” I do not suppose the meeting between mother and daughter +was especially cordial, considering the temperament of the former and the +long period of separation, but Mrs. Craigie was delighted to find that +report had nowise exaggerated the young girl’s charms. This was also the +private opinion of Mr. Thomas James, a lieutenant in the 21st regiment of +Native Infantry (Bengal), a young officer who had attached himself to Mrs. +Craigie on the voyage and accompanied her to Bath. The mother thought him +quite safe, as he had told her that he was betrothed, and had consulted +her about his prospects, or, rather, the want of them. The married ladies +of India have always been full of maternal solicitude for poor young +subalterns, who frequently<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> repay their kindness with touching devotion. +It was probably the wish to be useful to his benefactress that had drawn +Mr. James to Bath. Or it may have been that he wished to drink the waters, +for I forgot to say that he had been ill during the voyage, and owed his +recovery to Mrs. Craigie’s careful nursing.</p> + +<p>Lola was staggered by the kindness and liberality of her mother. Visits to +the milliner’s and the dressmaker’s succeeded each other with startling +rapidity; jewellery, <i>lingerie</i>, all sorts of delightful things were +showered upon her in bewildering profusion. Lieutenant James was kept on +his legs all day, escorting the ladies to the <i>modistes</i> and running +errands to Madame Jupon and Mademoiselle Euphrosine. At last the girl +began to suspect that there must be some other motive for this excessive +interest in her personal appearance than maternal fondness. She made bold +one day (she tells us) to ask her mother what this was all about, and +received for an answer that it did not concern her—that children should +not be inquisitive, nor ask idle questions. (Lola is the only girl on +record who protested that too much money was being spent on her wardrobe.) +Her suspicions naturally increased tenfold. In her perplexity she sought +information from the Lieutenant, of whose interest in her she had probably +become conscious. Then she learnt the horrible truth. The wardrobe so fast +accumulating was her <i>trousseau</i>, and she was the promised bride of a man +in India old enough to be her grandfather. For a moment Lola was stunned. +For a full-blooded, passionate girl of eighteen the prospect was hideous. +We may be sure, too, that her informant did not understate the personal +disadvantages of Sir Abraham Lumley. Neither did he neglect this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> +favourable opportunity to declare his own passion for the proposed victim, +and to press his suit. An interview with Mrs. Craigie followed.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“The little madcap cried and stormed alternately. The mother was +determined—so was her child; the mother was inflexible—so was her +child; and in the wildest language of defiance she told her that she +never would be thus thrown alive into the jaws of death.</p> + +<p>“Here, then, was one of those fatal family quarrels, where the child +is forced to disobey parental authority, or to throw herself away into +irredeemable wretchedness and ruin. It is certainly a fearful +responsibility for a parent to assume of forcing a child to such +alternatives. But the young Dolores sought the advice and assistance +of her mother’s friend....”</p></div> + +<p>She was probably a little in love with that friend, who was a fine-looking +fellow, about a dozen years older than herself, and who had certainly +conceived a violent passion for her. The situation was conventionally +romantic. The books of that time were full of distressed damsels being +forced into hateful unions. Lola, it is safe to say, relished her new +<i>rôle</i> of heroine not a little. So when her lover proposed a runaway +match, she felt that she was bound to comply with the usual stage +directions. After all, what could be more delightful?—an elopement in a +post-chaise with a dashing young officer, an angry mamma in pursuit, and, +happily, no angry papa, armed with pistols or horse-whip.</p> + +<p>Away they went. Lola has left us no particulars of the flight. The +runaways reappear, in the first month of Queen Victoria’s reign, in the +girl’s native land, where she was placed under the protection of her +lover’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> family. “They had a great muss [<i>sic</i>] in trying to get married.” +Lola was under age, and her mother’s consent was indispensable. James sent +his sister to Bath to intercede with Mrs. Craigie. The lady was furious. +Not only had her daughter upset her most cherished project, but had run +off with her most devoted friend and admirer. Mrs. Craigie was a prey to +the most mortifying reflections. No doubt she asked Miss James what had +become of the young lady to whom her brother had declared he was +affianced. She probably said some very unkind things about the Lieutenant. +At last, however, “good sense so far prevailed as to make her see that +nothing but evil and sorrow could come of her refusal, and she consented, +but would neither be present at the wedding, nor send her blessing.” We +are not told if she sent the voluminous <i>trousseau</i>, which had been the +cause of all the mischief. She returned soon after, I gather, to India, to +announce to the unfortunate Sir Abraham the collapse of his matrimonial +scheme.</p> + +<p>Miss James returned to Ireland with the necessary authority, and Thomas +James, Lieutenant, and Maria Dolores Eliza Rosanna Gilbert, spinster, were +made man and wife in County Meath on the 23rd July 1837. The bride’s +reflections on this event are worth quoting:—</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“So, in flying from that marriage with ghastly and gouty old age, the +child lost her mother, and gained what proved to be only the outside +shell of a husband, who had neither a brain which she could respect, +nor a heart which it was possible for her to love. Runaway matches, +like runaway horses, are almost sure to end in a smash up. My advice +to all young girls who contemplate taking such a step is, that they +had better hang or drown themselves just one hour before they start.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>This warning was obviously intended to counteract the dreadful example of +the writer’s subsequent life and adventures, and to dissuade ambitious +young ladies from following in her footsteps. Lola did not, of course, +believe what she said. Even “when wild youth’s past” and the glamour of +love has worn thin, no sensible woman could believe that she would have +got much happiness out of life if it had been passed in wedlock with a man +half a century her senior. Perhaps, however, Lola sadly reflected that if +she had become Sir Abraham’s wife, she would probably have become his +widow a very few years after.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="III" id="III"></a>III</h2> +<p class="title">FIRST STEPS IN MATRIMONY</p> + +<p>Thus Lola found herself in Ireland, the wife of a penniless +subaltern—exactly the position of her mother twenty years before. “All +for love and the world well lost,” she might have exclaimed. There is no +reason to suppose that disillusionment came to her any sooner than to +other hot-headed and romantic young ladies similarly placed. She was +accustomed to view her early married life in the bitter light of +subsequent experience, and forgot all the sweets and raptures of first +love. Women of her temperament always find it hard to believe that they +ever really loved men whom they have since learned to hate. Even by her +own account, those months in Ireland were not altogether unrelieved by the +glitter for which her soul craved. Her husband took her to Dublin, she +informs us, and presented her to the Lord-Lieutenant. His Excellency Lord +Normanby was one of the few good rulers England has placed over Ireland, +and like most clever men, he was an admirer of pretty women. Lola seems to +have been made much of by him. He paid her many compliments, among others +this, “Women of your age are the queens of society”—a remark which may be +addressed with equally good effect to ladies anywhere between seventeen +and seventy.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> Mr. James began to grow restive under the fire of admiration +directed by great personages upon his young wife. It is not impossible to +believe that she flirted. Her husband decided to withdraw her from the +seductions of the viceregal court, and retired with her to some spot in +the interior, the name of which has not been transmitted to us. Lola, in +memoirs she contributed years after to a Parisian newspaper, describes her +life in this retreat as unutterably tedious. The day was passed in hunting +and eating, these exercises succeeding each other with the utmost +regularity. Meanwhile, the system was sustained by innumerable cups of +tea, taken at stated intervals, and with much deliberateness.</p> + +<p>Ireland had changed since the emancipation of the Catholics. It was not +with tea that the heroes of Charles Lever’s time beguiled the tedium of +existence.</p> + +<p>“This dismal life,” continues our heroine, “weighed on me to such an +extent that I should assuredly have done something desperate if my husband +had not just then been ordered to return to India.” Lola, it will have +been seen, entertained little affection for her native land. She had no +recollection of her childhood there, and she never afterwards thought of +the country except in connection with the detested husband of her youth.</p> + +<p>In the second year of the Queen’s reign she left Ireland, to return years +after in very different circumstances. Her fondest memories were of the +East, towards which she now gladly turned her face for the second time. +“On the old trail, on the out trail,” she sailed aboard the East Indiaman, +<i>Blunt</i>, her husband at her side. There is a curious parallelism between +her mother’s life and her own up till now, which she could<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> not have +failed to notice. Her memories of the voyage strike me rather as having +been specially spiced for the consumption of Parisian readers, than as an +authentic relation. James, we are told, neglected his young wife, and +exhibited an amazing capacity for absorbing porter. Finding the time heavy +on her hands, Lola resorted to the commonest of all distractions on +passenger ships—flirting. While her consort lay sleeping “like a +boa-constrictor” in his bunk, his wife’s admirers used to slip notes under +the door, these serving her as spills for Mr. James’s pipe. The gentlemen +who fell under the spell of Lola’s fascinations at this stage of her +career were three in number—a Spaniard called Enriquez, an Englishman, +simply described as John, and the skipper himself. This “colossal sailor” +seems to have been somewhat of a philosopher. One of his profound +reflections has been handed down to us, and is worth recording: “Love is a +pipe we fill at eighteen, and smoke till forty; and we rake the ashes till +our exit.”</p> + +<p>Lola thus pictures as a man-enslaving Circe the girl who was described by +a contemporary as a good little thing, merry and unaffected. I doubt if +the flirtations here magnified into intrigues were very serious affairs, +after all. It is rather pathetic, the woman’s shame for the simplicity of +the girl, and her evident desire to paint her redder than she was. It is +probable that the girl would have been quite as much ashamed if she could +have seen herself at thirty.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span></p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>IV</h2> +<p class="title">INDIA SEVENTY YEARS AGO</p> + +<p>The land to which little Mrs. James was eager to return seems to us now to +have been a poor exchange for the rollicking Ireland of Lever’s day. India +in 1838, as for a score of years after, was under the rule of John +Company. Collectors and writers of the Jos. Sedley type were still able to +shake the pagoda tree, and Englishmen in outlying provinces often became +suddenly rich, how or why nobody asked, and only the natives cared. Indigo +planters beat their half-caste wives to death, and English magistrates +looked the other way. Our people died, like flies in autumn, of cholera, +snakebites, and the thousand and one fevers to which India was subject. We +were still shut in by powerful native states. Ranjit Singh ruled in the +Punjaub, the Baluchis in Scinde; there was yet a king in Oude and a rajah +at Nagpûr. Slavery was only abolished in the British dominions that very +year, and Hindoo widows had but lately lost the privilege of burning +themselves on their husbands’ funeral pyres. The chronic famine had +assumed slightly more serious proportions.</p> + +<p>It was a land of loneliness, remote and isolated. A postal service had +been introduced only the year before, and letters took at least three +months to come from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> England. This was by the overland route, which was +liable at any moment to interruption by the caprice of the Pasha of Egypt +or the enterprise of Bedouins. There were, of course, no railways and no +telegraphs. You travelled wherever possible by river, in boats called +budgerows, which had not increased in speed since Ensign Gilbert’s day. +Going up the Ganges you might have seen the Danish flag waving over +Serampore. If you were in a hurry and could afford it, you travelled +<i>dâk</i>—that is, in a palanquin, carried by four bearers, who were changed +at each stage like posting-horses. This method of travel—about the most +uncomfortable, I conceive, ever devised by man—greatly impressed and +interested Lola. She thought it repugnant to one’s sense of humanity, but +could not help observing the lightheartedness of the bearers. They jogged +briskly along to the accompaniment of improvised songs, which were not +always flattering to their human load.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“I will give you a sample,” says our traveller, “as well as it could +be made out, of what I heard them sing while carrying an English +clergyman who could not have weighed less than two hundred and +twenty-five pounds. Each line of the following jargon was sung in a +different voice:—</p> + +<p class="poem">“‘Oh, what a heavy bag!<br /> +No, it is an elephant;<br /> +He is an awful weight.<br /> +Let us throw his palki down,<br /> +Let us set him in the mud—<br /> +Let us leave him to his fate.<br /> +Ay, but he will beat us then<br /> +With a thick stick.<br /> +Then let’s make haste and get along,<br /> +Jump along quickly!’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>“And off they started in a jog-trot, which must have shaken every bone +in his reverence’s body, keeping chorus all the time of ‘Jump along +quickly,’ until they were obliged to stop for laughing.</p> + +<p>“They invariably (continues Lola) suit these extempore chants to the +weight and character of their burden. I remember to have been +exceedingly amused one day at the merry chant of my human horses as +they started off on the run.</p> + +<p class="poem">“‘She’s not heavy,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Cabbada [take care]!</span><br /> +Little baba [missie],<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Cabbada!</span><br /> +<br /> +Carry her swiftly,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Cabbada!</span><br /> +Pretty baba,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Cabbada!’</span></p> + +<p>“And so they went on, singing and extemporising for the whole hour and +a half’s journey. It is quite a common custom to give them four annas +(or English sixpence) apiece at the end of every stage, when fresh +horses [<i>sic</i>] are put under the burden; but a gentleman of my +acquaintance, who had been carried too slowly, as he thought, only +gave them two annas apiece. The consequence was that during the next +stage the men not only went faster, but they made him laugh with their +characteristic song, the whole burden of which was: ‘He has only given +them two annas, because they went slowly; let us make haste, and get +along quickly, and then we shall get eight annas, and have a good +supper.’”</p></div> + +<p>The burden of the European’s life in India at this period is voiced in +“Marois’” poem, <i>The Long, Long,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> Indian Day</i>. It was the empire of +<i>ennui</i>. A strongly puritanical tone, too, was observable in certain +influential circles, and the clergy frequently discountenanced and +condemned the poor efforts at relaxation made by officers and their wives. +Dances and amateur theatricals were often the subject of censure from the +pulpit. So the men fell back on brandy pawnee, loo, and tiger-shooting. +The women were worse off. To the Honourable Emily Eden we are indebted for +some vivid pictures of Anglo-Indian society during the viceroyalty of her +brother, Lord Auckland (1836-1842). They enable us to realise Lola’s +emotions and manner of life during her second visit to India. Miss Eden’s +compassionate interest was excited by</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“a number of young ladies just come out by the last ships, looking so +fresh and English, and longing to amuse themselves—and it must be +such a bore at that age to be shut up for twenty-three hours out of +the twenty-four; and the one hour that they are out is only an airing +just where the roads are watered. They have no gardens, no villages, +no poor people, no schools, no poultry to look after—none of the +occupations of young people. Very few of them are at ease with their +parents; and, in short, it is a melancholy sight to see a new young +arrival.”</p> + +<p>Another passage runs:—</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“It is a melancholy country for wives at the best, and I strongly +advise you never to let young girls marry an East Indian. There was a +pretty Mrs. —— dining here yesterday, quite a child in looks, who +married just before the <i>Repulse</i> sailed, and landed here about ten +days ago. She goes on next week to Neemuch, a place at the farthest +extremity of India, where there<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> is not another European woman, and +great part of the road to it is through jungle, which is only passable +occasionally from its unwholesomeness. She detests what she has seen +of India, and evidently begins to think ‘papa and mamma’ were right in +withholding for a year their consent to her marriage. I think she +wishes they had held out another month. There is another, Mrs. ——, +who is only <i>fifteen</i>, who married when we were at the Cape, ... and +went straight on to her husband’s station, where for five months she +had never seen a European. He was out surveying all day, and they +lived in a tent. She has utterly lost her health and spirits, and +though they have come down here for three weeks’ furlough, she has +never been able even to call here [at Government House]. He came to +make her excuse, and said, with a deep sigh: ‘Poor girl! she must go +back to her solitude. She hoped she could have gone out a little in +Calcutta, to give her something to think of.’ And then, if these poor +women have children, they must send them away just as they become +amusing. It is an abominable place.”</p> + +<p>This was not realised at once by Mrs. James, whose first season (she tells +us) was passed “in the gay and fashionable city of Calcutta.” There she +became an acknowledged beauty. Not long after the outbreak of the first +Afghan War she was torn away from the comparative brilliance of the +capital, and accompanied her husband most reluctantly, to Karnál, a town +between Delhi and Simla, on the Jumna Canal. The place is no longer a +military station. At this juncture, happily for us, a flood of light is +poured upon Lola’s character and history by the letters of Miss Eden, +dated from Simla and Karnál in the latter part of the year 1839. I include +some extracts not directly relating to Lola, as they describe scenes in +which she must have taken<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> part, and which formed the background against +which she moved.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="right">“<i>Sunday, 8th September</i> [1839].</p> + +<p>“Simla is much moved just now by the arrival of a Mrs. J[ames], who +has been talked of as a great beauty of the year, and that drives +every other woman, with any pretensions in that line, quite +distracted, with the exception of Mrs. N., who, I must say, makes no +fuss about her own beauty, nor objects to it in other people. Mrs. +J[ames] is the daughter of a Mrs. C[raigie], who is still very +handsome herself, and whose husband is Deputy-Adjutant-General, or +some military authority of that kind. She sent this only child to be +educated at home, and went home herself two years ago to see her. On +the same ship was Mr. J., a poor ensign, going home on sick leave. +Mrs. C. nursed him and took care of him, and took him to see her +daughter, who was a girl of fifteen [<i>sic</i>] at school. He told her he +was engaged to be married, consulted her about his prospects, and in +the meantime privately married this girl at school. It was enough to +provoke any mother, but as it now cannot be helped, we have all been +trying to persuade her for the last year to make it up, as she frets +dreadfully about her only child. She has withstood it till now, but at +last consented to ask them for a month, and they arrived three days +ago. The <i>rush on the road</i> was remarkable, and one or two of the +ladies were looking absolutely nervous. But nothing could be more +unsatisfactory than the result, for Mrs. James looked lovely, and Mrs. +Craigie had set up for her a very grand jonpaun [kind of sedan-chair], +with bearers in fine orange and brown liveries, and the same for +herself; and James is a sort of smart-looking man, with bright +waistcoats and bright teeth, with a showy horse, and he rode along in +an attitude of respectful attention to <i>ma belle mère</i>. Altogether it +was an imposing sight, and I cannot see any way out of it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> but +magnanimous admiration. They all called yesterday when I was at the +waterfalls, and F[anny] thought her very pretty.”</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p class="right">“<i>Tuesday, 10th September.</i></p> + +<p>“We had a dinner yesterday. Mrs. James is undoubtedly very pretty, and +such a merry, unaffected girl. She is only seventeen now [twenty-one, +in fact], and does not look so old, and when one thinks that she is +married to a junior lieutenant in the Indian army fifteen years older +than herself, and that they have 160 rupees a month, and are to pass +their whole lives in India, I do not wonder at Mrs. Craigie’s +resentment at her having run away from school.</p> + +<p>“There are seventeen more officers come up to Simla on leave for a +month, partly in the hope of a little gaiety at the end of the rains; +and then the fancy fair has had a great reputation since last year, +and as they will all spend money, they are particularly welcome....</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p class="right">“<i>Wednesday, 11th September.</i></p> + +<p>“We had a large party last night, the largest we have had in Simla, +and it would have been a pretty ball anywhere, there were so many +pretty people. The retired wives, now that their husbands are on the +march back from Cabul, ventured out, and got through one evening +without any prejudice to their characters.”</p></div> + +<p>Are regimental ladies in India nowadays expected to keep in seclusion +while their husbands are on active service? I think not.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="right">“<i>Monday, 16th September.</i></p> + +<p>“We are going to a ball to-night, which the married gentlemen give us; +and instead of being at the only public room, which is a broken, +tumble-down place, it is to be at the C.’s [the Craigies’?], who very +good-naturedly give up their house for it.”</p> + + +<p> <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span></p> +<p class="right">“<i>Wednesday, 18th September.</i></p> + +<p>“The ball went off with the greatest success: transparencies of the +taking of Ghaznee, ‘Auckland’ in all directions, arches and verandahs +made up of flowers; a whist table for his lordship, which is always a +great relief at these balls; and every individual at Simla was there. +There was a supper room for us, made up of velvet and gold hangings +belonging to the Durbar, and a standing supper all night for the +company in general, at which one very fat lady was detected in eating +five suppers.... It was kept up till five, and altogether succeeded.”</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p class="right">“<i>Friday, 27th September.</i></p> + +<p>“We had our fancy fair on Wednesday, which went off with great +<i>éclat</i>, and was really a very amusing day, and, moreover, produced +6,500 rupees, which, for a very small society, is an immense sum. X. +and L. and a Captain C. were disguised as gipsies, and the most +villainous-looking set possible; and they came on to the fair, and +sang an excellent song about our poor old Colonel and a little hill +fort that he has been taking; but after the siege was over, he found +no enemy in it, otherwise, it was a gallant action.</p> + +<p>“We had provided luncheon at a large booth with the sign of the +‘Marquess of Granby.’ L. E. was old Weller, and so disguised I could +not guess him; X. was Sam Weller; K., Jingle; and Captain C., Mrs. +Weller; Captain Z., merely a waiter, with one or two other gentlemen; +but they all acted very well up to their characters, and the luncheon +was very good fun.... The afternoon ended with races—a regular +racing-stand, and a very tolerable course for the hills; all the +gentlemen in satin jackets and jockey caps, and a weighing stand—in +short, everything got up regularly. Everybody likes these out-of-door +amusements at this time of year, and it is a marvel to me how well X. +and K. and L. E. contrive to make all their plots and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> disguises go +on. I suppose in a very small society it is easier than it would be in +England, and they have all the assistance of servants to any amount, +who do all they are told, and merely think the ‘sahib log’ are mad.”</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p class="right">“<i>Tuesday, 15th October.</i></p> + +<p>“The Sikhs are here. Our ball for them last night went off very well. +The chiefs were in splendid gold dresses, and certainly very +gentleman-like men. They sat bolt upright on their chairs, with their +feet dangling, and I dare say suffered agonies from cramp. C. said we +saw them amazingly divided between the necessity of listening to +George [Lord Auckland], and their native feelings of not <i>seeming</i> +surprised, and their curiosity at men and women dancing together. I +think that they learned at least two figures of the quadrilles by +heart, for I saw Gholâb Singh, the commander of the Goorcherras, who +has been with Europeans before, expounding the dancing to the others.”</p></div> + +<p>Lola’s month at Simla had now expired, but she probably postponed her +departure to witness the reception of these chiefs. Having been reconciled +with her mother—partly, it seems, through the kindly intervention of the +Governor-General’s sister, and partly, as she afterwards declared, through +her stepfather—she returned with her husband to his cantonment. Here she +was fortunate again to attract the attention of the viceregal party.</p> + +<p>Miss Eden writes from Karnál, under date 13th November 1839:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“We had the same display of troops on arriving, except that a bright +yellow General N. has taken his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> liver complaint home, and a pale +primrose General D., who has been renovating some years at Bath, has +come out to take his place. We were at home in the evening, and it was +an immense party, but except that pretty Mrs. James who was at Simla, +and who looked like a star among the others, the women were all plain.</p> + +<p>“I don’t wonder if a tolerable-looking girl comes up the country that +she is persecuted with proposals.... That Mrs. —— we always called +the little corpse is still at Karnál. She came and sat herself down by +me, upon which Mr. K., with great presence of mind, offered me his +arm, and said to George that he was taking me away from that corpse. +‘You are quite right,’ said George. ‘It would be very dangerous +sitting on the same sofa; we don’t know what she died of.’”</p> + + +<p> </p> +<p class="right">“<i>Sunday, 17th November.</i></p> + +<p>“We left Karnál yesterday morning. Little Mrs. James was so unhappy at +our going that we asked her to come and pass the day here, and brought +her with us. She went from tent to tent, and chattered all day, and +visited her friend Mrs. ——, who is with the camp. I gave her a pink +silk gown, and it was altogether a very happy day for her evidently. +It ended in her going back to Karnál on my elephant, with E. N. by her +side and Mr. James sitting behind, and she had never been on an +elephant before, and thought it delightful. She is very pretty, and a +good little thing, apparently, but they are very poor, and she is very +young and lively, and if she falls into bad hands she would soon laugh +herself into foolish scrapes. At present the husband and wife are very +fond of each other, but a girl who marries at fifteen hardly knows +what she likes.”</p></div> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="V" id="V"></a>V</h2> +<p class="title">RIVEN BONDS</p> + +<p>Miss Eden’s misgivings were warranted by the events. “Husband and wife are +very fond of each other”—that was, doubtless, true, but Lola’s lips would +have curled had she read the passage in after years. Abandoned by the +departure of the viceregal party once more to the slender social resources +of Karnál, the young wife, I conjecture, fretted and moped. The glitter of +the Court made the boredom of the cantonment all the more oppressive. The +year after the Simla festivities Karnál had another distinguished visitor, +the famous Dost Mohammed Khan, Amir of Kabul, but as during his six +months’ stay he was kept a close prisoner in the fort, his presence could +not have sensibly relieved the monotony. Lieutenant James’s subsequent +readiness to divorce his wife proves that he had no very strong attachment +to her, and gives some colour to her allegations against him. Of course, +it is safe to conclude that both were in the wrong, or, more truthfully, +had made a mistake. So long, however, as people regard marriage more as a +contract than a relation, each party will be anxious to throw the +responsibility for the rupture upon the other. As the husband had the +opportunity of stating his case in the law courts, it is only fair that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> +the wife should be allowed to plead hers here. Her version of the +circumstances which brought about the breach is as follows:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“She was taken to visit a Mrs. Lomer—a pretty woman, who was about +thirty-three years of age, and was a great admirer of Captain [<i>sic</i>] +James. [His bright waistcoats and bright teeth were not without their +effect, we see.] Her husband was a blind fool enough; and though +Captain James’s little wife, Lola, was not quite a fool, it is likely +enough that she did not care enough about him to keep a look-out upon +what was going on between himself and Mrs. Lomer. So she used to be +peacefully sleeping every morning when the Captain [read Lieutenant] +and Mrs. Lomer were off for a sociable ride on horseback. In this way +things went on for a long time, when one morning Captain James and +Mrs. Lomer did not get back to breakfast, and so the little Mrs. James +and Mr. Lomer breakfasted alone, wondering what had become of the +morning riders.</p> + +<p>“But all doubts were soon cleared up by the fact fully coming to light +that they had really eloped to Neilghery Hills. Poor Lomer stormed, +and raved, and tore himself to pieces, not having the courage to +attack any one else. And little Lola wondered, cried a little, and +laughed a good deal, especially at Lomer’s rage.”</p></div> + +<p>The injured husband, apparently, was never pieced together again, as we do +not hear that he ever instituted any proceedings against the seducer of +his wife. It is true that by Lola’s account they may be considered to have +put themselves beyond his reach, for the Neilghery Hills lie, as the crow +flies, about 1,400 miles from Karnál, and a stern chase in a palanquin +over that distance is an undertaking from which even Menelaus<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> would have +shrank. Nor did the peccant Lieutenant James think it worth while to +resign his commission.</p> + +<p>Whatever may have been the immediate cause, it is clear that husband and +wife were on bad terms when the cantonment at Karnál was broken up in the +year 1841. Lola took refuge under her mother’s roof at Calcutta. She +admits that her reception was cold, and that Mrs. Craigie pressed her to +return to Europe. On this course she finally decided, probably without +great reluctance. It was given out, and not perhaps altogether untruly, +that she was leaving India for the benefit of her health. Her husband came +down to Calcutta, and himself saw her aboard the good ship, <i>Larkins</i>. Her +stepfather, to whose relations in Scotland she was again to be confided, +was much affected at her departure.</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“Large tears rolled down his cheeks when he took her on board the +vessel; and he testified his affection and his care by placing in the +hands of the little grass-widow a cheque for a thousand pounds on a +house in London.”</p> + +<p>Thus for the second and last time Lola saw the swampy shores of Bengal +receding from her across the waves. She was never again to see India or +those who bid her adieu. The merry, unaffected schoolgirl of Simla had +become in one short year a disappointed, disillusioned woman. While +husband and wife exchanged cold farewells, probably neither expected nor +wished to see the other again. Both had made a mistake, and both knew it. +Now they were placing half a world between them. Lola’s heart must have +lightened, as the good ship sped before the wind <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>southwards across the +Indian Ocean. Accustomed to shipboard, the <i>désagréments</i> of the voyage +were nothing to her, and she immediately began to take an interest in her +companions. She speaks of a Mr. and Mrs. Sturges, Boston people, who were +nominally in charge of her; and of a Mrs. Stevens, another American lady, +a very gay woman, who had some influence in supporting her determination +not to go to the Craigies’ on reaching England. There was a Mr. Lennox on +board, sometimes described as an aide-de-camp to some governor, who also +may have had something to do with this resolution. It all came about as +Lord Auckland’s sister had feared. Lola had fallen into evil hands, and +laughed herself into a bad scrape. She had been accustomed to admiration; +she was young, beautiful, and passionate. Her heart was empty; she was +angered against her husband. She was by no means unwilling to face the +possibility of a final separation from him. Lennox remains for us the +shadowiest of personalities, but his disappearance, implying abandonment +of the woman he had compromised, tells against him. In this instance I +think we may safely conclude that the man was to blame.</p> + +<p>Out of affection for him, then, or a determination to lead her own life, +uncontrolled and unshackled, Mrs. James, on arriving in London, flatly +refused to accompany Mr. David Craigie, “a blue Scotch Calvinist,” whom +she found awaiting her.</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“At first he used arguments and persuasion, and finding that these +failed, he tried force; and then, of course, there was an explosion, +which soon settled the matter, and convinced Mr. David Craigie that he +might go back to the little dull town of Perth as soon as he pleased, +without the little grass-widow. Now<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> she was left in London, sole +mistress of her own fate. She had, besides the cheque given her by her +stepfather, between five and six thousand dollars’ worth of various +kinds of jewellery, making her capital, all counted, about ten +thousand dollars—a very considerable portion of which disappeared in +less than one year by a sort of insensible perspiration, which is a +disease very common to the purses of ladies who have never been taught +the value of money.”</p> + +<p>It was in the early spring of 1842 that Lola set foot in London. +Considering the rapidity for those times with which her husband became +informed of her next movements, these must have been amazingly open; and +it is hard to resist the conclusion that she was deliberately trying to +bring about a divorce. She knew that the English law grants no relief to +those who come to it both with clean hands. She knew also that so long as +her husband neither starved nor beat her, she could not set the law in +motion against him. English law, supposed to vindicate the sanctity of +marriage, sets a premium on adultery and cruelty: these are the only +avenues of escape from unhappy unions into which high-minded men and women +may have been betrayed by youthful folly, by over-persuasion, by +sentiments they innocently over-estimated. If Lola Gilbert at the age of +eighteen had signed a bill for ten pounds, the courts would have annulled +the transaction, on the ground that her youth rendered her incapable of +appreciating its gravity. As it was, she had signed away her life—a less +important thing than property—and our Rhadamanthine law sternly held her +to her bargain.</p> + +<p>James was not slow to avail himself of the pretext she afforded him. He +instituted through his proctors<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> a suit against her for divorce in the +Consistory Court of London, to which jurisdiction in all matrimonial +causes at that time belonged. Lola, as he probably expected she would do, +ignored the proceedings from first to last. The case was heard before Dr. +Lushington on 15th December 1842. Mrs. James was accused of misconduct +with Mr. Lennox on board the ship <i>Larkins</i>, and of subsequently +cohabiting with him at the Imperial Hotel, Covent Garden, and in lodgings +in St. James’s. The court was satisfied with the proofs adduced, and +pronounced a divorce <i>a mensâ et toro</i>. In modern legal language this was +a judicial separation. These two people, though they were to live apart, +were sentenced never to marry again during the lifetime of each other. It +is by such dispositions that the law of England proposes to promote +morality and the interests of society.</p> + +<p>Both lover and husband disappear from the scene. James rose to the rank of +captain, retired from the Indian army in 1856, and died in 1871. He never +crossed Lola’s path again, and she ever afterwards referred to him with +contempt and bitterness. If it was in any vindictive spirit that he +divorced her, he would have done well to remember how in former years he +had taken advantage of her youth and inexperience. It was a squalid ending +to the romantic runaway match. It would be interesting to know with what +emotions Captain James heard of his ex-wife’s adventures in high places in +the years that followed. It must have seemed odd that monarchs should risk +their crowns for the charms that he so lightly prized. Perhaps his wonder +was not untinged with regret. More likely it might have been written of +him as of Lola:—</p> + +<p class="poem"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> +“Who have loved and ceased to love, forget<br /> +That ever they lived in their lives, they say—<br /> +Only remember the fever and fret,<br /> +And the pain of love that was all his pay.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Craigie put on mourning as though her child was dead, and sent out to +her friends the customary notifications. The good old +Deputy-Adjutant-General alone thought kindly of Lola.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span></p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="VI" id="VI"></a>VI</h2> +<p class="title">LONDON IN THE ’FORTIES</p> + +<p>To a woman in Lola’s situation, London in the early ’forties offered every +inducement to go to the devil. Between a roaring maelstrom of the coarsest +libertinism, on the one hand, and an impregnable barrier of heartless +puritanism on the other, her destruction was well-nigh inevitable. The +hotchpotch of unorganised humanity that we call Society seldom presented +an uglier appearance than it did in the first decade of Victoria’s reign. +Sir Mulberry Hawk and Pecksniff are types of the two contending forces. +Blackguardism was matched against snivelling cant. Luckily, the victory +fell to neither. Those were the days of Crockfords, of Vauxhall, of the +spunging-house, of public executions turned into popular festivals; when +gentlemen of fashion painted policemen pea-green, and beat them till they +were senseless; when peers got drunk and the people starved. Opposed to +this debauchery was a religion of convention and propriety, narrow, +stupid, and un-Christlike—the cult of the correct and the respectable, +the fetishes to which Lady Flora Hastings and many another woman were +coldly sacrificed.</p> + +<p>In spite of Sir Mulberry and Mr. Pecksniff, however, Lola, ex-Mrs. James, +had no intention of going under.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> Her exclusion from society, after her +wearisome experiences in India, she probably regarded as no great +hardship. Her youth, her sprightliness, and her beauty made her many +friends. Some of these as quickly became enemies, when they discovered +that a divorced woman is not necessarily for sale. More than one <i>roué</i> +vowed vengeance against the girl who, with bursts of laughter and +dangerous gusts of anger, rejected the offer of his protection. It was, +perhaps, in this way she offended the elegant Lord Ranelagh, who was then +swaggering about in the Spanish cloak he had worn in the Carlist Wars. +Lola was strong enough to swim in the maelstrom. Independence and +adversity brought out the latent force in the character of the “good +little thing” of Simla. Instead of looking out for a refuge, she sought a +career.</p> + +<p>She turned, of course, towards the stage, the one profession in Early +Victorian times that offered any promise to an ambitious woman. She took +more pains to acquire a knowledge of her art than are deemed necessary by +most beautiful aspirants nowadays. She studied under Miss Fanny Kelly, a +gifted actress, who had distinguished herself by her efforts to improve +the social status of her profession, and who had opened a dramatic school +for women adjacent to what is now the Royalty Theatre. Lola describes Miss +Kelly as a lady as worthy in the acts of her private life as she was +gifted in genius. This opinion was shared by all the contemporaries of the +venerable actress. In after years Mr. Gladstone thought fit to recognise +her services to the theatre by a royal grant of one hundred and fifty +pounds, but the money arrived in time only to be expended on a memorial +over her grave in the dismal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> cemetery at Brompton. Since Lola was a +friend of Miss Kelly, she must have been very far from being the depraved +character she is represented by some.</p> + +<p>With all the goodwill in the world, the experienced mistress could not +make an actress of her beautiful pupil, who accordingly determined to +approach the stage through a back-door. If talent of the intellectual +order was denied her, she could fall back on her physical advantages. She +determined to become a dancer. She was instructed for four months by a +Spanish professor, and then (so she assures us) underwent a further +training at Madrid. It was now that she assumed the name of Lola +Montez—so soon to be known throughout Europe. She passed herself off as a +Spaniard, partly, no doubt, for professional reasons, and partly to +conceal her identity with the wife of Captain James. Society can hardly +expect its quarry to step out into the open to be shot at. Her beauty and +her dancing so impressed Benjamin Lumley, the experienced director of Her +Majesty’s Theatre, that it was on his stage that she actually made her +first appearance.</p> + +<p>The morning papers of Saturday, 3rd June 1843, announced accordingly that +between the acts of the opera (<i>Il Barbiere di Seviglia</i>), Donna [<i>sic</i>] +Lola Montez, of the Teatro Real, Seville, would make her first appearance +in this country, in the original Spanish dance, “El Olano.” Attracted by +this advertisement, a critic, who afterwards wrote under the pseudonym of +“Q.,” called at the theatre, and was presented to the <i>débutante</i>. In her +he recognised a lady living opposite his lodgings in Grafton Street, +Mayfair, who had long been the object of his silent adoration. He dwells +on her extreme vivacity, on her brilliancy of conversation, and on her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> +foreign accent, which struck him as assumed. She was persuaded to give a +rehearsal for his special benefit.</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“At that period,” he goes on to say, “her figure was even more +attractive than her face, lovely as the latter was. Lithe and graceful +as a young fawn, every movement that she made seemed instinct with +melody as she prepared to commence the dance. Her dark eyes were +blazing and flashing with excitement, for she felt that I was willing +to admire her. In her <i>pose</i>, grace seemed involuntarily to preside +over her limbs and dispose their attitude. Her foot and ankle were +almost faultless. Nadaud, the violinist, drew the bow across his +instrument, and she began to dance. No one who has seen her will +quarrel with me for saying that she was not, and is not, a finished +<i>danseuse</i>, but all who have will as certainly agree with me that she +possesses every element which could be required, with careful study in +her youth, to make her eminent in her then vocation. As she swept +round the stage, her slender waist swayed to the music, and her +graceful neck and head bent with it, like a flower that bends with the +impulse given to its stem by the changing and fitful temper of the +wind.”<a name='fna_3' id='fna_3' href='#f_3'><small>[3]</small></a></p> + +<p>On that eventful June evening, then, manager, critics, not least of all +Lola herself, confidently looked forward to a striking success. The house +was crowded, and many notabilities were present. There were the King of +Hanover, the Queen-Dowager, the Duchess of Kent, and the Duke and Duchess +of Cambridge. There was also Lola’s old enemy, my Lord Ranelagh, who with +a party of friends occupied one of the two omnibus-boxes—an admirable +point from which to examine the ankles and calves of the long-skirted +ballet-girls. When the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> curtain rose in the <i>entr’acte</i>, a Moorish chamber +was revealed. On either side stood a damsel, gazing expectantly towards +the draped entrance at the back of the stage. A moment later and there +glided through this a figure enveloped in a mantilla. One of the handmaids +snatched away this drapery, and the commanding form of Donna Lola Montez +was revealed in all its glory.</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“And a lovely picture it is to contemplate! There is before you the +perfection of Spanish beauty—the tall, handsome person, the full, +lustrous eye, the joyous, animated face, and the intensely raven hair. +She is dressed, too, in the brightest of colours: the petticoat is +dappled with flaunting tints of red, yellow, and violet, and its showy +diversities of hue are enforced by the black velvet bodice above, +which confines the bust with an unscrupulous pinch. Presently this +Andalusian <i>Papagena</i> lifts her arms, and the sharp, merry crack of +the castanets is heard. She has commenced one of the merry dances of +her nation, and many a piquant grace does she unfold.”<a name='fna_4' id='fna_4' href='#f_4'><small>[4]</small></a></p> + +<p>The audience are bewitched, enraptured. The stage is strewn with bouquets. +Suddenly from the right omnibus-box comes the surprised exclamation: “Why, +it’s Betty James!” Lord Ranelagh has recognised the woman who rebuffed +him, and hurriedly whispers to his friends. Above the applause from stalls +and gallery, there is heard on the stage, at least, a prolonged and +ominous hiss. My lord’s friends in the opposite box act upon the hint, and +the hissing grows louder and more insistent. The body of the audience, +knowing nothing about the matter, conclude that the dancer cannot know<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> +her business, and presently begin to hiss, too. In ten minutes more the +curtain comes down upon her, and Lola’s career as a dancer is terminated +in England.</p> + +<p>Lord Ranelagh had had his revenge. This species of blackguardism was only +too common in those days. The notorious Duke of Brunswick that same year +had gone with his attorney, Mr. Vallance, and a party of friends, to +Covent Garden Theatre, for the express purpose of hooting down an actor, +Gregory, who took the part of Faust. He succeeded in his design, and +bragged about it afterwards. In Early Victorian times the theatre was +completely under the thumb of certain aristocratic sets. The exasperated +Lumley was powerless to resist the fiat of these gilded snobs. Lola +Montez, they insisted, must never appear on his stage again. He obeyed. +The Press was very far from imitating his subserviency. The <i>Era</i> and +<i>Morning Herald</i> praised the new <i>danseuse</i> in what seem to us extravagant +terms, and deliberately ignored the inglorious <i>dénouement</i> of her +performance. Indeed, but for the pen of “Q.” we might be left to share the +surprise expressed at her disappearance by the <i>Illustrated London News</i>, +which, ironically perhaps, suggested that the votaries of what might be +called the classical dance had set their faces against the national.</p> + +<p>Lola herself was under no misapprehension as to the cause and authors of +her defeat. She wrote to the <i>Era</i> on 13th June, protesting passionately +against a report that was being circulated to the effect that she had long +been known in London as a disreputable character. She positively asserted +that she was a native of Seville, and had never before been in London. She +complains of the cruel calumnies that had got<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> abroad concerning her, and +says that she has instructed her lawyer to prosecute their utterers. Of +course, the greater part of this statement was untrue, but she had her +back against the wall, and with their reputation, social and professional, +and means of livelihood at stake, few women would have acted otherwise. My +own view is that after her affair with Lennox, Lola tried hard “to keep +straight,” and made powerful enemies in consequence. The alliance of +Pecksniff and Sir Mulberry proved too strong for her.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span></p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="VII" id="VII"></a>VII</h2> +<p class="title">WANDERJAHRE</p> + +<p>London, then, was closed to Lola. She was recognised, and for the divorced +wife of Lieutenant James there were no prospects of a career. Her defeat +determined her to aim higher, not lower, as most women would have done. In +the English country towns she would have been quite unknown, and might +have earned a modest competence. But her experience of Montrose and Meath +did not predispose her towards the provincial atmosphere. Devoting England +and its serpent seed to the infernal gods, she took wing to Brussels. So +rapidly were her preparations made that when “Q.” called the very morning +after the “frost” at Her Majesty’s at her apartments in Grafton Street, he +found her gone—none knew whither. We must feel sorry for our anonymous +friend, for it is evident from his confessions that Lola’s blue eyes had +bored a big hole in his heart. He consoled himself for her loss by writing +(I suspect) some of the flattering notices on her performance to which +reference has been made.</p> + +<p>It is impossible to trace his enchantress’s movements in their proper +sequence during the next nine or ten months (June 1843 to March 1844). We +find her at Brussels, Berlin, Dresden, Warsaw, and St. Petersburg.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> She +reached the Belgian capital practically with an empty purse. She +afterwards said<a name='fna_5' id='fna_5' href='#f_5'><small>[5]</small></a> that she went there partly because she had not enough +money wherewith to go to Paris, partly because she hoped to make her way +on to The Hague. She proposed to lay siege to the heart of his Dutch +Majesty William II., then a man fifty-one years of age. She had, quite +probably, met his son, the Prince of Orange, who was visiting Lord +Auckland about the time she was at Simla, and had heard tales in Calcutta +about the Dutch Court. The House of Orange has not been fortunate in its +domestic relations. It is said that during the last king’s first +experience of wedlock, the heads of chamberlains often intercepted the +books aimed by the Royal spouses at each other, while the whole palace +re-echoed with the slamming of doors and the crash of crockery. William +II., though not possessed of the reputation of his son and grandson, the +celebrated “<i>Citron</i>,” was known to be on bad terms with his Russian wife, +Anna Pavlovna. He seemed to Lola a promising subject for the exercise of +her powers of fascination. The design, if she ever really entertained it, +was not one that moralists could applaud, but in extenuation it must be +urged that Lola’s late defeat could not have encouraged her to persevere +in the path of virtue. However, the Dutch project came to nothing, and the +display of our heroine’s statecraft was reserved for another capital and +another day.</p> + +<p>In Brussels she found herself friendless and penniless. She was reduced to +singing in the streets to save herself from starvation—she who only four +years before had been borne from the stately Indian Court enthroned on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> +the Viceroy’s elephant! Her distress is rather to the credit of her +reputation, for it would have been easy enough for so beautiful a woman to +have found a wealthy protector in the Belgian capital. She was noticed by +a man, whom she believed to be a German, who took her with him to Warsaw. +“He spoke many languages,” says Lola, “but he was not very well off +himself. However, he was very kind, and when we got to Warsaw, managed to +get me an engagement at the Opera.”<a name='fna_6' id='fna_6' href='#f_6'><small>[6]</small></a> I cannot help wishing that Lola had +given us some account of a journey that must have been performed in a +carriage right across Central Europe from Belgium to Poland.</p> + +<p>Warsaw in 1844 must have been as cheerless a spot as any in Europe. The +great insurrection of 1831 had been suppressed with ruthless severity by +the soldiers of the Tsar, and there was not a family of rank in the city +that was not mourning for some one of its members who had passed beyond +the ken of its living, into dread Siberia. Order reigned at Warsaw, +indeed, in its conqueror’s famous phrase, but it was order obtained only +with the knout and the bayonet. The Polish language was barely tolerated, +the Catholic religion proscribed. Women, half-naked, were publicly flogged +for their attachment to their faith, school-boys and school-girls sent to +perish beyond the Urals. The secret service ramified through every grade +of society. Fathers distrusted their sons, husbands feared to discover in +their own wives the tools of the Muscovite Government. To this day Poles +are seldom free from the nightmare of the Russian spy. The present writer +remembers how, some years ago, at Bern, in the capital of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> a free +republic, a Polish medical man refused, with every symptom of +apprehension, to discuss the condition of his country within the longest +ear-shot of a third party.</p> + +<p>Yet unhappy Warsaw, under the heel of the terrible Paskievich, could be +coaxed into a smile by the flashing eyes of the new Andalusian dancer. Her +beauty enraptured the Poles, and drew from one of their dramatic critics +the following elaborate panegyric:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“Lola possesses twenty-six of the twenty-seven points on which a +Spanish writer insists as essential to feminine beauty—and the real +connoisseurs among my readers will agree with me when I confess that +blue eyes and black hair appear to me more ravishing than black eyes +and black hair. The points enumerated by the Spanish writer are: three +white—the skin, the teeth, the hands; three black—the eyes, +eye-lashes, and eyebrows; three red—the lips, the cheeks, the nails; +three long—the body, the hair, the hands; three short—the ears, the +teeth, the legs; three broad—the bosom, the forehead, the space +between the eyebrows; three full—the lips, the arms, the calves; +three small—the waist, the hands, the feet; three thin—the fingers, +the hair, the lips. All these perfections are Lola’s, except as +regards the colour of her eyes, which I for one, would not wish to +change. Silky hair, rivalling the gloss of the raven’s wing, falls in +luxuriant folds down her back; on the slender, delicate neck, whose +whiteness shames the swan’s down, rests the beautiful head. How, too, +shall I describe Lola’s bosom, if words fail me to describe the +dazzling whiteness of her teeth? What the pencil could not portray, +certainly the pen cannot.</p> + +<p class="poem">“‘Vedeansi accesi entro le gianci belle<br /> +Dolci fiamme di rose e di rubini,<br /> +E nel ben sen per entro un mar di latte<br /> +Tremolando nutar due poma intatte.’</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>“Lola’s little feet hold the just balance between the feet of the +Chinese and French ladies. Her fine, shapely calves are the lowest +rungs of a Jacob’s ladder leading to Heaven. She reminds one of the +Venus of Knidos, carved by Praxiteles in the 104th Olympiad. To see +her eyes is to be satisfied that her soul is throned in them.... Her +eyes combine the varying shades of the sixteen varieties of +forget-me-not....”</p></div> + +<p>And so forth, and so on.</p> + +<p>It is indisputable that in this, her twenty-sixth year, Lola was extremely +beautiful. Her bitterest detractors have never denied her the possession +of almost magical loveliness. This was informed by sparkling vivacity, and +a force of personality, without which we should never have heard the name +of Lola Montez. A human masterpiece of this sort is as much a source of +trouble in a community as a priceless diamond. Everyone’s cupidity is +excited, probity and honour melt away in the fierce heat of temptation. +The upright think that here at last is a prize worth the sacrifice of all +the standards that have hitherto guided them. St. Anthony, after forty +years of sainthood, succumbs—and is glad that he does. Even miserable +Poland for a moment forgot her woes when she looked on Lola; and her stern +conqueror, the terrible Paskievich, felt a new spring pervading his grim, +sixty-year-old frame. He, the master of many legions, he at whose frown a +nation paled—why should he not grasp this treasure? Who should say him +nay?</p> + +<p>I will let Lola tell the story in her own words.</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“While Lola Montez was on a visit to Madame Steinkiller the wife of +the principal banker of Poland,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> the old viceroy sent to ask her +presence at the palace one morning at eleven o’clock. She was assured +by several ladies that it would be neither politic nor safe to refuse +to go; and she did go in Madame Steinkiller’s carriage, and heard from +the viceroy a most extraordinary proposition. He offered her the gift +of a splendid country estate, and would load her with diamonds +besides. The poor old man was a comic sight to look upon—unusually +short in stature, and every time he spoke, he threw back his head and +opened his mouth so wide as to expose the artificial gold roof of his +palate. A death’s-head making love to a lady could not have been a +more disgusting or horrible sight. These generous gifts were most +respectfully and very decidedly declined. But her refusal to make a +bigger fool of one who was already fool enough was not well received.</p> + +<p>[This, I take it, is the only instance of the word fool being applied to +one of the ablest, if most ruthless, men Russia has ever produced.]</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“In those countries where political tyranny is unrestrained, the +social and domestic tyranny is scarcely less absolute.</p> + +<p>“The next day His Majesty’s tool, the colonel of the <i>gendarmes</i> and +director of the theatre, called at her hotel to urge the suit of his +master.</p> + +<p>“He began by being persuasive and argumentative, and when that availed +nothing, he insinuated threats, when a grand row broke out, and the +madcap ordered him out of her room.</p> + +<p>“Now when Lola Montez appeared that night at the theatre, she was +hissed by two or three parties who had evidently been instructed to do +so by the director himself. The same thing occurred the next night; +and when it came again on the third night, Lola Montez, in a rage, +rushed down to the footlights, and declared that those hisses had been +set at her by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> the director, because she had refused certain gifts +from the old prince, his master. Then came a tremendous shower of +applause from the audience; and the old princess, who was present, +both nodded her head and clapped her hands to the enraged and fiery +Lola.</p> + +<p>“Here, then, was a pretty muss. An immense crowd of Poles, who hated +both the prince and the director, escorted her to her lodgings. She +found herself a heroine without expecting it, and indeed without +intending it. In a moment of rage she had told the whole truth, +without stopping to count the cost, and she had unintentionally set +the whole of Warsaw by the ears.</p> + +<p>“The hatred which the Poles intensely felt towards the government and +its agents found a convenient opportunity of demonstrating itself, and +in less than twenty-four hours Warsaw was bubbling and raging with the +signs of an incipient revolution. When Lola Montez was apprised of the +fact that her arrest was ordered, she barricaded her door; and when +the police arrived she sat behind it with a pistol in her hand, +declaring that she would certainly shoot the first man dead who should +break in. The police were frightened, or at least they could not agree +among themselves who should be the martyr, and they went off to inform +their masters what a tigress they had to confront, and to consult as +to what should be done. In the meantime, the French Consul gallantly +came forward and claimed Lola Montez as a French subject, which saved +her from immediate arrest; but the order was peremptory that she must +quit Warsaw.”</p></div> + +<p>I have no means of verifying this account. Riots were of frequent +occurrence in Warsaw during the ’forties, but, thanks to a rigid +censorship of the Press, the particulars concerning them have failed to +reach us. That the citizens would at once side with any one who for any +reason whatsoever was “agin the Government” is not to be doubted, and Lola +was quite clever enough<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> to make a slight to her appear as an insult to +the Warsaw public. In defending herself with the pistol, she only gave +proof of the manlike courage and resolution conspicuous throughout her +whole career. As to the cause of the row, one of Lola’s recent biographers +remarks that if Prince Paskievich had made the offer alleged, it is quite +certain that she would have closed with it. It is far from being certain. +The Russian Viceroy was definitely repugnant to her, and her subsequent +experiences show that she never bestowed herself upon a man whom she could +not, or did not, love. She was new, too, to her <i>rôle</i> of adventuress. +Altogether, there is no good reason for doubting that Lola’s relation of +her experiences in the Polish capital is substantially true.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, vanity certainly betrayed her into several deviations +from the truth in her reminiscences of St. Petersburg. She went thither, +she informs us, upon her expulsion from Poland—an odd refuge! Of her +journey in a <i>calèche</i> across the wastes of Lithuania and through the dark +forests of Muscovy; of St. Petersburg, still half an Oriental city, where +all men below the rank of nobles wore the long beard and caftan of the +Asiatic—our <i>raconteuse</i> has nothing to say. She introduces us at once to +the Tsar and the innermost arcanum of his Court.</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“Nicholas was as amiable and accomplished in private life as he was +great, stern, and inflexible as a monarch. He was the strongest +pattern of a monarch of this age, and I see no promise of his equal, +either in the incumbents or the heirs-apparent of the other thrones of Europe.”</p> + +<p>Lola, we see, speaks as an authority on crowned<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> heads. In her estimate +of Nicholas I. she seems to have forgotten the republican principles she +generally professed. The Tsar was, no doubt, the most commanding figure of +his time, and Russia’s influence in the counsels of Europe has never since +had as much weight as in the earlier part of his reign. His fine +proportions, as much as his strength of character, probably excited Lola’s +admiration, and blinded her to defects, physical and temperamental, which +did not escape the notice of more keen-eyed critics. She did not see that +the autocrat’s majestic demeanour was a pose, that his stern, hawk-like +glance was deliberately cultivated, and that he had only three expressions +of countenance, all put on at will. Horace Vernet, who knew Nicholas well, +was firmly convinced that he was not wholly sane. As to his amiability in +private life, he is said to have been, like many tyrants, a good husband, +and he often condescended to take tea with his nurse, “a decent Scotch +body.” It was to this respectable exile that the members of the imperial +family owed that fluent and colloquial English, which often as much +astonished as gratified our countrymen. It is recorded that one of the +Grand Dukes genially accosted the British chaplain at St. Petersburg with +the enquiry: “God damn your eyes, and how the devil are you?”—language, +very properly remarks an Early Victorian writer, which no man on earth had +the right to address to a person in Holy Orders.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img2.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">NICHOLAS I.</p> +<p> </p> + +<p>The Tsar himself was better bred. His relations with Mademoiselle Montez +were characterized by politeness and liberality. Not only he, but his +right-hand man, the astute Livonian, Benkendorf, held the lady’s political +acumen in high esteem. While she and the Emperor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> and the Minister of the +Interior were in a somewhat private chat about vexatious matters connected +with Caucasia, airily relates Lola, a humorous episode occurred.</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“It was suddenly announced that the superior officers of the Caucasian +army were without, desiring audience. The very subject of the previous +conversation rendered it desirable that Lola Montez should not be seen +in conference with the Emperor and the Minister of the Interior; so +she was thrust into a closet, and the door locked. The conference +between the officers and the Emperor was short but stormy. Nicholas +got into a towering rage. It seemed to the imprisoned Lola that there +was a whirlwind outside; and womanly curiosity to hear what it was +about [did she then understand Russian?], joined with the great +difficulty of keeping from coughing, made her position a strangely +embarrassing one. But the worst of it was, in the midst of this grand +quarrel the parties all went out of the room, and forgot Lola Montez, +who was locked up in the closet. For a whole hour she was kept in this +durance vile, reflecting upon the somewhat confined and cramping +honours she was receiving from Royalty, when the Emperor, who seems to +have come to himself before Count Benkendorf did, came running back +out of breath, and unlocked the door, and not only begged pardon for +his forgetfulness, in a manner which only a man of his accomplished +address could do, but presented the victim with a thousand roubles, +saying laughingly: ‘I have made up my mind whenever I imprison any of +my subjects unjustly, I will pay them for their time and suffering.’ +And Lola Montez answered him: ‘Ah, sire, I am afraid that rule will +make a poor man of you.’ He laughed heartily, and replied: ‘Well, I am +happy in being able to settle with you, anyhow.’”</p> + +<p>Lola makes here a rather heavy draft on the reader’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> credulity. However, +from the nice things she has to say about His Imperial Majesty, it is +clear that she had been admitted at one time or another to his presence. +Had not Nicholas I. been a pattern of the domestic virtues, we might have +attributed his embarrassment at Lola’s being discovered in his closet, and +the donation of the thousand roubles, to reasons entirely unconnected with +the Caucasus. After all, Lola may have argued, if she had been courted by +a king, why should she not have been consulted by an emperor?</p> + +<p>Before or after her visit to St. Petersburg the dancer saw the Tsar at +Berlin. Mounted on a fiery Cordovan barb, she was among the spectators at +a review given by King Frederick William in honour of his imperial guest. +The horse was scared by the firing, and bolted, carrying its rider +straight into the midst of the Royal party. Lola was not sorry to find +herself in such company, but a <i>gendarme</i> struck at her horse and +endeavoured to drive it away. An insult of this sort Lola was the last +woman to tolerate. Raising her whip, she slashed the policeman across the +face. Out of respect for the Royal party, the incident was allowed to end +there, for the moment; but the next day the dancer was waited upon with a +summons. She instantly tore the document to pieces, and threw them into +the face of the process-server. Such contempt for the law might have been +attended with very serious consequences, but Lola went, as a matter of +fact, scot-free. Perhaps her friends in high places interceded for her; +but it is hard to believe, as she afterwards declared, that the <i>gendarme</i> +came to her lodgings to sue for her pardon.<a name='fna_7' id='fna_7' href='#f_7'><small>[7]</small></a> In every<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> capital of Europe +it soon became known that the beautiful Spanish dancer was able and +prepared to defend herself against the most determined antagonists of +either sex.</p> + +<p>But a nobler quarry than Tsar and Viceroy was now to fall before the +shafts from Lola’s eyes.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="VIII" id="VIII"></a>VIII</h2> +<p class="title">FRANZ LISZT</p> + +<p>In the year 1844 Franz Liszt may be considered to have reached the zenith +of his fame. In the two-and-twenty years that had elapsed since his first +triumph, when a lad of eleven, at Vienna, the young Hungarian had taken +pride of place before all the pianists of his day. The crown still rested +securely on his brow, despite the formidable rivalry of Thalberg. Paris, +London, Berlin, St. Petersburg, Rome, and Milan had in turn felt his +spell, and rapturously acclaimed him the king of melody. Honours and +wealth poured in upon him. The magnates of his native land—the proudest +of all aristocracies—presented him with a sword of honour. The monarchs +of Europe publicly recognised the lofty genius of one whom they knew to be +no friend of theirs. For Liszt, the devotee of later years, glowed then +with generous enthusiasm for freedom, political and religious. Frederick +William sent him diamonds, and he pitched them into the wings; the Tsar +found him unabashed and contemptuous; the Kings of Bavaria and Hanover he +scorned to invite to his concerts; before Isabel II. he refused to play at +all, because Spanish Court etiquette forbade his personal introduction to +her. The Catholic Church, he wrote, knew only curse and ban. He was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> the +friend of Lamennais. The bourgeois—the Philistine, as we should call him +now—he held in greater abhorrence even than the tyrant. In Louis Philippe +he saw bourgeoisie enthroned. Yet the King of the French courted the man +whose empire was more stable than his own. He reminded the pianist of a +former meeting when the one was but a boy, and the other only Duke of +Orleans. “Much has changed since then,” said the Citizen-King. “Yes, sire, +but not for the better!” bluntly replied the artist.</p> + +<p>In 1844 Europe was more liberal in some respects than America is to-day. +Honours and applause were not denied to Liszt because he openly +transgressed the sex conventions. Since 1835 his life had been shared by +the beautiful Comtesse d’Agoult, the would-be rival, under the name +“Daniel Stern,” of the more celebrated Georges Sand. Of this union were +born three children, one of whom became the wife of Richard Wagner. Madame +d’Agoult was a Romanticist, and a very typical figure of her time and +circle. She was an interesting woman, and tried hard to be more +interesting still. But it was no affectation of passion that led her to +abandon home, husband, and position, to throw herself into the pianist’s +arms at Basle. She was deeply in love with him; but she wished to be more +than a wife, more than a lover: she aspired to be his muse. Liszt, +however, needed no inspiration from without. In an oft-quoted phrase, he +said that the Dantes created the Beatrices; “the genuine die when they are +eighteen years old.” The man chafed more and more under the ties that +bound him. He had no wish to abandon the mother of his children, but his +genius demanded to be unfettered. He wandered over Europe, sad and +bitter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> at heart, but heaping up his laurels. The Comtesse and the +children stayed in Paris, or at the villa Liszt had rented on the +beautiful islet of Nonnenwerth, in the shadow of “the castled crag of +Drachenfels.” There he joined them from time to time, while unable to +resist the conclusion that he and she must part. The evolution of their +temperaments and intellects was in rapidly diverging directions. He was no +longer willing to throw himself out of the window at her bidding as he had +publicly declared himself to be four years before. The cord that bound +them was frayed and fretted to a thread.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img3.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">FRANZ LISZT.</p> +<p> </p> + +<p>At Dresden fate threw Liszt and Lola Montez across each other’s path. The +intense, artistic nature of the man cried out with joy at the glorious +beauty of the woman. Her inextinguishable vivacity, her almost masculine +boldness, her frank and splendid animalism enraptured the musician, now +sick to death of soulful conversations and the sentimentalities of +Romanticism. It was the old struggle for the possession of the artist, +waged by Silvia and Gioconda. Lola was beautiful as a tigress. To Liszt +she could surrender herself proudly. She was one of those erotic women, +whose passion is excited rather by a man’s mental attributes than by his +physical advantages. Intellect she adored. Her own strong nature could +yield only to a stronger. We have heard how she spoke of Nicholas I.; we +shall find this almost sensuous craving for force of personality in her +subsequent relations. To her, the pianist must have been a new revelation +of manhood. Her life so far had brought her in contact with Indian +officers and civilians, a few men about town, and (for a few hours) with +one or more potentates. Now she met a great man with a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> beautiful soul. +She had heard the stories current of Liszt’s abnegation, his boundless +generosity, his pride in his vocation. In her, too, he recognised a +haughty intolerance of patronage, a contempt for those in high places, +such as he had himself exhibited. Both could laugh over the slights to +which they had subjected the King of Prussia, and their demeanour in +presence of the mighty Tsar. It is likely enough that their conversation +may have begun in some such fashion; how their love ripened we are left to +guess. On this episode in her history Lola exhibits unwonted reserve. She +mentions meeting Liszt at Dresden, and speaks of the furore he created. As +to their love passages, she is silent. I like to think that this was a +secret she held sacred, that her love for the great musician had in it +something fresh and noble, which distinguished it from the emotions +excited in her by all other men. Women of many attachments are prone to +idealise one among them.</p> + +<p>The world was bound by no such scruples. The rumour ran from capital to +capital that Liszt was enthralled by the Andalusian. It reached the +Comtesse d’Agoult in her retreat at Nonnenwerth. She penned a fierce, +reproachful letter. Liszt, in Calypso’s grotto at Dresden, answered +proudly and coldly. The Comtesse wrote, announcing the end of their +relations. Most men are frightened at the abrupt termination of a love +affair of which they have long been heartily weary. Liszt gave the +Comtesse time to think it over. She made no further overtures, expecting +that he would come to kneel at her feet. He did not. The lady went to +Paris, and they never met again.</p> + +<p>The artist at least owed Lola a service, since she had been the unwitting +instrument of a rupture so long<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> desired by him. But he valued his +newly-recovered freedom too highly to jeopardise it by linking his life +again with a woman’s. His love affair with Lola may have been simply an +infatuation. Lucio would soon have tired of Gioconda had he lived with +her. We hardly know how this brief love story began; we are quite in the +dark as to how it ended. A report was current that the two travelled +together from Dresden to Paris, where both appeared in the spring of ’44. +We do not hear that they were seen together in the French capital, so the +adieux may already have been exchanged. Liszt stayed there but a few +weeks, and then started on a tour through the French departments. Then he +crossed the Pyrenees, and pushed as far south as Gibraltar. Less than +three years later he was in the toils of a third woman—the Princess Zu +Sayn-Wittgenstein, with whom his relations endured twelve years. It is +noteworthy that he and Lola turned their thoughts from love to religion +almost at the same time, though half a world lay between them.</p> + +<p>Of the third actor in this little drama it is hardly within my province to +speak. The Comtesse d’Agoult found consolation in the care of her children +and in those wider interests of which she never tired. She ardently +espoused the cause of the Revolution in 1848. More fortunate than her old +lover, she never lost the sane and generous sympathies of her youth. You +may read her <i>Souvenirs</i>, published at Paris the year after her death +(1877). Liszt long survived the women who had loved him—not a fate that +either of them would have envied him.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="IX" id="IX"></a>IX</h2> +<p class="title">AT THE BANQUET OF THE IMMORTALS</p> + +<p>Lola’s first appearance in Paris was, like her <i>début</i> at Her Majesty’s, a +fiasco. Thanks, no doubt, to her reputation for beauty and audacity, she +secured an engagement at the Opera, then under the management of Léon +Pillet. The power behind the throne was the great Madame Stoltz, who some +years later was to be hooted off the stage by a hostile clique just as +Lola had been nine months before. At that time, however, no one dreamed of +a revolt against the all-powerful <i>cantatrice</i> whose favour the <i>danseuse</i> +was fortunate to procure. The great Stoltz looked best and was luckiest in +men’s parts, and therefore saw no rival in the now famous “Andalouse.”</p> + +<p>Lola, accordingly, made her bow to the Parisian public on Saturday, 30th +March 1844, in <i>Il Lazzarone</i>, an opera in two acts by Halévy. Her +audience was more fastidious than the playgoers of Dresden and Warsaw. Her +beauty ravished them, but in her dancing they saw little merit. Seeing +this, Lola made a characteristic bid for their favour. Her satin shoe had +slipped off. Seizing it, she threw it with one of her superb gestures into +the boxes, where it was pounced upon and brandished as a precious relic by +a gentleman of fashion.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> The manœuvre seems to have succeeded in its +object, for the <i>Constitutionnel</i> next morning found it necessary to warn +young dancers against the danger of factitious applause, while “abstaining +from criticising too severely a pretty woman who had not had time to study +Parisian tastes.” Théophile Gautier was less gallant:—</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“We are reluctant,” he writes, “to speak of Lola Montes, who reminds +us by her Christian name of one of the prettiest women of Granada, and +by her surname of the man who excited in us the most powerful dramatic +emotions we have ever experienced—Montes, the most illustrious +<i>espada</i> of Spain. The only thing Andalusian about Mlle. Lola Montes +is a pair of magnificent black eyes. She gabbles Spanish very +indifferently, French hardly at all, and English passably [<i>sic</i>]. +Which is her country? That is the question. We may say that Mlle. Lola +has a little foot and pretty legs. Her use of these is another matter. +The curiosity excited by her adventures with the northern police, and +her conversations, <i>à coups de cravache</i>, with the Prussian <i>gens +d’armes</i>, has not been satisfied, it must be admitted. Mlle. Lola +Montes is certainly inferior to Dolores Serrai, who has, at least, the +advantage of being a real Spaniard, and redeems her imperfections as a +dancer by a voluptuous <i>abandon</i>, and an admirable fire and precision +of rhythm. We suspect, after the recital of her equestrian exploits, +that Mlle. Lola is more at home in the saddle than on the boards.”</p> + +<p>As at Her Majesty’s, so at the Opera. Lola’s first appearance was her +last. For the rest of the year, as far as I can learn, she was out of an +engagement. She had, no doubt, made some money during her German and +Russian tour, and Liszt would not have forgotten her when he started on +his southern tour at the end of April.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>If her association with him had begotten in Lola Montez a thirst for wit +and genius, she had every chance of slaking it in Paris. There were giants +on the earth in those days, and they were all gathered together on the +banks of the Seine. It is not too much to say that since the Medici ruled +in Florence, no capital has boasted so brilliant an assemblage of men of +genius as did Paris under the paternal government of July. In the year +’44, Victor Hugo, attended by a score of minor poets, daily appeared on +his balcony to acknowledge the homage of the public; Lamartine was +dividing his attention between politics and literature. Alfred de Musset +was wrecking his constitution by spasms of debauchery. Balzac was dodging +his creditors, playing truant from the National Guard, and finding time to +write his “Comédie Humaine”; Théophile Gautier, a man of thirty-three, if +he had not yet received the full meed of his genius, was already well +known and widely appreciated. Alexandre Dumas had long since become a +national institution, and his son was looking out for copy among the +ladies of the <i>demi-monde</i>. Delphine Gay was writing her brilliant +“Lettres Parisiennes” for her husband’s newspaper. The Salon was still +rejecting the masterpieces of Delacroix, but Vernet was painting the +ceiling of the Palais Bourbon. Auber, though past the prime of life, had +not yet scored his greatest success. Paris was like Athens in the age of +Pericles.</p> + +<p>Life was really worth living then, when Louis Phillippe was king. He was +an honest, kindly-natured man, this pear-headed potentate, who reigned, +“comme la corniche règne autour d’un plafond.” He was the king of the +<i>bourgeois</i>, and he looked it every inch, with his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> white felt hat and +respectable umbrella; but in the calm sunshine of his reign the arts +flourished and the world was gay. Those days before the Revolution remind +us of that strange picture in our National Gallery, “The Eve of the +Deluge.” Paris, as the old stagers regretfully assure us, was Paris then, +and not the caravanserai of all the nations of the world. The good +Americans who died then, had they gone to Paris, would have thought they +had reached the wrong destination. Men of Pontus and Asia had not then +made the French capital their own. The invasion of the Barbarians, says +Gustave Claudin, took place in 1848. They came, not conducted by Attila, +but by the newly-constructed railways. As these strangers had plenty of +money to spend, they naturally sought the most fashionable quarters.</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“The true Parisians disappeared in the crowd, and knew not where to +find themselves. In the evening, the restaurants where they used to +dine, the stalls and boxes where they used to assist at the opera and +the play, were taken by assault by cohorts of sightseers wishing to +steep themselves up to the neck in <i>la vie Parisienne</i>.”</p> + +<p>The tide of the invasion has never diminished in volume, and the true +Parisian has become extinct.</p> + +<p>In the year 1844 the fine flower of Parisian society was in undisputed +possession of the Boulevard—the quarter between the Opera and the Rue +Drouot.</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“By virtue of a selection which no one contested,” says the author +just quoted, “nobody was tolerated there who could not lay claim to +some sort of distinction or originality. There seemed to exist a kind +of invisible moral barrier, closing this area against the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> mediocre, +the insipid, and the insignificant, who passed by, but did not linger, +knowing that their place was not there.”</p> + +<p>The headquarters of the noble company of the Boulevard was the famous Café +de Paris, at the corner of the Rue Taitbout. Dumas, Balzac, and Alfred de +Musset were to be seen there twice or thrice a week; the eccentric Lord +Seymour, founder of the French Jockey Club, had his own table there. Lola, +doubtless, often tasted the unsurpassed <i>cuisine</i> of this celebrated +restaurant, for she soon penetrated into the circle of the Olympians, and +was presented with the freedom of the Boulevard.</p> + +<p>She met Claudin (who indeed knew everybody).</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“Lola Montez,” he says, “was an enchantress. There was about her +something provoking and voluptuous which drew you. Her skin was white, +her wavy hair like the tendrils of the woodbine, her eyes tameless and +wild, her mouth like a budding pomegranate. Add to that a dashing +figure, charming feet, and perfect grace. Unluckily,” the notice +concludes, “as a dancer she had no talent.”</p> + +<p>That multiple personality whom Vandam embodies in “An Englishman in Paris” +admits that Lola was naturally graceful, that her gait and carriage were +those of a duchess. When he goes on to say that her wit was that of a +pot-house, I seem to detect one of his not infrequent lapses from the +truth. Only three years had elapsed since Lola had shone in Court circles +in India, where the social atmosphere was not that of a bar-room; and +since then she had been wandering about in countries where her ignorance +of the language must have left<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> her manner of speech and modes of thought +almost unaffected. Pot-house wit would not have fascinated Liszt, nor the +fastidious Louis of Bavaria. “Men of far higher intellectual attainments +than mine, and familiar with very good society,” admits our nebulous +chronicler,<a name='fna_8' id='fna_8' href='#f_8'><small>[8]</small></a> “raved and kept raving about her.”</p> + +<p>Dumas, he says in another place, was as much smitten with her as her other +admirers. This, of course, is no guarantee of her refinement, for the +genial Creole had the reputation of not being over nice in his attachments +and amours. He was then in the prime of life, and may be considered to +have just reached the zenith of his fame by the publication of “Les Trois +Mousquetaires,” “Monte Cristo,” and “La Reine Margot” (1844-5). Two years +before he had formally and legally married Mademoiselle Ida Ferrier—this +step, so inconsistent with his temperament and mode of life, having +resulted from his own reckless disregard of the conventions. The lady had +fascinated him while she was interpreting a <i>rôle</i> of his creation at the +Porte-St.-Martin. It did not strike him that it would be irregular to take +her with him to a ball given by his patron, the Duke of Orleans, and he +straightway did so. “Of course, my dear Dumas,” said His Highness affably, +“it is only your <i>wife</i> that you would think of presenting to me.” Poor +Alexandre, the lover of all women and none in particular, was hoisted with +his own petard. A prince’s hints, above all when he is your patron and +publisher, are commands. Dumas was led to the altar, like a sheep to the +slaughter, by the charming Ida. Châteaubriand supported the bridegroom +through the ordeal. However<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> the chains of matrimony sat lightly on the +irrepressible <i>romancier</i>. Madame Dumas soon after departed for Florence, +greatly to the relief of her spouse. He was living, at the time of Lola’s +visit to Paris, at the Villa Médicis at St. Germain. There he could +superintend the building of his palace of Monte Cristo, on the road to +Marly, a part of which, with imperturbable <i>sang-froid</i>, he actually +raised on the land belonging to a neighbour, without so much as a “by your +leave.” This ambitious residence emptied Dumas’s pockets of the little +money that the ladies he loved had left in them.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img4.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">ALEXANDRE DUMAS, SENIOR.</p> +<p> </p> + +<p>Alexandre, of course, fell passionately in love with Lola Montez. We need +no written assurance of that. We read that he told her that she had acted +“like a gentleman” in her treatment of Frederick William’s policemen, and +with what far-fetched compliments he followed up this commendation it is +easy to imagine. There were certain resemblances in their temperaments, +though the woman was far the stronger. Posterity is never likely to agree +on an estimate of Dumas’s character. Théodore de Banville thought him a +truly great man.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“Dumas,” he wrote, “had no more need to husband his strength and his +vitality than a river has to economise with its waters, and it seemed, +in fact, that he held in his strong hands inexhaustible urns, whence +flowed a stream always clear and limpid. In what formidable metal had +he been cast? Once he took it into his head to take his son, +Alexandre, to the masked ball of Grados, at the Barrière Montparnasse, +and, attired as a postilion, the great man danced all night without +resting for a moment, and held women with his outstretched arm, like a +Hercules. When he returned home in the morning, he found that his +postilion’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> breeches had, through the swelling of the muscles, become +impossible to remove; so Alexandre was obliged to cut them into strips +with a penknife. After that what did the historian of the +Mousquetaires do? Do you think he chose his good clean sheets or a +warm bath? He chose work! And having taken some <i>bouillon</i>, set +himself down before his writing paper, which he continued to fill with +adventures till the evening, with as much ‘go’ and spirit as if he had +come from calm repose.</p> + +<p>“Nature has given up making that kind of man; by way of a change, she +turns out poets, who, having composed a single sonnet, pass the rest +of their lives contemplating themselves and—their sonnets.”</p></div> + +<p>Prodigious! It is gratifying to think that this indefatigable worker had +always two sincere admirers—himself and his son. The latter, it is true, +would have his joke at the former’s expense. “My father,” remarked the +son, “is so vain that he would be ready to hang on to the back of his own +carriage, to make people believe he kept a black servant.” +Notwithstanding, the two loved each other tenderly. Innumerable anecdotes +bear witness to the paternal fondness of the one, the filial devotion of +the other. Yet their relation was more that of two sworn friends, as is so +touchingly expressed in these lines from the “Père Prodigue”:—</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“... I have sought your affection, more than your obedience and +respect.... To have all in common, heart as well as purse, to give and +to tell each other everything, such has been our device. We have lost, +it seems, several hundred thousands of francs; but this we have +gained—the power of counting always on one another, thou on me, I on +thee, and of being ready always to die for each other. That is the +most important thing between father and son.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>These are the words of Frenchmen. An Englishman would have put such +language into the mouths of husband and wife.</p> + +<p>Enjoying the friendship of Dumas <i>père</i>, Lola no doubt had the privilege +of meeting Alexandre junior. The young man was then in his twenty-first +year, and had piled up debts to the respectable total of fifty thousand +francs. It was just about this time, as has been said, that he turned his +attention to literature. He found “copy” for his most celebrated work in +the pale, flower-like courtesan, Alphonsine Plessis, who shared with Lola +the devotion of the erotic Boulevard. The two were women of very different +stamp. The Irish woman confronted the world with head erect and flashing +eyes; the Lady of the Camellias, with a blush and trembling lips. They +were typical of two great classes of women: those who rule men, and those +whom men rule. The loved of the God of Love died young. After Alphonsine’s +early death, the fair Parisiennes flocked to her apartments, as to the +shrine of some patron saint, and touched, as though they were precious +relics, her jewellery and trinkets, her <i>lingerie</i>, and her slippers.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span></p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="X" id="X"></a>X</h2> +<p class="title">MÉRY</p> + +<p>Another most delightful friend had Lola—he whom she refers to in her +autobiography as “the celebrated poet, Méry.” To describe this charming +and impossible personage as a poet, is to indicate only one department of +his genius: as a dramatist he was not far inferior to his great +contemporaries, as a novelist he revealed an amazing power of paradox, and +a bewildering fertility of imagination. He wrote descriptions of countries +he had never seen (though he had travelled far), which, by their accuracy +and colour, deceived and delighted the very natives. He was not merely +rich in rhymes, said Dumas, he was a millionaire. He could write, too, in +more serious vein, and was a profound and ardent classicist.</p> + +<p>In 1845 Méry was approaching his half-century. Thirty years before he had +come to Paris from Marseilles in hot pursuit of a pamphleteer who had +dared to attack him. He found time to cross swords with somebody else, and +got the worst of the encounter. As a result he took a voyage to Italy for +the benefit of his health. His adventures remind us alternatively of those +of Brantôme and Benvenuto Cellini. At a later period he was associated +with Barthélemy in an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> intrigue for the restoration of the Bonapartes; and +went to pay his respects to Queen Hortense, while his colleague vainly +endeavoured to talk with the Eaglet through the gilded bars of his cage.</p> + +<p>Méry could, in short, do everything, and everything very well. He +possessed the faculty of turning base metal into gold. Geese in his eyes +became swans, and in every lump of literary coke he saw a diamond of the +purest ray. It was, above all, in his dramatic criticism, remarks De +Banville, that this faculty produced the most surprising results.</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“One day, reading in Méry’s review the pretended recital of a comedy +of which I was the author, I could not but admire its gaiety, grace, +unexpected turns, and happy confusion, and I said to myself: ‘Ah, if +only this comedy were really the one I wrote!’”</p> + +<p>On another occasion, says the poet, at the theatre,</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“he said to me: ‘What a superb drama!’—and he was perfectly right. +The play, as he described it to me, was, in fact, superb, only +unfortunately it had been entirely reconstructed by Méry on the absurd +foundation imagined by Mr. * * *. The <i>dénouement</i> he invented—for +though the third act was not finished, he spoke of the fifth as an old +acquaintance—was of such tragic power and daring originality, that +after hearing him expound it, I had no desire to witness Mr. * * *’s.”</p> + +<p>Reviewers and dramatic critics of this kind are now, unhappily, rare.</p> + +<p>These few anecdotes sufficiently justify De Banville’s claim that Méry was +something altogether unheard of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> and fabulously original. He should have +been (and probably was) the happiest of men, and his peculiar powers must +have lightened his critical labours as much as they benefited those he +criticised. He was as incapable of envy as Dumas was of rancour. Certainly +no more lovable and agreeable creature ever haunted the slopes of +Parnassus.</p> + +<p>I doubt if such men would be appreciated in our society. Ours is the reign +of the glum Bœotian. We know not how to converse, and wits are as dead +as kings’ jesters. There is no scholarship in our senate, and the standard +of oratory there would not have satisfied an Early Victorian debating +society. If we talk less, assuredly we do not think the more. Every +social, political, and religious idea that occupies our dull brains had +entered into the consciousness of the men of the ’forties. They thought +quickly and talked brilliantly. Their young men were youths—full of fire, +enthusiasm, love, and fun. They did not talk about the advantages of +devotion to business in early life. They were not born tired. Wonderful, +too, as it may seem, people in those days used to like to meet each other +in social converse, and were not ashamed to admit it. It was not then +fashionable to affect a disinclination for society—the handiest excuse +for an inability to talk and to think. Lola Montez learned in Paris what +was meant by the <i>joie de vivre</i>. In ’45 wit was at the prow and pleasure +at the helm.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span></p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="XI" id="XI"></a>XI</h2> +<p class="title">DUJARIER</p> + +<p>As an <i>artiste</i>, Lola was naturally anxious to conciliate the Press, which +had not spoken too kindly of her first performance on the Paris stage. +Gautier’s unflattering notice had appeared in one of the most influential +newspapers—<i>La Presse</i>. This journal was under the direction of the +famous De Girardin, the Harmsworth of his generation. Till 1st July 1836 +the lowest annual subscription to any newspaper in Paris was eighty +francs; on that day De Girardin issued the first number of <i>La Presse</i> at +a subscription of forty francs a year. This startling reduction in the +price of news excited, of course, no little animosity, but its successful +results were immediately manifest. The daring journalist’s next innovation +was the creation of the <i>feuilleton</i>. The new paper prospered exceedingly, +though it represented the views of the editor rather than those of any +large section of the public. In 1840 De Girardin acquired a half of the +property, the other being held by Monsieur Dujarier, who assumed the +functions of literary editor.</p> + +<p>In 1845 Dujarier was a young man of twenty-nine, a writer of no mean +ability, and a smart journalist. He was well known to all the Olympians of +the Boulevard, and entered with zest into the gay life of Paris. Lola<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> +became acquainted with him soon after her arrival in the capital, probably +in an effort to win the paper over to her side. He spent, she tells us, +almost every hour he could spare from his editorial duties with her, and +in his society she rapidly ripened in a knowledge of politics. But before +her political education had proceeded far, the woman’s beauty and the +man’s wit had produced the effect that might have been looked for. “They +read no more that day”—Lola and Dujarier loved each other.</p> + +<p>“This,” continues our heroine, “was in autumn [the autumn of ’44], and the +following spring the marriage was to take place.” I fancy the word +“marriage” is introduced here out of respect for the susceptibilities of +the American public. The Old Guard of the Boulevard, in Louis Philippe’s +golden reign, <i>se fiança mais ne se maria pas</i>. Besides, Lola was still +legally the wife of that remote and forgotten officer, Captain James. “It +was arranged that Alexandre Dumas and the celebrated poet, Méry, should +accompany them on their marriage tour through Spain.” Dumas, Méry, and +Lola, to say nothing of Dujarier, travelling together through +Andalusia—here would have been a gallant company indeed, with which one +would have gladly made a voyage even to Tartarus and back! The narrative, +too, of the journey would have permanently enriched literature. But the +scheme has gone, these sixty years, to the cloudy nether-world of glorious +dreams unrealized.</p> + +<p>The success of De Girardin’s newspaper had intensely embittered his +competitors, who made it the object of venomous attack. The founder dipped +his pen in gall and acid, and his sword in the blood of his enemies. He +fought four duels, and having killed Armand Carrel,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> sheathed his rapier. +But he did not lay aside his pen, which was even more dreaded. Dujarier +proved an apt pupil, and by his command of irony and sarcasm at last +attracted to himself as much hatred and jealousy as his senior. The +special rival of his paper was the <i>Globe</i>, edited by Monsieur Granier de +Cassagnac, a journalist of the type we now denominate yellow. He had at +one time been on the staff of <i>La Presse</i>, to which he remained +financially indebted. Dujarier came across the debit notes signed by him, +and obtained a judgment against him. The exasperation of the <i>Globe</i> knew +no bounds. The editor may be conceived addressing to his satellites the +reproaches used by Henry II.: “Of those that eat my bread, is there none +that will rid me of this pestilent journalist?” The appeal was responded +to by his wife’s brother, Monsieur Jean Baptiste Rosemond de Beauvallon, a +Creole from Guadeloupe, then in his twenty-fifth year. He was dramatic +critic to the <i>Globe</i>, and in this capacity his acquaintance was sought by +Lola. Dujarier naturally objected to this, and his interference was not +forgiven by his journalist rival. The two men seemed doomed to cross each +other’s path. There was a certain Madame Albert, with whom Dujarier had +been on terms of intimacy for some years. In December 1844 he ceased to +visit her, probably for no other reason than that he had transferred his +affections to Lola. As it happened, however, De Beauvallon made the lady’s +acquaintance at this moment, and she spitefully suggested that Dujarier +had discontinued relations with her in order not to meet him. The Creole’s +score against the literary editor of <i>La Presse</i> was now a high one, and +he embraced his brother-in-law’s quarrel with enthusiasm.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span></p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="XII" id="XII"></a>XII</h2> +<p class="title">THE SUPPER AT THE FRÈRES PROVENÇAUX</p> + +<p>At the beginning of March (1845), Lola, despite her failure at the Opera, +obtained an engagement at the Porte-St.-Martin Theatre for the musical +comedy <i>La Biche au Bois</i>. While she was rehearsing, she and her lover +received an invitation to supper at the Frères Provençaux, a fashionable +restaurant in the Palais Royal. The party was to be composed of some of +the liveliest men and women in Paris, and none of those invited were over +thirty-five years of age. Lola was keen to accept, but Dujarier would not +hear of her being seen in such a company. In spite of her protests he +decided, however, to go himself. It was the evening of 11th March.</p> + +<p>He found himself the only guest, for all the others paid their shares in +the cost of the entertainment. The nominal hostess was Mademoiselle +Liévenne: “a splendid person, with abundant black hair, black eyes like a +Moorish woman or Arlésienne, dazzling skin, and opulent figure.” There +were also at the table Mademoiselle Atila Beauchêne, Mademoiselle Alice +Ozy, Mademoiselle Virginie Capon, and other charming ladies, all styling +themselves actresses, and spending a thousand francs a week out of a +salary of twenty-five. In attendance<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> on this bevy of beauty were some of +the jolliest fellows in Paris. The oldest and most distinguished was Roger +de Beauvoir, whose curly black hair, wonderful waistcoats, and pearl-grey +pantaloons made him the delight of the fair sex, and the envy of his +fellow-boulevardiers. De Beauvallon was also present, but he and Dujarier +were not openly on bad terms, and nothing seemed likely to cloud the +general gaiety.</p> + +<p>The fun waxed fast and furious. Champagne corks popped in all directions, +toasts were drunk to everybody and everything. Dujarier proposed “Monsieur +de Beauvoir’s waistcoat,” followed by “Monsieur de Beauvoir’s raven +locks.” The jovial Roger responded with the toast “Friend Dujarier’s bald +head,” and evoked roars of laughter by drinking to the Memoirs of Count +Montholon, with which <i>La Presse</i> had promised to entertain its readers +for the last five years. Dujarier laughed as loudly as the others; the +champagne had risen to his head. He began to fondle the girls, and became +a little too bold even for their taste. “Anaïs,” he murmured in an audible +whisper to Mademoiselle Liévenne, “je coucherai avec toi en six mois.” The +next moment he realised he had gone too far. Recollecting himself, he +apologised, was forgiven, and the incident seemed to be forgotten by all.</p> + +<p>The remains of the supper were removed, curtains drawn back, and one side +of the room left free for dancing, while a card-table occupied the other. +More people dropped in. De Beauvoir, finding the literary editor in such a +good humour, thought the moment opportune to remind him of one of his +romances which <i>La Presse</i> had accepted but seemed in no hurry to publish. +To worry an editor about such a matter at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> such a moment is to court a +rebuff. Dujarier replied sharply that Dumas’s novel would be running for +some time, adding that it was likely to prove more profitable to the paper +than De Beauvoir’s serial would be. Roger, the best-humoured of men, was +nettled at this reply, and said so. “Good! do you seek an affair with me?” +retorted the editor. “No, I don’t look for affairs, but I sometimes find +them,” answered the author.</p> + +<p>It is clear that Dujarier, like his mistress, seldom had his temper under +perfect control. He took a hand at <i>lansquenet</i>, and complained of the low +limit imposed by the banker, Monsieur de St. Aignan. He and De Beauvallon +offered to share the bank’s risks and winnings. This being agreed to, +Dujarier threw down twenty-five louis, De Beauvallon five and a half. The +bank won twice, and Dujarier was entitled to a hundred louis. But St. +Aignan had made the mistake of understating the amount in the bank before +the cards were dealt, and now, therefore, found that the winnings were not +sufficient to satisfy him and his partners. He was about to make good the +deficit at his own expense, when De Beauvallon generously suggested to +Dujarier that they should share the loss in proportion to their stakes. +The literary editor preferred to stand upon his rights, and seems to have +been backed up by the bystanders. De Beauvallon said nothing more at the +time, but as the candles were flickering low and the party was preparing +to break up, he reminded his rival that he owed him (on some other score) +eighty-four louis. Dujarier replied tartly, but handed him the +seventy-five louis he had won, borrowed the odd nine louis from Collot, +the restaurant-keeper, and thus discharged the debt. He had lost on the +whole evening two thousand five hundred<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> francs. In the grey March dawn +his head became clearer. He vaguely realised he had given deep offence to +two, at least, of his fellow revellers. He returned, anxious and haggard +to his lodgings in the Rue Laffitte, where Lola was eagerly awaiting him. +She guessed at once that something was amiss, and endeavoured in vain to +extract from him the cause of his evident agitation. Returning evasive +answers, the journalist hurried off to the office of <i>La Presse</i>.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="XIII" id="XIII"></a>XIII</h2> +<p class="title">THE CHALLENGE</p> + +<p>Whether or not Dujarier had used offensive expressions to De Beauvallon on +this particular occasion, the opportunity for bringing to a head the +long-standing feud between the two newspapers was too good to be missed.</p> + +<p>That afternoon the literary editor was waited upon at his office by two +gentlemen—the Vicomte d’Ecquevillez, a French officer in the Spanish +service, and the Comte de Flers. They informed him that they came upon +behalf of Monsieur de Beauvallon, who considered himself insulted by the +tone of his remarks the previous evening, and required an apology or +satisfaction. Dujarier affected contempt for his rival, making a point of +mispronouncing his name. He had no apology to offer, and referred his +visitors to Monsieur Arthur Berrand, and Monsieur de Boigne. As the +seconds withdrew D’Ecquevillez mentioned that Monsieur de Beauvoir also +considered himself entitled to satisfaction.</p> + +<p>The rest of that day Lola could not but remark the intense pre-occupation +of her lover—that concentration of mind that all men experience at the +near menace of death. On the battle-field it may last for a minute or an +hour; in other circumstances it may last for days<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> together. Dujarier felt +himself already a dead man. He had hardly handled a pistol in his life. He +envied his mistress, who had often given him an exhibition of her powers +as a shot. De Beauvallon, on the other hand, was known to be skilled in +all the arts of attack and defence. Nor could Dujarier doubt that he +wished to see him dead. In the evening Bertrand and De Boigne arrived. +Lola was with difficulty persuaded to leave them to attend her rehearsal. +Dujarier, pale and nervous, discussed the matter with his friends. “C’est +une querelle de boutique!” he exclaimed bitterly, but expressed his +determination to proceed with the affair if it cost him his life. +Bertrand, fully alive to the gravity of the situation, sought De +Beauvallon’s seconds, and argued that nothing said by his principal could +be considered ground for an encounter. His efforts at a reconciliation +were useless. De Boigne tried to give precedence to De Beauvoir, who was +accounted an indifferent shot; but that easily placable author had just +lost his mother, and displayed no anxiety to defraud De Beauvallon of his +vengeance. Seeing the encounter was inevitable, Bertrand and De Boigne +exacted from the other side this written statement:—</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“We, the undersigned, declare that in consequence of a disagreement, +Monsieur Dujarier has been challenged by Monsieur de Beauvallon in +terms which render it impossible for him to decline the encounter. We +have done everything possible to conciliate these gentlemen, and it is +only upon Monsieur de Beauvallon insisting that we have consented to +assist them.”</p> + +<p>This statement was signed by all four seconds. It left Dujarier, as the +injured party, the choice of arms.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> He chose the pistol, thinking, it is +to be presumed, that as his adversary was equally experienced in the use +of the rapier and firearms, chance might possibly favour him with the +latter.</p> + +<p>Lola, while these negotiations were proceeding, was a prey to the most +painful apprehensions. Pressed by her, Dujarier admitted that he was about +to engage in an affair of honour, but gave her to understand that his +opponent would be Roger de Beauvoir. Her alarm at once subsided. No one +feared Roger. “You know I am a woman of courage,” she said; “if the duel +is just, I will not prevent it.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, what after all is a duel!” said her lover lightly, but she noticed +that his smile was forced.</p> + +<p>She drove to the Porte-St.-Martin; Dujarier, at three in the afternoon, +paid a visit to Alexandre Dumas. He picked up a sword that stood in a +corner of the room, and made a few passes. “You don’t know how to wield +the sword, I can see,” observed the novelist. “Can you use any other +weapon?”</p> + +<p>“Well, I <i>must</i> use the pistol,” replied the journalist significantly.</p> + +<p>“You mean you are going to fight?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, to-morrow, with De Beauvallon.”</p> + +<p>Dumas looked grave. “Your adversary is a very good swordsman,” he said. +“You had better choose swords. When De Beauvallon sees how you handle the +weapon, the duel will be at an end.”</p> + +<p>He told Dujarier that Alexandre, junior, practised at the same +fencing-class as De Beauvallon, and he strongly urged him to reconsider +the choice of weapons. But the journalist was obstinate. He had no +confidence in his opponent’s clemency, and he feared his skill with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> the +rapier. With the pistol there was always a chance; with cold steel he was +bound to be killed. In vain Dumas argued that the sword could spare, while +the pistol could slay, even if the trigger were pulled by the least +experienced hand. Dujarier dined with father and son. The friends parted +at nine in the evening. The journalist, in company with Bertrand, went to +a shooting gallery, where he tried his hand at the pistol. He hit a figure +as large as a man only twice in twenty shots! Dumas strolled into the +Variétés. He was ill at ease. Finally he took a cab and drove to the Rue +Laffitte. He found Dujarier seated at his bureau, writing his will, as it +afterwards proved.</p> + +<p>Dumas returned to the question of weapons. Dujarier showed a disposition +to avoid the whole subject. “You are only losing your time,” he said, “and +that is valuable. I don’t want you to arrange this affair, mind. It is my +first duel. It is astonishing that I have not had one before. It’s a sort +of baptism that I must undergo.”</p> + +<p>His friend questioned him as to the cause of the proposed encounter. “Lord +knows!” was the reply, “I can recollect no particular reason. I don’t know +what I am fighting about. It’s a duel between the <i>Globe</i> and <i>La +Presse</i>,” he added, “not between Monsieur Dujarier and Monsieur de +Beauvallon.”</p> + +<p>Seeing him determined both to fight and to choose fire-arms, Dumas +recommended him at least not to use the hair-trigger pistol. To the +novelist’s astonishment, Dujarier admitted he did not know the difference +between one kind of pistol and another. Alexandre said he would show him, +and drove off to his house for the purpose. As he descended the stairs, he +passed Lola,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> who noticed his agitation. Dujarier was again writing when +she entered his room. He was very pale. Dissimulating his preoccupation, +he invited his mistress to read a flattering notice on her performance +from the pen of Monsieur de Boigne. But Lola was not to be thus diverted +from her purpose. She implored her lover to tell her more about the +proposed encounter, to reveal the cause of his evident anxiety. He merely +replied that he was extremely busy, that there was nothing to worry about. +He insisted on her returning to her own apartments. “I’ll come and see you +to-morrow,” he promised, “and, Lola!—if—if I should leave Paris for any +reason, I don’t want you to lose sight of my friends. Promise that. They +are good sorts.”</p> + +<p>He almost forced Lola out of the house, only to admit Dumas a few minutes +later. The novelist had brought a brand-new pair of pistols. “Use these,” +he said; “I’ll give you a written statement that they have not been used +before. That ought to satisfy the seconds.” Dujarier shook his head. “Look +here,” said Dumas solemnly, “your luck has endured a long time. Take care +that it does not fail you now.”</p> + +<p>His friend’s well-meant pertinacity irritated the journalist. He replied +brusquely: “What would you? Do you want me to pass for a coward? If I +don’t accept this challenge, I shall have others. De Beauvallon is +determined to fasten a quarrel on me. One of his seconds told me so. He +said my face displeased him. However, this affair over, I shall be left in +peace.”</p> + +<p>It was one o’clock in the morning. Dumas, having exhausted all the +resources of argument and persuasion, rose to depart. “At least,” he +counselled his friend, “don’t fight till two in the afternoon. It is no +use<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> getting up early for so unpleasant an affair. Besides, I know you. +You are always at your worst—nervous and fidgety—between ten and +eleven.”</p> + +<p>“You know that,” said Dujarier eagerly, “you won’t think it fear? And, +Dumas,” ... he went to his desk, and wrote a cheque on Laffitte’s for a +thousand crowns. “I owe you this. Now this is drawn on my private account, +and as the duel takes place at eleven, go there before eleven, for you +don’t know what may happen. Go there <i>before eleven</i>, for after that my +credit may be dead. I beg of you, go before eleven.”</p> + +<p>The two friends wrung each other’s hand, and Dumas, heavy at heart, went +downstairs. Dujarier was left to his thoughts. The reflections of a man +who is practically sure that he will be dead next day are quite peculiar. +The sensation is not fear in the ordinary acceptation of the term. It is +an effort to realise what no man ever can properly realise—that the world +around you, which in one (and a very true) sense has no existence except +as it is perceived by you, will, notwithstanding, be existing to-morrow +evening, while you will not exist. Intellectually you know this, but you +cannot realise it.</p> + +<p>At such moments men turn with relief to the pen. With ink and paper you +can project yourself beyond your own grave. Dujarier signed his will, +which began with these words:—</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“On the eve of fighting for the most absurd reasons, on the most +frivolous of pretexts, and without its being possible for my friends, +Arthur Bertrand and Charles de Boigne, to avoid an encounter, which +was provoked in terms that forced me on my honour to accept, I set +forth hereafter my last wishes....”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>Then he wrote to his mother.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“<span class="smcap">My Good Mother</span>,—If this letter reaches you, it will be because I am +dead or dangerously wounded. I shall exchange shots to-morrow with +pistols. It is a necessity of my position, and I accept it as a man of +courage. If anything could have induced me to decline the challenge, +it would have been the grief which the blow would cause you, were I +struck. But the law of honour is imperative, and if you must weep, +dear mother, I would rather it be for a son worthy of you than for a +coward. Let this thought assuage your grief: my last thought will have +been of you. I shall go to the encounter to-morrow calm and sure of +myself. Right is on my side. I embrace you, dear mother, with all the +warmth of my heart.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 4em;">“<span class="smcap">Dujarier.</span>”</span></p></div> + +<p>There was nothing more to be done or to be said. Only a few hours of the +night remained. The experienced duellist would have steadied his nerves by +as long a sleep as possible. But Dujarier regarded himself as doomed. He +mentally contrasted his miserable performances at the shooting gallery +with the wonderful things De Beauvallon was reported to have done with the +pistol in Cuba. The stories might be inventions. He tried to snatch a few +hours’ sleep.<a name='fna_9' id='fna_9' href='#f_9'><small>[9]</small></a></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span></p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="XIV" id="XIV"></a>XIV</h2> +<p class="title">THE DUEL</p> + +<p>The morning of the 11th March dawned. The ground was white with snow. +Dujarier was taking his light French breakfast when Lola’s maid brought +him a message. She wished to see him. He promised to come at once, and the +servant took her leave. Dujarier hastily scribbled these lines:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“<span class="smcap">My Dear Lola</span>,—I am going out to fight a duel with pistols. This will +explain why I wished to pass the night alone, and why I have not gone +to see you this morning. I need all the composure at my command and +you would have excited in me too much emotion. I will be with you at +two o’clock, unless——Good-bye, my dear little Lola, the dear little +girl I love.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 4em;">D.”</span></p></div> + +<p>It was seven o’clock. He told his servant to deliver the letter about +nine. He then rose and walked to De Boigne’s house in the Rue Pinon. There +he found the four seconds in consultation. He saluted them, and thanked De +Boigne for his notice of Lola. The conditions of the encounter were then +signed and read. The combatants were to be placed at thirty paces +distance, and could make five forward before firing, but each was to step +after the other had fired. One was to fire<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> immediately after the other. A +coin was spun to determine who should provide the pistols; but it was +understood that the weapons were not to have been used before by the +combatants. The coin decided in favour of De Beauvallon. D’Ecquevillez +then produced a pair of pistols, which he gave the other seconds to +understand were his personal property. He and De Flers then went in search +of their principal. Dujarier and his friends returned to the Rue Laffitte, +where they picked up the doctor, Monsieur de Guise, and drove off, all +four, to the Bois de Boulogne.</p> + +<p>The rendezvous was a secluded spot near the Restaurant de Madrid. There +is, and probably was then, a <i>tir aux pigeons</i> close by. The morning was +intensely cold, and no one was about. A few snowflakes were falling as the +party arrived. There was no sign of De Beauvallon and his seconds, though +it was now ten o’clock. The four men impatiently paced up and down, +Bertrand and De Boigne conversing in low tones as to the probable result +of the encounter, while Dujarier talked with the doctor on matters in +general. De Guise, however, could not refrain from questioning him as to +the cause of the affair. The journalist related the episodes at the Frères +Provençaux, from his own point of view, and said that D’Ecquevillez had +told him that De Beauvallon intended to fight him “because he did not like +him.” “I naturally replied,” continued Dujarier, “that many people might +not like me, and I could not be supposed on that account to fight them. +D’Ecquevillez retorted that his principal would force me to fight by a +blow and an insult. This threat was in itself an insult. I accepted the +challenge.”</p> + +<p>The doctor observed the journalist closely. He was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> shivering with the +cold, and the nervous excitement, which Dumas had remarked in him always +at this hour, was manifesting itself. The seconds drew near, and De Guise +gave it as his professional opinion that Dujarier was not in a condition +to fight. Bertrand and De Boigne joined their entreaties to his, and +argued that having waited an hour for the other party, they could in all +honour retire from the field. Dujarier refused to do any such thing. +Before all things, like most nervous men, he dreaded the imputation of +cowardice. The cold and the excitement made him tremble. His friends would +suspect him of fear; therefore, at all hazards, he must give them proof of +his courage.</p> + +<p>Finding his persuasions futile, De Guise resigned himself to listen to a +long and minute account of the quarrel with De Beauvoir. The recital was +finished when the sound of carriage wheels was heard. Dujarier’s heart +must have given a big leap! A shabby cab drove up and out of it jumped De +Beauvallon and his seconds. De Boigne accosted the Creole with some +asperity. He remarked that it was confoundedly cold, and that he and his +principal had been kept waiting for an hour and a half. D’Ecquevillez, who +seems to have done most of the talking throughout the whole affair, turned +to Bertrand, and explained that they had been delayed by the necessity of +purchasing ammunition and by the slowness of the cab horse.</p> + +<p>De Boigne now addressed himself to De Beauvallon, and made a final effort +to arrange the dispute. “I speak to you,” he said, “as one who has had +experience of these affairs. There is nothing to fight about. Your friends +have put it into your head that an insult was intended.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>“Sir,” replied De Beauvallon coldly, “you say there is no motive for this +duel. I think differently, since I am here with my seconds. You don’t +suggest any other course. The position is the same as yesterday, when it +was settled that we should fight. Besides, an affair of this sort is not +to be arranged on the field.”</p> + +<p>De Boigne shrugged his shoulders. He had done his utmost for his friend. +He and De Flers selected the ground, and with the consent of the other, he +measured forty-three paces, diminishing the distance originally agreed to. +D’Ecquevillez, meanwhile, had produced his pistols, recognisable by their +blue barrels. Bertrand was about to charge one, when he introduced his +finger into the muzzle, and withdrew it, black to the depth of the +finger-nail. He looked at the other. “These pistols have been tried,” he +said.</p> + +<p>“On my honour,” declared D’Ecquevillez, “we have only tried them with +powder. Monsieur de Beauvallon has never handled them before.”</p> + +<p>With this positive assurance Bertrand had to be content. The pistols were +again tried with caps. With grave misgivings, he and De Boigne placed +their man. De Beauvallon also took up position. Dujarier took his pistol +from his second so clumsily that he moved the trigger and nearly blew De +Boigne’s head off.</p> + +<p>The signal was given. Dujarier fired instantly. His ball flew wide of the +mark. He let drop his pistol, and faced his adversary.</p> + +<p>De Beauvallon very deliberately raised his arms and covered his opponent. +The spectators held their breath. “Fire, damn you! fire!” cried De Boigne, +exasperated by his slowness. The Creole pulled the trigger. For an instant +Dujarier stood erect. The next,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> he fell, huddled up on to the ground. The +doctor rushed towards him. His practised eye told him that the wound was +mortal. The bullet had entered near the bridge of the nose, and broken the +occipital bone, so as to produce a concussion of the spine. De Guise +assured Dujarier the wound was not serious and told him to spit. He tried +in vain to do so. Bertrand summoned the carriage to approach. De Boigne +leant over his friend, and asked him if he suffered much pain. Dujarier, +already inarticulate, nodded; his eyelids dropped, and he fell back in the +physician’s arms. He was dead.</p> + +<p>D’Ecquevillez, seeing Dujarier fall, offered Bertrand his assistance. He +was rebuffed, told to gather up his pistols, and to go. He hurried off +with the other second and his principal, who murmured: “Mon Dieu! Mon +Dieu!” as he passed his late adversary. “How have I conducted myself?” he +asked his second.</p> + +<p>“I hope I shall always act in similar circumstances as you did,” was the +reassuring reply.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, Dumas had gone, full of anxiety, to the Rue Laffitte, to find +that his friend had left the house, with what object he guessed. He +noticed as a sinister omen that there was blood on the banister. He went +away, sad at heart, to await the result of the combat.</p> + +<p>Lola, on the receipt of her lover’s note, hurried at once to his house. +She burst into his bedroom and saw two pistols—Alexandre’s, no +doubt—lying upon the quilt. Gabriel, Dujarier’s servant, who had followed +her, shook his head sadly, and said, “My master knows very well he will +not return.” In an instant Lola was again outside the house, driving to +her good friend, Dumas’s. The novelist told her that it was with De<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> +Beauvallon, not with De Beauvoir, that their friend had gone to exchange +shots. “My God!” she cried, “then he is a dead man!”</p> + +<p>She rushed back to the Rue Laffitte. She spent half an hour in agony of +mind, when the sound of a carriage stopping fell upon her ears. She flew +into the street, and opened the carriage door. A heavy body lurched +against her bosom. It was her dead lover.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="XV" id="XV"></a>XV</h2> +<p class="title">THE RECKONING</p> + +<p>It was not in fair fight that Dujarier had fallen. Before even he had been +carried to his grave, with Balzac, Méry, Dumas, and De Girardin as his +pall-bearers, the suspicions of all his friends had been aroused. At Dr. +Vérons, the morning of his death, Bertrand showed Dumas his finger-tip +still blackened by the barrel of De Beauvallon’s pistol. Would a pistol +which had not been charged with ball leave such a stain? Experts present +said no. The suspicion that De Beauvallon had made doubly sure of killing +his adversary by trying his weapon beforehand ripened in the minds of many +into conviction. How, too, had the Creole spent the early part of the +morning? Why did he not come with his seconds to the Rue Pinon. What was +he doing while Dujarier was awaiting him in the Bois? The affair began to +wear a very sinister complexion. Representations were made to the police. +Enquiries were set on foot, and De Beauvallon and D’Ecquevillez promptly +retired across the Spanish frontier.</p> + +<p>Lola had sustained a staggering blow. She was sincerely attached to +Dujarier, who had been more to her than any other man had been. The memory +of her husband was hateful. Liszt had flashed suddenly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> across her path, +to disappear a few weeks later. Besides, he had given her up of his own +accord. But this man had shared her life for months, had loved her to the +last, had cared for her both as a lover and a husband. In his will he left +her eighteen shares in the Palais Royal Theatre, representing twenty +thousand francs. She referred, years after, and no doubt sincerely, to his +death as a loss that could never be made up to her.</p> + +<p>The luxury of grief is allowed in scant measure to those who minister to +the public’s amusement. They must dry their tears quickly. Three weeks +after the fatal duel, Lola made her appearance at the Porte-St.-Martin +Theatre, in <i>La Biche au Bois</i>. The audience was no less critical than at +the Opera. She was hissed, and with her usual audacity, she exasperated +the public still more by expressing her contempt for them upon the stage. +So ended her career as a <i>danseuse</i> in the French capital.</p> + +<p>She lingered on in Paris, notwithstanding, frequenting the society of her +dead lover’s friends in accordance with his last wishes. The legacy had +relieved her for the moment of the necessity of earning her living. She +longed to see retribution overtake the man who had robbed her of all that +life held dear. Justice seemed for a time to pursue the slayer with leaden +feet. In July the Royal Court of Paris practically exonerated the seconds, +and De Beauvallon thought it safe to surrender voluntarily. The +explanations he gave as to his movements on the 10th and 11th March did +not, as he had hoped they would, satisfy the authorities. The Court of +Cassation quashed the decision of the lower court, and sent the accused +for trial, on the charge of murder, before the Assize Court of Rouen.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>The case is one of the most celebrated in the annals of French justice. It +all turned on the article in the code of honour that forbids a duellist to +make use of arms which he has already tried, and with which he is +proficient. All the witnesses—among whom were professed experts—agreed +that this rule was absolute. The case, which raised many other nice points +of law, was heard before the President of the Tribunal, Monsieur Letendre +de Tourville. The prosecution was conducted by the King’s Procurator +(General Salveton), the Advocate-General, and two very able counsel, +Maîtres Léon Duval and Romiguière. But the defence had a tower of strength +in the great advocate Berryer, the defender of Ney, Lamennais, +Châteaubriand, and Louis Napoléon—the greatest pleader and, after +Mirabeau, the greatest orator his country has produced.</p> + +<p>A trial whereat Alexandre Dumas and Lola Montez, to say nothing of the +lesser lights of the literary and theatrical world, appeared as witnesses, +excited immense interest. Dumas produced a sensation which must have +rejoiced his heart on entering the witness-box. He was asked his name and +profession. “Alexandre Dumas, Marquis Davy de la Pailleterie,” he replied +with evident complacency; “and I should call myself a dramatist if I were +not in the country of Corneille.”</p> + +<p>“There are degrees in everything,” replied the learned President.</p> + +<p>Claudin, who heard these oft-quoted words, gives it as his opinion that +Dumas expressed himself thus from a genuine sense of modesty, and that the +judge did not succeed in being funny.</p> + +<p>The great Alexandre was in very good form throughout the whole trial, +which lasted from the 26th to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> 30th March 1846, inclusive. He +expounded the laws and principles of the duel, with copious commentaries. +He quoted an authoritative work on the subject, drawn up by a body of +noblemen and gentlemen—a work which the judge dryly observed he did not +intend to add to his library. At the conclusion of the first part of his +evidence (the gist of which we know) he solicited leave to return to +Paris, to assist at the representation of one of his dramas in five acts. +Dumas never lost an opportunity of advertising himself. He managed also to +drag his son into the box, though the latter had really nothing to say.</p> + +<p>The frail, fair ladies of the supper-party also had to run the gauntlet of +examination and cross-examination. The virtuous ladies of Rouen, anxious +to hear the most scandalous details of the case, filled the space reserved +for the public, and having feasted their eyes on the <i>demi-mondaines</i>, +obstinately refused to let these find seats among them. Mademoiselle +Liévenne appeared in a charming toilette of blue velvet, with a red +Cashmere shawl, and a pearl-grey satin hood. Lola, as befitted the +melancholy occasion, wore the garb of mourning, and never, perhaps, showed +to more advantage than in her close-fitting black satin costume and +flowing shawl. She was the cynosure of all eyes. Though a year had passed +since the event now being discussed, her utterance was choked with sobs, +and the reading of Dujarier’s last note caused her to shed floods of +tears. She declared that had she known it was De Beauvallon with whom her +lover intended to fight, she would have communicated with the police and +prevented the duel. “I would have gone to the rendezvous myself,” she +cried with characteristic spirit.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> In her Memoirs, she adds that she would +have fought De Beauvallon herself, and her life-story testifies that this +was no empty gasconade.</p> + +<p>That Dujarier’s death had been premeditated by his antagonist was +abundantly proved at the trial. The pistols which the dead man’s seconds +had been led to believe belonged to D’Ecquevillez were now admitted to be +the property of the accused’s brother-in-law, Monsieur Granier de +Cassagnac. They had been in the possession of De Beauvallon since the eve +of the encounter. Circumstantial evidence went to show that he was +familiar with the weapons, and had practised with them on the fatal +morning. But the testimony of the witnesses, the facts themselves, the +skilful pleading of Duval, prevailed not against the eloquence of Berryer. +His magical powers of oratory brought the jury round to his point of view, +and De Beauvallon was acquitted of the charge of murder, though cast in +damages of twenty thousand francs towards the mother and the sister of his +victim.</p> + +<p>The affair did not end there. The friends of Dujarier refused to be +diverted from the trail of vengeance. Fresh and conclusive evidence came +to light, and De Beauvallon and D’Ecquevillez were placed on their trial +for perjury during the first hearing. As regarded D’Ecquevillez, it was +established that he was no viscount, but a <i>bourgeois</i> of doubtful +antecedents named Vincent, that his rank in the Spanish service was merely +that of a militia captain, and that his evidence, in general, was +worthless. It was proved that De Beauvallon had tried the pistols the very +morning of the duel in a garden at Chaillot, taking aim with them not +once, but a dozen times. Dujarier had been the victim<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> of a deliberate +conspiracy. Both the accused were found guilty and condemned (9th October +1847) to eight years’ imprisonment. Both escaped from prison during the +Revolution of the following year. The principal criminal returned to his +native isle, where his liberation was judicially sanctioned. His +subsequent appeal to obtain a reversal of his sentence was rejected by the +Court of Cassation in 1855.</p> + +<p>Lola had left France long before the assassin of her lover was finally +brought to justice.</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“In another six months,” writes “the Englishman in Paris,” “her name +was almost forgotten by all of us, except by Alexandre Dumas, who now +and then alluded to her. Though far from superstitious, Dumas, who had +been as much smitten with her as most of her admirers, avowed that he +was glad that she had disappeared. ‘She has the evil eye,’ he said, +‘and is sure to bring bad luck to any one who closely links his +destiny with hers, for however short a time. You see what has occurred +to Dujarier? If ever she is heard of again, it will be in connection +with some terrible calamity that has befallen a lover of hers.’ We all +laughed at him, except Dr. Véron, who could have given odds to Solomon +Eagle himself at prophesying. For once in a way, however, Alexandre +Dumas proved correct. When we did hear again of Lola Montés, it was in +connection with the disturbances at Munich, and the abdication of her +Royal lover, Louis I. of Bavaria.”</p> + + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="XVI" id="XVI"></a>XVI</h2> +<p class="title">IN QUEST OF A PRINCE</p> + +<p>“The moment I get a nice, round, lump sum of money, I am going to try to +hook a prince.” In these words Lola is said to have announced her ambition +to “the Englishman in Paris.” That gossipy exile, whoever he was in this +particular instance, was no friend of hers, and took care, no doubt, to +render her expressions as brutally as possible. I do not doubt that he has +interpreted her meaning truthfully enough. It is clear that Lola was an +inordinately ambitious woman, eager to play a leading part in great +affairs. Her association with Dujarier and other active politicians, the +glimpses she had so often obtained of courts and thrones, stimulated this +longing for power. She felt within her the capacity to rule men, and the +ability to surmount great obstacles. A personal courage was hers, such as +would have earned its possessor, if a man, the cross of honour. She feared +not the bright face of danger, dreading only that circumstance might put +the things she coveted beyond her reach. Valour alone, she knew, is seldom +rewarded in a woman. It is considered by the women, and more particularly +the men, who do not possess it, unwomanly. Intellect, again, she had; but +its development had been checked,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> its faculties neglected, under the +Early Victorian system of women’s education. Besides, the most superficial +observer could not have failed to see, that while learning in a man was +accounted a qualification for responsibilities and honours, in a woman it +was regarded as a not altogether enviable peculiarity—like an aquiline +nose, or the gift of sword-swallowing. In the five years Lola had passed +in the various capitals of Europe, it had become very plain to her that +what men supremely prize in women is physical beauty. The governing sex +attached no rewards (or, at any rate, the meagrest) to courage and wisdom. +They asked woman only to be beautiful. Some insisted that she should also +be virtuous, by which they meant she should bestow herself upon one of +them exclusively. In other words, they allowed women to influence them +only through the senses; and by the means they had themselves selected, +the ambitious woman had no choice but to attack them.</p> + +<p>Over the grave of Dujarier Lola may well have exclaimed, “Farewell, love!” +Every one of her attachments had ended unhappily—the first ingloriously, +the last tragically. Under such blows, her nature hardened. Ambition +revived as sentiment waned. There was something worth living for still. At +Rouen she heard the murderer of her lover acquitted. Bitter and +disillusioned, she turned her steps towards Germany. Thanks to Dujarier, +she had now “the round, lump sum of money” necessary to the execution of +her project; and in Germany, with its thirty-six sovereigns, she could +hardly fail to encounter a prince. She travelled about from watering-place +to watering-place, from Wiesbaden to Homburg, from Homburg to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>Baden-Baden, “punting in a small way, not settling down anywhere, and +almost deliberately avoiding both Frenchmen and Englishmen.” At Baden it +was rumoured that the Prince of Orange (probably an old friend of her +Simla days) was among her admirers. There also she met that puissant +prince, Henry LXXII. of Reuss, who straightway fell in love with her. He +invited her to pay a visit to his exiguous dominions, and she went, +probably feeling that she was playing the part of sparrow-hawk. At the +Court of Reuss she suffered agonies of boredom. The etiquette was as +strict as in the palace of the Most Catholic King, and the deference +exacted by Henry LXXII. as profound as though he had been Czar of all the +Russias. True, in his territory, only half as large again as the county of +Middlesex, he wielded a power as absolute as that autocrat’s. Of this +pettiness the beautiful stranger soon showed her impatience. Her infirmity +of temper betrayed itself. She infringed His Highness’s prerogative by +chastising his subjects—still, this could be overlooked by an indulgent +prince. But when Henry one morning beheld Lola walking straight across his +flower-beds, he felt that it was time to vindicate the outraged majesty of +the throne. With his own august hands he wrote and signed an order, +expelling Mademoiselle Montez from the principality. To this decree effect +was only given when His Highness had satisfied to the last pfennig a +tremendously long bill for expenses, presented to him by the audacious +offender.</p> + +<p>As it is hardly possible to take a long walk without overstepping the +limits of the principality, not many hours elapsed before Lola was beyond +the reach of Henry’s wrath. She had the choice of various retreats.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> The +neighbouring duchy of Saxe-Altenburg she, no doubt, contemptuously +dismissed. To the north lay Prussia; but she could expect no welcome +there. Frederick William, after her memorable adventure at the review, had +given her to understand that his police could be better employed than in +teaching her manners. She avoided Weimar, where her old lover, Liszt, had +established himself in company with the Princess Zu Sayn-Wittgenstein. She +may have lingered awhile in these pretty, petty Thuringian states, with +their charming capitals set in the forest glades; and perhaps have made a +pilgrimage to the Venusberg, near Eisenach, where her prototype ensnared +Tannhäuser. The spirit of that old <i>minnesänger</i> was not altogether dead. +Something of it glowed in the heart of the grey-haired man who reigned +over Bavaria. Deliberately or aimlessly, Lola Montez, the Venus of her +generation, journeyed south towards Munich.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="XVII" id="XVII"></a>XVII</h2> +<p class="title">THE KING OF BAVARIA</p> + +<p>At that time Louis I., who wore the Bavarian crown, was a man sixty-one +years old. He, “the most German of the Germans,” as he had been styled, +was by an odd freak of fortune born in France. His father, Max Joseph, +though brother of the Duke of Pfalz-Zweibrücken, commanded a regiment in +the French service, and it was at Strasbourg that the child was born in +1786. His father’s grenadiers shaved off their moustaches to stuff his +pillow with. The name bestowed on him in baptism was that of his +godfather, the ill-fated King of France. But the Revolution soon drove him +with his family across the Rhine, to Mannheim and to Rohrbach. Death +quickly cleared the boy a path to the throne. His father presently +succeeded his brother as Duke, and a few years later upon the extinction +of the elder line of the Wittelsbachs, became Elector of Bavaria.</p> + +<p>Even in the stormy first decade of the nineteenth century princes had to +be educated, and in the year 1803 we find Louis at Göttingen, sitting at +the feet of Johannes Müller, who infused him with a lively sense of +nationality and a reverence for all things German. This was to stand the +Prince in good stead in the dark<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> days that followed. Those were years of +profound humiliation for Germany, of poignant suffering for her people. +Even in the ’forties few Germans took pride in the name, some of them +settled in London and Paris, deeming it almost a reproach. In his +country’s blackest night the Bavarian prince loudly proclaimed his faith +in a glorious dawn. He exulted in the name of German. He was “teutsch” (as +he always wrote the word) to the very core.</p> + +<p>He was German not least in his passion for the South. Italy was his first, +last, and best-beloved mistress. In her bosom he was inspired with that +love for the arts which was stronger even than his patriotism. Returning +to Germany, he saw with disgust his father embrace the alliance of +Napoleon and turn his arms against Austria—German fighting German. At +Strasbourg, on hearing the news of the capitulation at Ulm, he dared to +say to the Empress Josephine: “The greatest victory for me will be when +this, my native city, is united to Germany.” He accompanied Max Joseph to +the Emperor’s headquarters at Linz in 1805, when Bavaria was erected by +the conqueror’s decree into a kingdom. The new Crown Prince made no secret +of his antipathies. Anxious to win him over, Napoleon carried him off to +Paris, and only succeeded in disgusting him by his irreverence during +divine worship. Louis was a devout and sincere Catholic. From the +Tuileries he intrigued for the overthrow of his host and gaoler with Czar +Alexander. His father got wind of these negotiations and recalled him to +Munich. Thence he was sent to join the Bavarian army in Prussia. With +unspeakable bitterness he heard that the victory of Jena was celebrated at +his father’s capital with a <i>Te<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> Deum</i> and public rejoicings. In January +1807, in the train of the conquering army, he reached Berlin. There his +first act was to unveil a bust of Frederick the Great!</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img5.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">LOUIS OF BAVARIA. WHEN ELECTORAL PRINCE.</p> +<p> </p> + +<p>At the beginning of the campaign against Russia, at Napoleon’s request, +which was practically a command, Louis took the head of the Bavarian army. +Years after, he refused to sanction the publication of a work on his +military achievements at this time. With the war-weary veteran of De +Vigny’s tale, he might have said: “J’ai appris à detester la guerre, en la +faisant avec énergie.” For he was no carpet knight. Though compelled to +draw the sword against men of his own race and their allies, he wielded it +well. Under a hot fire he led his troops across the Narew, and at Pultusk +won the Grand Cross of the Order of Max Joseph. Such services could not +blind Napoleon to his lieutenant’s real sympathies. In his indignation +against what he considered the ingratitude and treachery of his ally’s +son, he is reported to have exclaimed: “Quoi m’empêche de fusilier ce +prince?” He dared not go to such desperate lengths. Instead, he superseded +Louis in the command of the Bavarian army, at the beginning of the +campaign of 1809, by one of his own marshals, Lefebvre, Duke of Danzig. To +the Prince was assigned simply the command of a division. He fought well +at Abensberg, where the <i>mot d’ordre</i> was <i>Bravoure et Bavière</i>. “It is to +Germans that the Emperor owes this victory over Germans,” he boasted +bitterly.</p> + +<p>In the revolt of the Tyrolese against the Bavarian yoke imposed on them by +the French, his heart went out to the gallant insurgents. He pensioned a +son of the patriot Speckbacher, and condoled with Hofer’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> wife on the +execution of her husband. Napoleon’s indignation knew no bounds. “This +prince,” he declared, “shall never reign in Bavaria!” He destined the +crown for Eugène Beauharnais, or one of his children.</p> + +<p>But it was Louis’s policy that triumphed in 1813. With delight he beheld +his father desert the sinking ship of France, and from Salzburg (then +belonging to Bavaria) he issued a proclamation, urging all the German +people to rise against the common oppressor. Wrede, with a Bavarian army, +threw himself across the path of the retreating French at Hanau, to find +that the wounded eagle’s talons could still snatch a bloody victory. In +the campaigns of 1814 and 1815, Louis took no active part. His father +dreaded that he might fall into the hands of Napoleon, who regarded him +with intense hatred. The Prince had to be content with the part of +Tyrtaeus, and in odes, not deficient in merit, stirred the patriotic +feelings of his countrymen.</p> + +<p>After Waterloo he sheathed the sword that he had wielded reluctantly, but +not ingloriously. “I was never a general,” he said, “but a soldier, +yes—with all my heart.” He was now free to devote himself to matters +which more strongly, perhaps, appealed to him. At Vienna and London he +watched over the interests of the arts. He pleaded (and not +unsuccessfully) for the restitution of the artistic treasures Napoleon had +carried off, and wrote on the subject of the Elgin marbles with judgment +and critical acumen. He sought the acquaintance of the brilliant and the +learned, presiding over a <i>côterie</i> of painters, sculptors, and +<i>literati</i>. The winters of 1817-8 and 1820-1 he spent in the Eternal City, +residing at the Bavarian Embassy or at the Villa Malta on the Pincio. He +knew Canova and <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span>Thorwaldsen, and laid the foundations of his firm and +life-long intimacy with the sculptor, Wagner. On the Neue Pinakothek at +Munich is a picture by Catel, representing one of those joyous and +scholarly <i>réunions</i> in which Louis delighted. He is shown seated at a +table in a humble <i>osteria</i> on the Ripa Grande, in the company of +Thorwaldsen, Wagner, the artists Veit, Von Schnorr, and Catel himself, the +architect Von Klenze, Professor Ringseis, Count Seinsheim, and Colonel von +Gumppenberg. It was in such company, and beneath the blue sky of Italy, +that “the most German of the Germans” was happiest. His æsthetic faculties +were altogether exotic. His style of literary composition is compared by +an English writer to a dislocation of all the limbs of a human body.</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“Nothing can be more un-German, more opposed to the genius of the +language, than this extraordinary style, the like of which is not to +be found in the whole range of German literature.<a name='fna_10' id='fna_10' href='#f_10'><small>[10]</small></a> It is an +aberration of which we have an English example in ‘Carlylese.’”</p> + +<p>Louis succeeded his father as King of Bavaria in October 1825. He was then +in his fortieth year. A shrewd connoisseur, he had devoted nearly all his +income as Prince to the acquisition of objects of art. It was his ambition +to make his capital a new Florence, and to carry out this design the +strictest economy was introduced into all departments of the state. The +Munich we know was mainly his creation. To him we owe the Glyptothek, of +which he had conceived the idea at least as far back as 1805; the +beautiful Au Church, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> Royal Chapel, the Ludwigskirche, the Church of +St. Boniface, the splendid throne-room, the bronze monument to the +Bavarian soldiers who fell in the Russian campaigns. The quaint old German +city was completely transformed. Unfortunately, the royal Mæcenas failed +to recognise the worth of native models, such as were to be found in +Nuremberg. All his buildings were duplicates, or close imitations, of +others on the south side of the Alps. The Triumphal Arch in Ludwigstrasse, +with its bronze car drawn by lions, was obviously suggested by the +well-known models of Paris and Rome. To Louis’s zeal we are indebted also +for the Pinakothek and the colossal statue of Bavaria. Finally, in 1830, +on the anniversary of the battle of Leipzig, the King laid the +foundation-stone of the Walhalla, the temple of German greatness, thus +accomplishing a design he had formed twenty-five years before. Lofty as +was the execution, the conception was loftier. It took place</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“just after the Emperor Francis II. had uncrowned himself, declaring +that the Holy Roman Empire—the empire of a thousand years—was at an +end. It was at such a time, when the fabric that had stood for ten +centuries had crumbled into dust; when the tramp of the conqueror +threatened to efface all ancient institutions; when every existing +dynasty of the continent of Europe was trembling for its existence; +when principalities were being moulded into kingdoms, kingdoms +dismembered or destroyed, God’s very barriers trampled down and +passed; when works of art, the heirlooms of a nation, were torn from +the land that had produced them to deck the capital of the conqueror; +when victory followed victory—Marengo, Hohenlinden, Ulm, Austerlitz, +Jena, Friedland; when king’s crowns and mitres, like withered leaves, +lay strewn<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> upon the ground, and when it might well be feared that in +that ancient land soon nothing would be left of its former self to +recognise its identity—at such a moment was it, when devastation +threatened to put out the lights which had been shining for ages, that +the Prince Royal of Bavaria, then twenty-three years of age, resolved +to build a monument to the glory of his country.”<a name='fna_11' id='fna_11' href='#f_11'><small>[11]</small></a></p> + +<p>There were the elements of greatness in Louis of Bavaria. In magnanimity +of soul he was very far the superior of those sovereigns to whom +historians have accorded the title of “the great.” Nor was he lacking, as +we have seen, in the will and capacity to give to his loftiest conceptions +practical shape.</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“Throughout life,” says the writer just quoted, “King Louis ordered +his expenses with the exactness of a debtor and creditor account in a +banker’s ledger. The necessary monies for certain undertakings were +assigned beforehand for each coming year. Every separate expenditure +was provided for from specified sources, and each rubric had a +corresponding one belonging to it, whence its expenses were to be defrayed.”</p> + +<p>No Bond Street dealer could be a shrewder judge of the value of a work of +art than the Bavarian prince; he was no wasteful <i>dilettante</i>, but brought +to bear on the embellishment of his capital the keenest business +instincts. He watched with unflagging attention the fluctuations in the +prices of the treasures he coveted. We find him comparing Thorwaldsen’s +and Canova’s estimates of the value of the Barberini Faun, and refusing to +pay an extra scudo for the carriage of a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> statue. Yet he was not a +niggard. Those he honoured with his friendship he never left to want. A +sick or indigent artist had only to bring his need to the King’s notice, +to receive liberal relief. He was a warm-hearted and constant friend. His +last letter to Wagner is as affectionate in tone as the first he addressed +to him forty-eight years before. The permanency of his friendships was in +a great degree due to his good sense in making them. His associates were +men, not only of genius and learning, but of sterling worth and character. +They were not the kind of men to flatter his vanity, or to humour his +foibles. Returning to Rome after his accession, Louis announced his +intention of continuing the course of life he had pursued as Prince, but +thought he ought to assume some little outward state. Wagner replied: “The +King of Spain certainly used to drive about in a coach and six, with +footmen in grand liveries; but, notwithstanding, I never heard that any +one had the least respect for him. Simplicity is most consistent with +dignity: and the course you formerly pursued, sire, will be the best to +pursue in the future.”</p> + +<p>To this artist-king Germany owes its first railway. A short but very +important line was constructed by his command from Nuremberg to Fürth in +1835, and was followed up by lines connecting Munich with Augsburg and +Nuremberg with Bamberg. In these projects may be traced the inception of +the whole German railway system. Thanks also to Louis, the steamboat first +ploughed German waters, a service being inaugurated under his auspices on +the Bodensee. The important canal connecting the Danube with the Main, and +affording thereby direct water communication between<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> the North Sea and +the Black Sea, bears the King’s name, and was executed at his order. The +idealist, the man whom some writers in their ignorance dismiss as +half-<i>minnesänger</i>, half-<i>virtuoso</i>, was keenly alive to the material +needs of his subjects. The commercial treaties concluded with Würtemberg +in 1827 and with Prussia in 1833 laid the foundations of the Zollverein, +itself the basis of the political unity of all Germany. The empire owes +much to Louis I. Had he been the monarch of a more powerful state, the +imperial crown might have been his. “Were such a dignity offered to him,” +his brother-in-law, Frederick William, is reported to have said, “the King +of Bavaria would accept it for the sake of the picturesque costume!” The +sneer evinced a knowledge of the weaker side of a noble character, but it +is still open to question whether a Wittelsbach would not have more +worthily filled the imperial throne than a Hohenzollern. Humanity and the +arts would surely have been gainers.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span></p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="XVIII" id="XVIII"></a>XVIII</h2> +<p class="title">REACTION IN BAVARIA</p> + +<p>All generous ideals took root and blossomed in the heart of the Bavarian +prince. He loved his country, he loved the arts, he venerated the Catholic +faith, and (oddest of all in a German prince) he loved liberty. The +beginning of his reign was marked by the most liberal administration. +Extensive reforms were carried out in every department of state. Many old +feudal institutions and privileges which had survived the Napoleonic +deluge were swept away, including a multitude of archaic courts and +jurisdictions. The powers of the censorship of the Press were considerably +curtailed and recognition extended to the Protestants in the departments +of public worship and instruction. Retrenchment and economy were enforced +upon Louis by his great expenditure on public works. A million florins +were saved in the army estimates, and official salaries were seriously cut +down. An economy, not so commendable, was also effected by reducing the +pensions to retired civil servants and their widows, whose complaints were +distinctly heard above the chorus of approbation that greeted the +administration of the Liberal King. Looking, perhaps, too, to the rapid +development of the railway system, he suffered the roads of Bavaria to +fall into a deplorable state of neglect.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span>Louis was not a Liberal of the Manchester School. His sympathy with +freedom and progress was genuine, and he loyally observed the provisions +of a not very democratic constitution. But there can be no doubt that he +believed rather in government for the people than by the people. In the +particular instance he was abundantly justified, for in general +enlightenment he was several centuries ahead of his subjects. Five years +after his succession to the throne, his good resolutions were rudely +shattered by the Revolution of July. Why that event should have arrested +him in the path of progress it is not easy to divine, for Charles X. lost +his crown through obstinately opposing, not by stimulating, Liberal +tendencies. In the Revolution the reactionary or Ultramontane party of +Bavaria saw their chance, however, and gained the King’s ear. They dwelt +on the natural alliance of throne and altar, and the identity of +liberalism in religion with liberalism in politics. Only in a religious +people, they argued, could a king place his trust. Secure of royal +protection and encouragement, friars, nuns, and ecclesiastics of all kinds +came flocking into Bavaria. Monasteries, convents, and church schools +threatened to become as numerous as they are now in England. Some made +light of this black-robed invasion, and attributed it to the King’s +well-known fondness for the mediæval and the picturesque. But a real +change had come over Louis. Germany was seething with discontent, and +revolution was in the air. The King remembered the fate of his godfather, +and decided to take the side of reaction. The censorship of the Press was +again enforced. Those who were found guilty of <i>lèse-majesté</i> were +condemned to make a public apology to the King’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> portrait or statue—an +almost Gilbertian penalty. Soldiers, Protestants and Catholic, were alike +ordered to kneel when the Host was carried past. Repressive laws were +enacted against the Lutherans and Calvinists, and Germany seemed on the +point of passing once more under the sway of Rome. Louis had lost his +head. A few clod-hoppers brawling over their beer appeared to him an +attempt at revolution. It justified him in closing the university and +calling out the reserves. He established a star-chamber at Landshut, where +anonymous accusations were entertained and every accusation entailed +conviction. The Jesuits were supposed to have inspired this policy. The +rumour was probably true in substance. The children of Loyala are not +allowed to do evil that good may come, or to indulge in verbal +equivocations, as their enemies allege; but it is their aim to bring the +whole world into real and sincere submission to the Roman Church, and to +achieve that end they have certainly not hesitated to sacrifice political +and social ideals dear to all the rest of mankind. The Jesuit is a +Christian produced to his utmost logical extremity. Naturally, the order +is very unpopular with people who like to profess Christianity without any +intention of bringing their views and conduct into line with it.</p> + +<p>A true son of the Church was Carl Abel, a politician of some repute, to +whom Louis handed the portfolio of the Interior in April 1858. He was, it +is interesting to note, one of those Bavarian ministers who had +accompanied the King’s son, Otho, to Greece in the ’twenties, and assisted +in schooling the renascent nation in its new political status. He it was +who enacted the “knee-bending” order to which allusion<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> has been made; he +again who substituted the word “subjects” for “citizens” in the royal +decrees and proclamations. His policy was frankly Ultramontane. The +publication of Strauss’s “Life of Jesus,” three years before, had given a +powerful stimulus to rationalistic tendencies, and these the Bavarian +Government determined at all costs to eradicate. It was in the world of +thought and education that they saw the struggle must be waged, and they +wisely strove to bring the schools entirely within their control. To +prevent the spread of dangerous opinions it was decreed that all the books +used in the universities and schools, even in those of the lowest grade, +must be purchased from the official Government depôt. A bad time followed +for the booksellers and for every one suspected of liberal opinions. The +editor of the Bernstorff papers speaks of Abel’s administration as a +scandal to all Europe. It was not considered such by the majority of the +Bavarian people, who were probably more in sympathy with their ruler’s +present mood than with his earlier aspirations towards a Grecian polity +and culture. The Jesuits reigned supreme, but it was not without certain +faint misgivings that their chiefs heard the news of Lola’s arrival in +Munich. The dauntless adventuress was a factor that had to be reckoned with.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="XIX" id="XIX"></a>XIX</h2> +<p class="title">THE ENTHRALMENT OF THE KING</p> + +<p>The Court Theatre of Munich, thanks to the King’s critical faculty and +liberal patronage, had a very high reputation throughout Europe, and +seemed to Lola a very proper place for the display of her charms and +accomplishments. She applied accordingly to the Director, who upon an +exhibition of her powers, announced that they did not come up to his +standard. This was probably true; but had Lola danced like Taglioni, she +would no doubt have been rejected all the same by an official of this +strictly clerical Government. Full of wit and resource, she saw in her +rebuff the very opportunity she sought of bringing herself to the notice +of a sovereign. She had made a few friends among the <i>jeunesse dorée</i> of +the Bavarian capital, and through one of these, Count Rechberg, a royal +aide-de-camp, she craved an audience of His Majesty. Louis was indisposed +to grant it, despite his usually gracious bearing towards foreign +<i>artistes</i>. “Am I expected to see every strolling dancer?” he asked +pettishly. “Your pardon, sire,” said Rechberg, “but this one is well worth +seeing.” The King hesitated. While he did so Lola Montez stood before him. +Tired of waiting in the antechamber, and anticipating a refusal, she had +coolly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> followed an aide-de-camp into the royal presence. Now she stood +before the astonished King, dazzlingly beautiful, with downcast eyes, a +suppliant mien, and a smile of triumph at the corners of her mouth.</p> + +<p>To a passionate admirer of beauty like Louis her loveliness was an +all-sufficient excuse for her amazing audacity. His aide-de-camp was +right. The woman was well worth seeing. As he gazed upon her youth glowed +anew in his sixty-year-old frame, the blood coursed as fiercely as in the +time long gone by. Those who saw Lola knew a second spring. Collecting his +faculties, the King granted the dancer’s prayer—she received his command +to appear at the Court Theatre; but he was in no haste to dismiss the +suppliant. Lola, says one writer, came, saw, and conquered. The King +yielded to her at the first shot. Lola’s detractors relate that, glancing +at her magnificent bust, he asked in wonder if such charms could be of +nature’s making, whereupon the lady, there and then ripping up her +corsage, dispelled his doubts. They can believe the story who like to; it +sounds in the highest degree improbable. But from this first interview +dated the enthralment of the King.</p> + +<p>Not only grey-headed rulers but tiny school-girls felt the power of the +enchantress. Louise von Kobell tells us how, when a child, she saw Lola +Montez.<a name='fna_12' id='fna_12' href='#f_12'><small>[12]</small></a></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“On the 9th October, 1846, as I was going down Briennerstrasse, near +the Bayersdorf Palace, I saw coming my way a lady, gowned in black, +with a veil thrown over her head, and a fan in her hand. Suddenly +something seemed to flash across my vision, and I stood stock still, +gazing into the eyes that had dazzled<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> me. They shone upon me from a +pale countenance, which assumed a laughing expression before my +bewildered stare. Then she went, or rather swept on, past me. I forgot +all my governess’s injunctions against looking round, and stood +staring after her, till she disappeared from view. Like her, I told +myself, must have been the fairies in the nursery tales. I returned +home breathless, and told them of my adventure. ‘That,’ said my +father, grimly, ‘must have been the Spanish dancer, Lola Montez.’</p> + +<p>“I went to the Court Theatre on Saturday, the 10th October; I came +much too early to my seat, and read full of eagerness the +announcement: ‘<i>Der verwunschene Prinz</i>, a play in three acts, by J. +von Plötz. During the two <i>entr’actes</i>, Mademoiselle Lola Montez of +Madrid will appear in her Spanish national dances.’ Full of impatience +I saw the curtain rise, sat through the first act, and saw the curtain +fall again. Now it rose once more, and I saw my fairy of +yesterday—Lola Montez.</p> + +<p>“In the pit they clapped and hissed; the last, explained my neighbour, +because of the rumours abroad that Lola was an emissary of the English +Freemasons, an enemy of the Jesuits—a coquette, too, who had had +amorous adventures in all parts of the world, according to the +newspapers.</p> + +<p>“Lola Montez took the centre of the stage, clothed not in the usual +tights and short skirts of the ballet girl, but in a Spanish costume +of silk and lace, with here and there a glittering diamond. Fire +seemed to shoot from her wonderful blue eyes, and she bowed like one +of the Graces before the King, who occupied the royal box. Then she +danced after the fashion of her country, swaying on her hips, and +changing from one posture to another, each excelling the former in +beauty.</p> + +<p>“While she danced she riveted the attention of all the spectators, +their gaze followed the sinuous swayings of her body, in their +expression now of glowing passion, now of lightsome playfulness. Not +till she ceased her rhythmic movements was the spell broken....</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span>“On 14th October, 1846, Lola Montez appeared for the second and last +time at the Court Theatre. She danced the ‘Cachucha’ in the comedy, +<i>Der Weiberfeind von Benedix</i>, and danced the ‘Fandango’ with Herr +Opfermann in the <i>entr’acte</i> of the play <i>Müller und Miller</i>. In order +to drown any manifestations of displeasure, the pit was occupied by an +organised <i>claque</i> of policemen in plain clothes and theatre +attendants. The precaution was unnecessary, as Lola Montez exercised a +universal charm. The King had received her in audience, as he was +accustomed to receive foreign <i>artistes</i>; her beauty and her +stimulating conversation captivated Louis I.”</p></div> + +<p>“I know not how—I am bewitched,” His Majesty said frankly to one of his +ministers two days after his first interview with Lola. He had worshipped +at the altar of Venus all his life, and might reasonably have believed +himself immune against passion, now he had entered his seventh decade. The +vision of the radiant stranger haunted him. He sought for some excuse to +have her about his person. He had long meditated and spoken of a journey +to Spain. He would learn Spanish, and Lola should be his teacher. He +discussed the idea with some of his more intimate advisers, who said +nothing to dissuade him. Other hearts than his beat more rapidly at the +dancer’s approach. Dr. Curtius, the royal physician, was of opinion that +Señora Montez would be an admirable person to teach the King the Castilian +tongue; the aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Nüssbaum, was eager to convey the +royal summons to the lady. Lola did not refuse the office of instructress, +though the situation was not without its irony, seeing that her knowledge +of Spanish was but slight. The reading of Calderon and Cervantes was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> +enlivened and interrupted by her humorous sallies, her unexpected <i>jeux +d’esprit</i>, by the thousand and one delightful turns and mannerisms by +which as much as by her beauty Lola intoxicated men. She was full of the +elusive quality that her pseudo-countrymen call <i>sal</i>. Her intense +vitality effervesced, fizzed, and sparkled like champagne, and every +bubble that reached the surface caught a different tint. Taking lessons +from a charming woman is one of the shortest ways I know to falling in +love with her. Louis’s was a very bad case. His emotional capacity by an +unusual coincidence, had developed in proportion to his intellect. “His +soul is always fresh and young,” Lola declared, no doubt quite sincerely. +He had not retained a very large measure of the good looks that +distinguished him when a young man, but his bearing was dignified, +courtly, gracious—in a word, kingly—and his frank, grey-blue +all-embracing eyes had in them something appealing. His personality, in +short, is summed up by Frau von Kobell as “interesting.” His manner was as +animated as Lola’s, and corresponded to every movement of his mind. I do +not see why such a man, even if he be sixty-one years old, should not win +a woman’s love. Moreover, the staunchest Republican must admit that if +there is no divinity, there is a glamour or fascination about a king. He +is, at least, uncommon—even in Germany; he holds aloof, his inner life is +to some extent veiled in mystery; his setting is spectacular, and he +rarely appears at a disadvantage. He is never seen rolling in the mire in +the football field, affording sport to counsel and reporters in the +witness-box, or in any of those undignified situations in which we so +often meet our fellows. Above all,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> he represents power, a faculty more +attractive even to women than to men. Ambition prompted Lola to hook a +prince, but she found it quite easy to like one for his own sake.</p> + +<p>The exact nature of the relations between individual men and women is not +in general a legitimate matter for curiosity or speculation. It is a +question which concerns the parties only. In this instance, however, it +may be in the interests of Louis and Lola to observe that their relations +were in all probability what is called platonic. The King’s nature was +æsthetic, poetical, sentimental; he was eminently capable of that +unsensual affection that seems to have animated Dante and Michelangelo. It +must not be forgotten, too, that he was sixty years of age. “The sins of +youth,” he said “are the virtues of age.” He affirmed publicly and +solemnly that Lola had been his friend, never his mistress; and the word +of Louis of Bavaria is not to be lightly disregarded. Lola repeatedly said +the same thing. Nothing to the contrary was ever alleged by the King’s +immediate <i>entourage</i>; and—most significant fact of all—the Queen, +Therese of Sachsen-Hildburghausen, never manifested the slightest jealousy +of her husband’s friend, but, on the contrary, more than once expressed +her sympathy with her policy and actions.</p> + +<p>It was not, of course, to be expected that the public would take this view +of Louis’s relations with the famous adventuress. Least of all would it +find acceptance with the Roman Catholic clergy, whose tendency it has ever +been to exaggerate the sensual instincts in man’s nature and to ignore the +subtler, finer phases of passion. Puritan and prurient are generally +synonymous terms. Nor were the King’s ministers and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> clerical advisers at +all anxious to place a favourable construction on Lola’s presence at the +court.</p> + +<p>The Jesuits’ agents in different capitals reported unfavourably on the +dancer. They professed to believe, as we have seen—perhaps, they did +believe—that she was an emissary of the Freemasons, a body which in +England is regarded as a gigantic goose club, but by the Catholic world as +the most dangerous of secret anti-clerical societies. Now from what Frau +von Kobell tells us, it is plain that the Jesuits looked on Lola as a foe +from the moment she set foot in Munich. We must seek for some antecedent +cause. The lady’s own explanation is improbable, but worth repeating. She +alleges that while in Paris she was approached by the agents of the +Society, and invited to assist in the conversion of Count Medem, a Russian +nobleman. This proposal, possibly because of her inherited dislike of the +Roman Church, she declined; and communicated the matter to Monsieur +Guizot, then Prime Minister, who had long been puzzled by the +ever-increasing numbers in which the Russian nobility in Paris were going +over to Rome. Their conversion is attributed by Catholics to the apostolic +zeal of Madame Swetchine, a Russian lady of some literary attainments, +whose <i>salon</i> was the rendezvous of the clerical party in Paris. Vandam’s +informant (if he ever existed in the flesh) and one or two writers with an +Ultramontane bias suggest that the feud between Lola and the Jesuits arose +simply because it was impossible for the latter to give any countenance to +a King’s mistress. But we know that they recognised her as their enemy +before she became the royal favourite; moreover, German writers say that +the clericals<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> had never made any remonstrances or raised any difficulties +respecting her predecessors in His Majesty’s affections. I see no reason +to doubt that Lola’s anti-clerical or anti-Catholic sentiments were +genuine and frankly expressed; we find similar instances of the <i>odium +theologicum</i> in Nell Gwynne and Louis de Kèroual. Intercourse with Liszt +and Dujarier would have strengthened such a prejudice. In Lola’s haughty +disregard, too, of the etiquette of courts and fearlessness in the +presence of the great, we may detect the temperament, which would find its +political expression in advanced Liberalism.</p> + +<p>The rumour that she was an agent of “the English Freemasons,” if by that +term we may understand the English Liberals, is not to be dismissed as +altogether preposterous. Our Government at that time was more or less +actively hostile to the ultra-legitimist and clerical tendencies paramount +in Central Europe: we backed the Swiss Confederation against the +Sonderbund; we sympathised with the Italians in their struggles for +freedom; English volunteers fought for the Liberal Christinos against the +Ultramontane Carlists. Lola’s well-known sympathies, her knowledge of +continental courts, above all, her personality, would have recommended her +as a most valuable agent to our Foreign Office. We shall see presently +that she became the honoured guest of an English ambassador, and how legal +proceedings afterwards instituted against her in this country were +mysteriously suffered to collapse, as if in obedience to orders from +above. Lola never describes herself, it is true, as a secret agent of our +Government, but she would naturally have preferred to appear as the +independent, irresponsible dictatrix of a nation’s policy.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>Whatever the cause may have been, antagonism manifested itself between +Lola Montez and the King’s advisers, official and clerical, within a very +few days of her arrival at his court. Louis is said to have introduced her +to his ministers as his best friend. The Jesuits immediately circulated +the report that she was his mistress, and endeavoured to inflame the +Bavarian people against her. In obedience to their principle of the Church +first and political consistency a long way after, they instigated a +general attack upon King and favourite through the clerical press of +Germany. It was truly remarked in one of the independent organs of opinion +that the most extreme radical could not have shown less regard for the +person of the sovereign than these champions of legitimacy. Caricature, +that pitiable prostitution of a divine art, was assiduously employed. +Louis was represented as a crowned satyr, a pug-dog, an ass with a crown +tied to his tail; Lola was treated with even less regard for decency. The +ape that lurks in every man gibbered in every clerical rag. The curious +may inspect some choice examples of this simian humour in Herr Fuchs’s +interesting work.<a name='fna_13' id='fna_13' href='#f_13'><small>[13]</small></a></p> + +<p>Ridicule, so far from killing, as is so often said, can be proved by +history to be the least potent instrument of attack and persecution +wielded by man. Skits break neither bones nor thrones. Ridicule is +generally on the side of authority and reaction, and as such, in the long +run, on the losing side. Puritanism survived the raillery of +seventeenth-century wags; the North triumphed, despite the loathsome +scurrilities of <i>Punch</i>; “Napoleon the Little,” succumbed to German +strategy, not to Victor Hugo’s satiric force; Teetotalism, Socialism,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> and +the Cause of Woman wax stronger daily, in spite of the humorists of the +music halls and the racing rags. The King of Bavaria was not to be shamed +or affrighted by all the gutter journalists of Germany. But his smile +became a little grim. Archbishop Diepenbrock remonstrated with him as to +his assumed relations with the dancer. “Stick to your <i>stola</i>, bishop,” +was the Plantagenet-like answer, “and leave me my Lola.” He claimed for +his domestic affairs the privacy enjoyed by the meanest of his subjects. +His regard for Lola and respect for her opinion grew stronger daily. +Dismay spread through the clerical camp. As vilification failed to produce +any sensible effect, bribery was attempted. At the instance, no doubt, of +Metternich, Louis’s sister, the Dowager Empress Karoline Augusta, offered +the favourite two thousand pounds if she would quit Bavaria. The offer was +rejected, in what terms our knowledge of Lola’s character enables us to +imagine. She did not lack money, nor did she crave for it. She loved power +for its own sake, and power she now possessed. Under her influence Louis +recovered his sanity. The liberal instincts of his youth and prime +revived. He became once more the Grecian, and the mediæval fever left him. +His impatience of clerical control grew more evident daily.</p> + +<p class="poem">“And lo, a blade for a knight’s emprise<br /> +Filled the fine empty sheath of a man.—<br /> +The Duke grew straightway brave and wise.”</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="XX" id="XX"></a>XX</h2> +<p class="title">THE ABEL MEMORANDUM</p> + +<p>The King’s change of policy first found official expression in the Royal +Decree of 15th December 1846, transferring the control of the Departments +of Education and Public Worship from Abel, the Minister of the Interior, +to Baron von Schrenk. The effect of this measure was practically to remove +the schools from the power of the Jesuits. Abel saw in it a blow aimed at +him by the detested <i>Andalusierin</i>. He addressed a letter to the King, +reminding him of his zeal and devotion to the Crown, of his attachment to +his person, of the unpopularity he had willingly incurred in order to +subject the people more thoroughly to royal control. Louis was not greatly +affected by this letter; we seldom earn the gratitude of others by +reminding them that we have taken upon ourselves blame which ought rightly +to be theirs. He was ungrateful enough to say that he had no sympathy with +Abel’s policy, but that he found him a convenient man to work with. The +minister hoped that the King, like Henri Quatre, would prefer his servant +to his favourite, but he was disappointed. He next put his trust in +Louis’s disinclination to take an active part in the Government; but here +again he was deceived. The King, stimulated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> by Lola, began to exhibit the +vigour and activity of youth, and showed a disposition to rule as well as +to reign. Baron von Pechmann, the Chief of the Munich Police, was less +patient than Abel, and ventured to protest against the consideration shown +to “a mere adventuress.” The King’s blue eyes kindled. “Begone!” he +exclaimed angrily; “you will find the air of Landshut purer!” It was a +sentence of banishment which the minister had no choice but to obey.</p> + +<p>This opposition on the part of the clericals determined Louis to +regularise his new favourite and counsellor’s position in his kingdom, and +to establish her social rank. He proposed to raise her to the peerage, and +as a preliminary measure he signed letters patent, conferring upon her the +status and rights of a Bavarian citizen. According to the constitution +this decree had to be countersigned by a minister. The document was placed +before Abel for his signature. The crisis had come. The King must now +finally decide between minister and favourite, in other words, between +reaction and progress. Abel summoned his colleagues to a council and the +following remarkable memorandum to His Majesty was the result of their +deliberations.<a name='fna_14' id='fna_14' href='#f_14'><small>[14]</small></a></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“<span class="smcap">Sire</span>,—There are circumstances in which men invested with the +inappreciable confidence of their sovereign, and charged with the +direction of affairs, are called upon either to renounce their most +sacred duties or to expose themselves, at the bidding of their +consciences, to the risk of incurring the displeasure of their beloved +monarch. This is the sad necessity to which your ministers find +themselves reduced by the royal determination to grant to Señora Lola +Montez<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> letters of naturalisation. We are incapable of forgetting the +oaths we took to your Majesty, and our resolution has never been for a +moment doubtful. The proposed naturalisation of Señora Montez was +openly characterised by Councillor von Maurer as the greatest calamity +with which Bavaria could be afflicted. This was the conviction of the +whole Council, and the opinion of all your Majesty’s faithful +subjects. Since December last the eyes of the nation have been fixed +on Munich. The respect for the sovereign becomes weaker and weaker in +all minds, because on all sides nothing is heard but the bitterest +blame and disapprobation. National feeling is wounded: Bavaria +believes itself to be governed by a foreign woman, whose reputation is +branded in public opinion. Men like the Bishop of Augsburg [Dr. +Richarz], whose devotion to your Majesty cannot be disputed, daily +shed bitter tears for what is passing before their eyes; the ministers +of the Interior and of Finance have witnessed his profound affliction. +The Prince Bishop of Breslau [Dr. Diepenbrock], hearing of a rumour +that he had countenanced the actual state of things, has written to +persons in Munich formally and most emphatically expressing his +disapprobation. His letter is no longer a secret, and will soon be +known to the whole country. Foreign journals every day relate the most +scandalous anecdotes, and make the most degrading attacks on your +Majesty. The copy of the <i>Ulner Chronik</i>, which we subjoin, is a proof +of our assertions. In vain do the police attempt to stop the +circulation of these journals, which are everywhere read with avidity. +The impression which they leave on men’s minds is by no means +doubtful. It is the same from Berchtesgaden and Passau to +Aschaffenburg and Zweibrücken. It is the same throughout Europe, in +the cabin of the poor and the palace of the rich. It is not alone the +glory and well-being of your Majesty’s Government that is compromised, +but the very existence of royalty itself. It is this which explains +the joy of the enemies<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> of the throne, and the profound grief and +despair of all who are faithfully attached to your Majesty, and who +are alive to the dangers greater than any to which it has been +exposed. In this state of things, it is inevitable that what is +passing will influence the army, and if this bulwark should give way, +where would be our resource? The statement, which the undersigned, +whose hearts are torn with anguish, venture to place before your +Majesty, is not the product of a terrified imagination, but of +observations which each has made within the circle of his +attributions, during several months. The effect of these circumstances +in the ensuing parliamentary session may easily be foreseen. Each of +the undersigned is ready to sacrifice for your Majesty his fortune and +his life. Your ministers believe that they have given you proofs of +their fidelity and attachment, but it is for them a doubly sacred duty +to point out to your Majesty the ever-increasing danger of this +situation. We beg you to listen to our humble prayer and not to +suppose that it is dictated by any desire to thwart your royal will. +It is directed only against a state of things which threatens to +destroy the fair fame, power, and future happiness of a beloved King. +Your ministers are convinced, after earnest deliberation, that if your +Majesty should not deign to give ear to their supplications, they are +bound to resign the positions to which the kindness and confidence of +their sovereign has called them, and to pray your Majesty to remove +the portfolios with which they are entrusted,</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 4em;">(Signed) <span class="smcap">Von Abel.</span></span><span class="spacer"> </span><span class="smcap">Von Seinsheim.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;"><span class="smcap">Von Gumppenberg.</span></span><span class="spacer"> </span><span class="smcap">Von Schrenk.</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Munich</span>, <i>11th February 1847</i>.”</p></div> + +<p>This extraordinary address exhibits the courage, if not the tact and sense +of humour of the signatories; but none of them cared to present it. Abel +sent it by messenger to the King, who perused it with mingled amusement +and indignation, and then locked it in his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> desk. He asked Abel if this +was the only copy existing, and was answered in the affirmative. But a day +or two later the memorandum appeared in print in the columns of the +<i>Augsburger Zeitung</i>. A preliminary draft had been sent by Abel to a fifth +minister, Herr Von Giese, who had left it carelessly upon his bureau. Here +it was scanned with interest and curiosity by his elderly sister, and was +carried off by her, to be proudly exhibited at a tea-party. Handed round +among the guests for examination, it was not long in finding its way into +the Press. It was reproduced in the French and English papers. The <i>Times</i> +devoted an editorial to its contents, and compared the excessive +sensibility of the Bishop of Augsburg with the hardened indifference of +the English hierarchy to the transgressions of the fourth George and +William. The lachrymose prelate contributed hugely to the gaiety of +nations. Bernstorff, the Prussian Ambassador, considered the address +wanting in respect to the sovereign; by another statesman it was qualified +as unbecoming, injudicious, and crude. More heads than one, it was +remarked, had been lost over Lola. No one could have been more amused than +the lady herself by this astonishing memorandum.</p> + +<p>She had indeed good cause for mirth. The indiscretion of the Cabinet +brought about the complete triumph of her policy. The King allowed Abel +twenty-four hours to reconsider his attitude, and as the minister stood to +his guns, he was formally dismissed from office on 16th February. His fall +involved his colleagues. Louis’s return to his earlier ideas, consequent +upon his relations with Lola, was made evident in his choice of new +ministers. The portfolio of the Interior was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> entrusted to Baron Zu Rhein, +with the intimation that His Majesty wished to be served by men sincerely +attached to their religion, but determined to resist any encroachment by +the Church upon the rights of the State. Councillor Maurer became Minister +of Justice, having presumably recanted the views attributed to him by his +late colleagues in the memorandum. He was a man of learning and Liberal +tendencies, and was the first Protestant to hold Cabinet rank in Bavaria. +The portfolios of finance and war were given respectively to Councillor +Zenetti and Major-General von Hohenhausen. The whole Cabinet was frankly +Liberal. Lola had coaxed the King back to sanity, and inflicted a signal +defeat upon the clericals. All over Germany she was acclaimed as the +heroine of Liberalism. Metternich groaned over the deplorable state of +things at Munich, and wrote that this woman had become an instrument of +the Radical party. Bernstorff received the news of the fall of Abel’s +Ministry with satisfaction, accompanied, as it was, by Maurer’s assurance +that the reign of the Jesuits in Bavaria was at an end.</p> + +<p>It was at her evening reception at her house in Theresienstrasse that +Louis came to announce to Lola the dismissal of his old ministers, and his +unalterable attachment to her and to her policy. “I will not give Lola +up,” he declared; “I will never give up that noble princely being. My +kingdom for Lola!” Maurer was obliged to consent to the naturalisation +that he had described as a national calamity. Lola was soon after raised +to the peerage with the titles of Countess of Landsfeld<a name='fna_15' id='fna_15' href='#f_15'><small>[15]</small></a> and Baroness +Rosenthal. She is <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span>described in the register of Bavarian nobility as Maria +Dolores Porris y Montez, the daughter of a Carlist officer and Cuban lady. +(That the daughter of a follower of Don Carlos should be a deadly foe of +all that was Ultramontane must have struck her friends and opponents as +odd.) Her titles conveyed with them an estate of importance, and certain +feudal rights—the middle and the low justice, perhaps—over two thousand +souls. She was made a canoness of the aristocratic order of St. Theresa, +of which the Queen was the head. To enable her to support this dignity the +King endowed her with an annuity of twenty thousand florins. With this and +the money bequeathed her by Dujarier she was now rich. A palace befitting +her position was ordered to be built for her in Bärerstrasse after the +design of the architect, Metzger, who was one of her most impassioned +admirers. Her portrait was painted by royal command, and placed in the +Gallery of Beauties, where Louis, it is said, was accustomed to spend +hours in rapturous contemplation.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span></p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="XXI" id="XXI"></a>XXI</h2> +<p class="title">THE INDISCRETIONS OF A MONARCH</p> + +<p>Louis, being a lover of the old school, resorted to verse as an expression +of his sentiments towards his new favourite. The editor of the <i>Times</i>, +years after, described His Majesty as something of a poet, in a small way. +How very small that way was the following effusions will show. They were +translated by Mr. Francis, afterwards editor of the <i>Morning Post</i> and +other journals. Unfortunately, or fortunately, they convey no idea of the +odd contortions of language characteristic of the original.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p><span style="margin-left: 2em;">“<span class="smcap">To the Absent Lolita</span></span></p> + +<p>“The world hates and persecutes<br /> +That heart which gave itself to me:<br /> +But however much they may try to estrange us,<br /> +My heart will cling the more fondly to thine.<br /> +<br /> +“The more they hate, the more thou art beloved;<br /> +And more and more is given to thee.<br /> +I shall never be torn from thee.<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span><br /> +“Against others they have no hate;<br /> +It is against thee alone they are enraged;<br /> +In thee everything is a crime;<br /> +Thy words alone, as deeds, they would punish.<br /> +<br /> +“But the heart’s goodness shows itself—<br /> +Thou hast a highly elevated mind;<br /> +Yet the little who deem themselves great<br /> +Would cast thee off as a pariah.<br /> +<br /> +“For evermore I belong to thee;<br /> +For evermore thou belongest to me:<br /> +What delight! that like the wave<br /> +Renews itself out of its eternal spring.<br /> +<br /> +“By thee my life becomes ennobled,<br /> +Which without thee was solitary and empty;<br /> +Thy love is the nutriment of my heart,<br /> +If it had it not, it would die.<br /> +<br /> +“And though thou mightest by all be forsaken,<br /> +I will never abandon thee;<br /> +For ever will I preserve for thee<br /> +Constancy and true German faith.”</p></div> + +<p>The next verses relate to the Countess of Landsfeld, in her character as a +Liberal martyr.</p> + +<p class="poem">“From thee, beloved one, time and distance separate me,<br /> +But however distant thou might’st be,<br /> +I should ever call thee my own,<br /> +Thou eternally bright star of my life.<br /> +<br /> +“The wild steed, if you try to daunt him.<br /> +Prances, the bolder only, on and on:<br /> +The ties of love will tie us so much closer,<br /> +If the world attempt to tear thee from me.<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span><br /> +“And every persecution thou endurest<br /> +Becomes a new link in the chain<br /> +Which, because thou art struggling for truth,<br /> +Thou hast, for the rest of my life, cast around me.<br /> +<br /> +“Whether near or far off, thou art mine,<br /> +And the love which with its lustre glorifies<br /> +Is ever renewed and will last for ever.<br /> +For evermore our faith will prove itself true.”</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img6.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">LOUIS I. KING OF BAVARIA.</p> +<p> </p> + +<p>The following lines are a sonnet in the original, addressed to:—</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;">“<span class="smcap">Lolita and Louis</span></span></p> + +<p>“Men strive with restless zeal to separate us;<br /> +Constantly and gloomily they plan thy destruction;<br /> +In vain, however, are always their endeavours,<br /> +Because they know themselves alone, not us.<br /> +Our love will bloom but the brighter for it all—<br /> +What gives us bliss cannot be divorced from us—<br /> +Those endless flames which burn with sparkling light,<br /> +And pervade our existence with enrapturing fire.<br /> +Two rocks are we, against which constantly are breaking<br /> +The adversaries’ craft, the enemies’ open rage;<br /> +But, scorpion-like, themselves, they pierce with deadly sting—<br /> +The sanctuary is guarded by trust and faith;<br /> +Thy enemies’ cruelty will be revenged on themselves—<br /> +Love will compensate for all that we have suffered.</p></div> + +<p>“In the following sonnet,” comments the translator, “the royal poet does +not clearly intimate whether he has renounced the political or the +personal rivals of the fair Lolita:—</p> + +<p class="poem">“‘If, for my sake, thou hast renounced all ties,<br /> +I, too, for thee have broken with them all;<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>Life of my life, I am thine—I am thy thrall—<br /> +I hold no compact with thine enemies.<br /> +Their blandishments are powerless on me,<br /> +No arts will serve to seduce me from thee;<br /> +The power of love raises me above them.<br /> +With thee my earthly pilgrimage will end.<br /> +As is the union between the body and the soul,<br /> +So, until death, with thine my being is blended.<br /> +In thee I have found what I ne’er yet found in any—<br /> +The sight of thee gave new life to my being.<br /> +All feeling for any other has died away,<br /> +For my eyes read in thine—love!’”</p> + +<p>The final example of the King’s lyrical genius might be inscribed to +“Lolita in Dejection.” It is dated the evening of 6th July 1847.</p> + +<p class="poem">“A glance of the sun of former days,<br /> +A ray of light in gloomy night!<br /> +Have sounded long-forgotten strings,<br /> +And life once more as erst was bright.<br /> +<br /> +“Thus felt I on that night of gladness,<br /> +When all was joy through thee alone;<br /> +Thy spirit chased from mine its sadness,<br /> +No joy was greater than mine own.<br /> +<br /> +“Then was I happy for feeling more deeply<br /> +What I possessed and what I lost;<br /> +It seemed that thy joy then went for ever,<br /> +And that it could never more return.<br /> +<br /> +“Thou hast lost thy cheerfulness,<br /> +Persecution has robbed thee of it;<br /> +It has deprived thee of thy health,<br /> +The happiness of thy life is already departed.<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span><br /> +“But the firmer only, and more firmly<br /> +Thou hast tied me to thee;<br /> +Thou canst never draw me from thee—<br /> +Thou sufferest because thou lovest me.”</p> + +<p>The King of Bavaria was not a poet; but, as a critic said of Emile Auger, +in some remote corner of his being, something was singing.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span></p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="XXII" id="XXII"></a>XXII</h2> +<p class="title">THE MINISTRY OF GOOD HOPE</p> + +<p>The Ultramontanes had no intention of taking their defeat lying down. The +Jesuits were fighting for their very existence just over the frontier in +Switzerland; the Sonderbund or Catholic League was threatened with an +attack at any moment by the forces of the Confederation. Austria and +France could do nothing for the League through fear of Palmerston, but it +is very probable that help was expected from Bavaria, on which England +could not have brought any direct pressure to bear. Munich was the asylum +of Ultramontane exiles from all parts of Europe—of French Legitimists, +Polish Catholics, and Swiss Jesuits. In Lola’s action they detected the +hand of the arch-enemy, Palmerston. Liberally supplied with gold from +Austria (as Bernstorff did not hesitate to allege), these champions of +legitimacy sedulously strove to inflame the people with hatred of the +favourite. Lola’s unfortunate temper aided their exertions. The citizens +of Munich disliked being boxed on the ears even by the most beautiful of +her sex, and Baron Pechmann, who had endeavoured to avenge them, had been +banished. Lola, like all people of a rich, generous nature, was fond of +dogs. In London she had bought a bull-dog from a man who told Mark Lemon, +with a very proper<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> professional reservation, that the lady was the most +beautiful thing he had ever seen—<i>on two legs</i>. The animal, being +indisposed, was sent by his devoted mistress to the Veterinary Hospital at +Munich. The patient did not progress very rapidly towards recovery, and +Lola remonstrated with the medical man in attendance. His reply was too +brusque for her taste. Her ears having been offended, she promptly boxed +his. She then carried off her darling, who was soon restored to health and +vigour. So complete was his recovery that a week or two later, while +accompanying his mistress in the streets of Munich, he prepared himself to +attack a carrier who was walking beside his cart. The man anticipated the +onslaught by flicking the bull-dog with his whip. The enraged Lola at once +smote the man on the ear. The assault was witnessed by several passers-by, +whose threatening attitude compelled her to take refuge in a neighbouring +shop. From this dangerous situation she was delivered only by the police. +Lola and the King laughed good-humouredly over these incidents; the people +of Munich were disposed to look upon them as deadly outrages.</p> + +<p>The new favourite, then, was not likely to become popular with the masses; +and her enemies could turn with some confidence to the educated classes, +as far as they were represented at the University. Students in France, +Russia, Italy, and indeed most civilised countries, are admittedly +hot-blooded, enthusiastic champions of freedom and progress; in some +states they are the very backbone of the revolutionary party. In Bavaria +at this time, on the contrary, the students, like those of our English +universities, displayed fervent devotion to the ideals of their +grandmothers, and held<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> tenaciously by the standards of the nurseries they +had so lately quitted. Munich rivalled Oxford and Cambridge in its zeal +for Conservatism and obsolete canons. Professor Lassaulx, therefore, was +only voicing the sentiments of the University generally when he presented +an address to Councillor von Abel, deploring that minister’s retirement, +and congratulating him upon his adherence to Ultramontane principles. This +was tantamount to a vote of censure on the sovereign. Lassaulx was at once +deprived of his chair, despite (it is said by Dr. Erdmann) Lola’s earnest +entreaties with the King. The professor received a tremendous ovation from +the students. On the 1st March 1847 they collected in the morning outside +his house in Theresienstrasse, cheering him vociferously. Lola, unluckily, +was then living in the same street, and having expressed their sympathy +with the professor, it occurred to the students that they might as well +express their disapprobation of the woman to whom they attributed his +downfall. Lola was at lunch when howls and hoots and cries of “Pereat +Lola!” brought her to the window. She was received with yells from the +throats of two hundred stout, beer-drinking, Bavarian <i>burschen</i>. Amused +at the sight, and undismayed, as she ever was, she derisively toasted the +mob in a glass of champagne and ate chocolates while she watched their +gyrations. Her coolness would have disarmed the enmity of an English +crowd, and sent it away cheering. But the sportsman-like qualities are not +specially inculcated by the disciples of Loyola, nor were perhaps highly +esteemed in the Germany of that date. Presently the King himself came +along the street, and, unmolested and unnoticed, quietly elbowed his way +through the mob. He stood<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> at Lola’s door composedly contemplating his +excited subjects. He turned to Councillor Hörmann, whom the noise of the +disturbance had also brought to the spot. “If she were called Loyola +Montez,” remarked His Majesty, “I suppose they would cheer her.” Then he +quietly entered the house. The street was cleared by the mounted police. +Louis remained all the afternoon at his favourite’s house, and when night +fell, attempted to return to the palace on foot, and unattended, as he had +come. He was compelled to abandon the attempt. He was received with howls +and threats, and could only reach his residence by the aid of a military +escort. The streets were filled with the most dangerous elements in the +city. A crowd collected before the palace, and cheered the Queen, who, +poor lady! must have been embarrassed by this demonstration of sympathy +with the emotions of wifely jealousy and injured dignity to which she was +a stranger! Before day broke order had been restored by the sabres of the +cuirassiers.</p> + +<p>Lola, knowing the temper of her countrymen, saw in this attack on a woman +a sure means of enlisting their sympathies. She wrote a letter to the +<i>Times</i> in which she gave her own version of affairs in Bavaria in the +following terms:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“I had not been here a week before I discovered that there was a plot +existing in the town to get me out of it, and that the party was the +Jesuit party. Of course, you are aware that Bavaria has long been +their stronghold, and Munich their headquarters. This, naturally, to a +person brought up and instructed from her earliest youth to detest +this party (I think you will say naturally) irritated me not a little.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span>“When they saw that I was not likely to leave them, they commenced on +another tack, and tried what bribery would do, and actually offered me +50,000 francs yearly if I would quit Bavaria and promise never to +return. This, as you may imagine, opened my eyes, and as I indignantly +refused their offer, they have not since then left a stone unturned to +get rid of me, and have never for an instant ceased persecuting me. I +may mention, as one instance, that within the last week a Jesuit +professor of philosophy at the University here, by the name of +Lassaulx, was removed from his professorship, upon which the party +paid and hired a mob to insult me and break the windows of my palace, +and also to attack the palace; but, thanks to the better feeling of +the other party, and the devotedness of the soldiers to His Majesty +and his authority, this plot likewise failed.”</p></div> + +<p>It was, in fact, as disastrous to its instigators as the famous +memorandum. The King perceived the University to be a hot-bed of +clericalism, and promptly invited the majority of the professors to +transfer their services to other seats of learning, or to abandon this +particular sphere of usefulness altogether. Their chairs were filled by +men of moderate views. At the same time the University was freed from the +oppressive surveillance of the Ministry; the obnoxious decrees affecting +the sale of books were withdrawn; and even the undergraduates felt +constrained to testify their gratitude to the liberal King by means of a +torchlight procession.</p> + +<p>Louis and his new ministers were not wanting in firmness. Several officers +and civil servants were transferred to distant stations, and otherwise +made to feel the weight of the royal displeasure for having taken part in +an Ultramontane gathering at Adelholz, in the Bavarian Highlands, where a +protest was raised<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> against Lola’s elevation to the peerage. With the bulk +of the people, notwithstanding, the King’s popularity knew no diminution. +He received an enthusiastic greeting at Bruckenau, Kissingen, and +Aschaffenburg, where he passed the summer. He wrote to his secretary in +Munich, on 27th June 1847: “I am very satisfied with my reception +throughout my whole progress;” and on 31st August: “I was surprised, +agreeably surprised, by my evidently joyful reception in the Palatinate.” +In Franconia, inhabited largely by Protestants, the King’s change of +policy was naturally welcome. Lola’s popularity likewise increased by +leaps and bounds, though her uncontrollable temper continued to lead her +into mischief. A furious quarrel with the commandant of the Würzburg +garrison interrupted her journey north to join the Court at Aschaffenburg. +The Queen, meanwhile, was the object of a demonstration of sympathy at +Bamberg, really directed against the favourite. Certain sections of the +aristocracy held aloof from the Countess, with that steadfast devotion to +virtue that has always characterised their order. Lola complained of their +attitude to His Majesty. Questioned by him they alluded to the lady’s +doubtful antecedents as sufficient justification for their refusal to +present her to their wives. The King’s answer was that of a chivalrous man +of the world: “What other woman of so-called high standing would have +conducted herself better, had she been abandoned to the world, young, +beautiful, and helpless? Bah! I know them all, and I tell you I don’t rate +too highly the much-belauded virtue of the inexperienced and untried.” +Louis was a gentleman as well as a prince, and had the courage to protect +the woman he loved.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> “Mark well,” he wrote to a person of rank, “if you +are invited to the house the King frequents, and you do not come, the King +will see in this an offence against his dignity, and his displeasure will +follow.” Louis’s rule for his courtiers was, in short: “Love me, love +Lola.”</p> + +<p>Social distinction and wealth were not enough to satisfy the Countess of +Landsfeld. She was not content to pull the wires; she wanted the +appearance of power, as well as its substance. She longed to display +openly her talents as a ruler. She was galled by the affected indifference +of statesmen, who could not in reality put a single measure into execution +without her sanction. While all Germany acclaimed her as the Liberal +heroine, Zu Rhein was able afterwards to affirm publicly in the Chamber +that the favourite had at no time come between the Cabinet and the +sovereign, nor had in any way governed its policy. This statement may be +accepted as far as it goes, but the ministers could have done nothing +without the King’s co-operation, and the King never denied that he was +accustomed to consult the Countess on all affairs of state. The credit of +the Zu Rhein-Maurer administration rightly, therefore, belongs in great +measure to her. She was always by the King to keep him in the straight way +of reform, to safeguard him against a relapse into Ultramontanism. She not +unnaturally chafed at what must have seemed the ingratitude of the +ministers. She had not yet forgiven Maurer for his reference to her +proposed naturalisation as a calamity. Now she regarded him as a puppet +which had the impudence to ignore its maker. He got the credit of reforms, +she told herself, that she had initiated. Meantime, the clerical Press +bombarded her with low abuse. She demanded the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> enforcement of the +censorship and the suppression of the offending journals. Such steps as +these, a professedly Liberal Government was loth to take. A collision took +place between the favourite and “the Ministry of Good Hope,” as it was +derisively called. Lola found an instrument ready to her hand in +Councillor von Berks, whose devotion to her was warmer than a merely +political allegiance. In December, the King decided to reconstitute the +Ministry. He appointed Berks to the Department of the Interior, and to +Prince Wallerstein, lately Bavarian representative at Paris, he gave the +portfolio of foreign affairs. The new Cabinet was composed entirely of men +wholly in sympathy with the views of both sovereign and favourite. By its +opponents it was derisively dubbed the Lola Ministry. The <i>Münchner +Zeitung</i> welcomed its frank and whole-hearted Liberalism as a guarantee of +the solution of all the problems of Bavaria’s internal and foreign policy. +Wallerstein was even more anti-clerical than his predecessors. The +Sonderbund was crushed in November by the strategy of Dufour, and the +Jesuits came flying from Switzerland into Bavaria. They were forbidden to +remain in the country more than a few days. The Press was not gagged, but +conciliated. Lola was acclaimed as the good genius of Bavaria. The German +Liberals hailed her as a valued ally. To her influence was attributed the +tardy addition of Luther’s bust to the collection of German worthies in +the Walhalla. <i>Punch</i>, as a suggestion for a colossal statue of Bavaria, +represents Lola upholding a banner inscribed “Freedom and the Cachuca.” +The “good little thing” of Simla wielded the sceptre, and wielded it well.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="XXIII" id="XXIII"></a>XXIII</h2> +<p class="title">THE UNCROWNED QUEEN OF BAVARIA</p> + +<p>George Henry Francis, an English journalist, a resident of Munich at that +time, and afterwards editor of the <i>Morning Post</i>, contributed the +following account of Lola’s manner of life at this period to <i>Fraser’s +Magazine</i> for January 1848:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“The house of Lola Montez at Munich presents an elegant contrast to +the large, cold, lumbering mansions, which are the greatest defect in +the general architecture of the city. It is a <i>bijou</i>, built under her +own eye, by her own architect,<a name='fna_16' id='fna_16' href='#f_16'><small>[16]</small></a> and it is quite unique in its +simplicity and lightness. It is of two storeys, and, allowing for its +plainness, is in the Italian style. Elegant bronze balconies from the +upper windows, designed by herself, relieve the plainness of the +exterior; and long, muslin curtains, slightly tinted, and drawn close, +so as to cover the windows, add a transparent, shell-like lightness to +the effect. Any English gentleman (Lola has a great respect for +England and the English) can, on presenting his card, see the +interior; but it is not a ‘show place.’ The interior surpasses +everything, even in Munich, where decorative painting and internal +fitting has been carried almost to perfection.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> We are not going to +write an upholsterer’s catalogue, but as everything was done by the +immediate choice and under the direction of the fair Lola, the general +characteristics of the place will serve to illustrate her character. +Such a tigress, one would think, would scarcely choose so beautiful a +den. The smallness of the house precludes much splendour. Its place is +supplied by French elegance, Munich art, and English comfort. The +walls of the chief room are exquisitely painted by the first artists +from the designs found in Herculaneum and Pompeii, but selected with +great taste by Lola Montez. The furniture is not gaudily rich, but +elegant enough to harmonise with the decorations. A small winter room, +adjoining the larger one, is fitted up, quite in the English style, +with papered walls, sofas, easy-chairs, all of elegant shape. A +chimney, with a first-rate grate of English manufacture, and rich, +thick carpets and rugs, complete the illusion; the walls are hung with +pictures, among them a Raphael. There are also some of the best works +of modern German painters; a good portrait of the King; and a very bad +one of the mistress of the mansion. The rest of the establishment +bespeaks equally the exquisite taste of the fair owner. The +drawing-rooms and her boudoir are perfect gems. Books, not of a +frivolous kind, borrowed from the royal library, lie about, and help +to show what are the habits of this modern Amazon. Add to these a +piano and a guitar, on both of which she accompanies herself with +considerable taste and some skill, and an embroidery frame, at which +she produces works that put to shame the best of those exhibited for +sale in England; so that you see she is positively compelled at times +to resort to some amusement becoming her sex, as a relief from those +more masculine or unworthy occupations in which, according to her +reverend enemies, she emulates alternately the example of Peter the +Great and Catharine II. The rest of the appointments of the place are +in keeping: the coach-house and stabling (her equipages are extremely +modest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> and her household no more numerous or ostentatious than those +of a gentlewoman of means), the culinary offices, and an exquisite +bath-room, into which the light comes tinted with rose-colour. At the +back of the house is a large flower-garden, in which, during the +summer, most of the political consultations between the fair Countess +and her sovereign are held.</p> + +<p>“For her habits of life, they are simple. She eats little, and of +plain food, cooked in the English fashion; drinks little, keeps good +hours, rises early, and labours much. The morning, before and after +breakfast, is devoted to what we must call semi-public business. The +innumerable letters she receives and affairs she has to arrange, keep +herself and her secretary constantly employed during some hours. At +breakfast she holds a sort of <i>levée</i> of persons of all +sorts—ministers <i>in esse</i> or <i>in posse</i>, professors, artists, English +strangers, and foreigners from all parts of the world. As is usual +with women of an active mind, she is a great talker; but although an +egotist, and with her full share of the vanity of her sex, she +understands the art of conversation sufficiently never to be +wearisome. Indeed, although capable of violent but evanescent +passions—of deep but not revengeful animosities, and occasionally of +trivialities and weaknesses very often found in persons suddenly +raised to great power—she can be, and almost always is, a very +charming person and a delightful companion. Her manners are +distinguished, she is a graceful and hospitable hostess, and she +understands the art of dressing to perfection.</p> + +<p>“The fair despot is passionately fond of homage. She is merciless in +her man-killing propensities, and those gentlemen attending her +<i>levées</i> or her <i>soirées</i>, who are perhaps too much absorbed in +politics or art to be enamoured of her personal charms, willingly pay +respect to her mental attractions and conversational powers.</p> + +<p>“On the other hand, Lola Montez has many of the faults recorded of +others in like situations. She loves power for its own sake; she is +too hasty and too steadfast<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> in her dislikes; she has not sufficiently +learned to curb the passion which seems natural to her Spanish blood; +she is capricious, and quite capable, when her temper is inflamed, of +rudeness, which, however, she is the first to regret and to apologise +for. One absorbing idea she has which poisons her peace. She has +devoted her life to the extirpation of the Jesuits, root and branch, +from Bavaria. She is too ready to believe in their active influence, +and too early overlooks their passive influence. Every one whom she +does not like, her prejudice transforms into a Jesuit. Jesuits stare +at her in the streets, and peep out from the corners of her rooms. All +the world, adverse to herself, are puppets moved to mock and annoy her +by these dark and invisible agents. At the same time she has, +doubtless, had good cause for this animosity; but these restless +suspicions are a weakness quite incompatible with the strength of +mind, the force of character, and determination of purpose she +exhibits in other respects.</p> + +<p>“As a political character, she holds an important position in Bavaria, +besides having agents and correspondents in various Courts of Europe. +The King generally visits her in the morning from eleven till twelve, +or one o’clock; sometimes she is summoned to the palace to consult +with him, or with the ministers, on state affairs. It is probable that +during her habits of intimacy with some of the principal political +writers of Paris, she acquired that knowledge of politics and insight +into the manœuvres of diplomatists and statesmen which she now +turns to advantage in her new sphere of action. On foreign politics +she seems to have very clear ideas; and her novel and powerful method +of expressing them has a great charm for the King, who has himself a +comprehensive mind. On the internal politics of Bavaria she has the +good sense not to rely upon her own judgment, but to consult these +whose studies and occupations qualify them to afford information. For +the rest, she is treated by the political men of the country as a +substantive power;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> and, however much they may secretly rebel against +her influence, they, at least, find it good policy to acknowledge it. +Whatever indiscretions she may, in other respects, commit, she always +keeps state secrets, and can, therefore, be consulted with perfect +safety, in cases where her original habits of thought render her of +invaluable service. Acting under advice, which entirely accords with +the King’s own general principles, His Majesty has pledged himself to +a course of steady but gradual improvement, which is calculated to +increase the political freedom and material prosperity of his kingdom, +without risking that unity of power, which, in the present state of +European affairs, is essential to its protection and advancement. One +thing in her praise is, that although she really wields so much power, +she never uses it either for the promotion of unworthy persons or, as +other favourites have done, for corrupt purposes. Her creation as +Countess of Landsfeld, which has alienated from her some of her most +honest Liberal supporters, who wished her still to continue in rank, +as well as in purposes, one of the people, while it has exasperated +against her the powerless, because impoverished, nobility, was the +unsolicited act of the King, legally effected with the consent of the +Crown Prince. Without entrenching too far upon a delicate subject, it +may be added, that she is not regarded with contempt or detestation by +either the male or the female members of the Royal family. She is +regarded by them rather as a political personage than as the King’s +favourite. Her income, including a recent addition from the King, is +seventy thousand florins, or little more than five thousand pounds. +While upon this subject of her position, it may be added, that it is +reported, on good authority, that the Queen of Bavaria (to whom, by +the way, the King has always paid the most scrupulous attentions due +to her as his wife) very recently made a voluntary communication to +her husband, apparently with the knowledge of the princes and other +member of the Royal family, that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> should the King desire, at any +future time, that the Countess should, as a matter of right, be +presented at Court, she (the Queen) would offer no obstacle.</p> + +<p>“The relation subsisting between the King of Bavaria and the Countess +of Landsfeld is not of a coarse or vulgar character. The King has a +highly poetical mind, and sees his favourite through his imagination. +Knowing perfectly well what her antecedents have been, he takes her as +she is, and finding in her an agreeable and intellectual companion, +and an honest, plainspoken councillor, he fuses the reality with the +ideal in one deep sentiment of affectionate respect.”</p></div> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="XXIV" id="XXIV"></a>XXIV</h2> +<p class="title">THE DOWNFALL</p> + +<p>This view of the King’s sentiments towards his favourite was not +acceptable to that lady’s political enemies. It is to be observed, also, +that the champions of orthodox morality are the hardest to persuade of the +actual existence or possibility of virtue in the individual. It would seem +at times that they doubt the efficacy of baptismal waters to wash out +original sin. Morality finds strange champions in all lands. The House of +Lords, the racing papers, the transpontine stage, and the Irish +moon-lighters have all been found at one time or another on the side of +the angels. In Bavaria in 1848 the University students, still for the +greater part leavened by Ultramontane doctrines, posed as the vindicators +of Christian morality, and spoke of Lola as the Scarlet Woman. With +singular inconsistency they continued to profess their devotion to the +King, who must have obviously been in their eyes, a partner in the woman’s +guilt. The Catholic Church does not discriminate between the sexes as +regards this particular offence; moreover, evil example in a prince is +held by all moralists to be more serious than in a private person. Lola, +also, was believed to be single; Louis was living with his wife. The man’s +offence, then,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> would seem from every point of view to have been graver; +nor could it have been excused on the ground of weakness of will or +understanding, for this in a king would itself have aggravated his guilt. +The undergraduates of Munich, however, being pupils of the Jesuits and +presumably skilled in casuistry, would no doubt have been able to explain +an attitude which appears inconsistent to the non-academic mind.</p> + +<p>All the members of the University were not under the thumb of the +clericals. Two or three students of the corps Palatia (Pfalz)—probably +Protestants—did not hesitate to appear at the Countess of Landsfeld’s +<i>salon</i>, which was the resort of the most brilliant people in Munich. +Lola’s fancy was taken by the colours of the corps, and she playfully +stuck one of the young fellows’ caps on her pretty head. The students +were, in consequence, expelled from their association. A large number of +Liberal students thereupon seceded from their respective corps and formed +a new one, appropriately called Alemannia. The new body was at once +recognised by the King, and endowed with all the privileges of an ancient +corps. Lola insisted upon providing every member with an exceedingly smart +uniform, at her own expense, and with delight saw them establish their +head-quarters in a house backing upon her own. The Alemannia became her +devoted bodyguard. They watched her house, they escorted her in the +street. She graced their festivals, dressed in the close-fitting uniform +of the corps. Berks entertained them to a banquet at the palace of +Nymphenburg, and in a stirring speech publicly commended their zeal for +the cause of enlightenment, humanity and progress.</p> + +<p>Conflicts between the Alemannen and the other corps<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> were frequent. The +University was split into two bitterly, venomously hostile camps, and +Lola’s partisans, being the fewer, seemed likely to have the worst of it. +The Rector, Thiersch, intervened, and publicly took the new corps under +his protection. For this act he was thanked by the King. But the mutual +hatred of the factions knew no abatement. Now the wires began to feel the +touch of other operators than the Jesuits. The revolutionary party was +gathering strength in the winter of 1847-8. Any rod was good enough to +beat a King with, and no means or agents were to be despised which would +weaken his authority, and the respect in which he was held by his +subjects. As to the Countess of Landsfeld, she had played her part: she +had struck a mortal blow at the Jesuits, she had kept Bavaria in leash +while Switzerland throttled the Sonderbund. Now, the Liberals could do +without her. Her downfall would involve the King’s. The situation was +promising. The Radicals determined to let the Clericals pull the chestnuts +out of the fire.</p> + +<p>The death of Görres, a former revolutionary who had turned mystic and +Ultramontane in his latter years, was the signal for a formidable +explosion. The police forbade any speech-making at his funeral, which took +place on 31st January 1848, but were unable to prevent a pilgrimage to his +grave, organised by the Ultramontane students, a week later. The corps +Franconia, Bavaria, Isar, and Suabia, turned out in force. The procession +soon resolved itself into a demonstration against the King’s favourite. +The fierce hostile murmur of the mob reached the ears of Lola in her +palace in Barerstrasse. She could, without loss of honour or dignity, have +ignored the demonstration: an angry<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> mob is a foe which a brave man +hesitates to meet single-handed. But Lola Montez knew not the meaning of +fear. With incredible rashness and magnificent courage she deliberately +went out into the street to meet her enemies face to face. She was +received with groans and insult. “Very well,” she cried, “I will have the +University closed!” This haughty threat maddened the crowd. A rush was +made for her. A gallant band of Alemannen closed round to defend her. +Their leader, Count Hirschberg, attempted to use a dagger in his own +defence, but it was wrested from him, and he was severely injured. Lola, +forced at last to yield before superior numbers, retreated into the Church +of the Theatines. The Catholic rowdies, not daring to violate the right of +sanctuary, laid siege to the building, and were dispersed with difficulty +by the military. The Ultramontanes reckoned it a glorious day; it was +such, indeed, for the Countess of Landsfeld, who displayed a courage on +this occasion of which no king or prince has ever given proof in any +revolutionary crisis. The picture of this woman, attended only by two or +three students, deliberately going out to meet a band of her infuriated +enemies, is one which deserves a place in the gallery of heroic deeds.</p> + +<p>The King immediately gave effect to Lola’s threat. On 9th February he +signed a decree closing the University, and ordered all students not +natives of the city to leave it within twenty-four hours. The edict threw +all Munich into consternation. The departure of upwards of a thousand +young men, many of them wealthy and well-connected, meant a serious blow +to trade and a rending of innumerable social ties. The students marched, +singing songs of adieu, to present a valedictory<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> address to the Rector. +The citizens bestirred themselves, and to the number of two thousand +signed a petition, imploring His Majesty to reconsider the decision. Louis +inclined a favourable ear to their prayers, and announced on 10th February +that the University would remain closed only for the summer term.</p> + +<p>This act of weakness cost Louis I. his mistress and his crown.</p> + +<p>The revolutionary party perceived that this was the moment to strike. The +King had yielded; the students were exultant and conscious of their +strength; the townsfolk were weary of this ceaseless conflict between the +Countess and her foes. Your good, old-fashioned burgher cares nothing for +the rights and wrongs of a public dispute; he wishes to be left in peace +to turn a penny into three half-pence, and to achieve that end is as ready +to sacrifice the innocent as the guilty. Jacob Vennedey, a publicist and +Radical famous in his day, writing from Frankfort, did his utmost to fan +the flame of revolution.</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“The King of Bavaria,” so ran an article, “wastes the sweat of the +poor country on mistresses and their followers. Everybody knows that +the jewellery which Lola wore lately at the theatre cost 60,000 +guldens; that her house in the Barerstrasse is a fairy palace; that +the Cabinet, the Council of State, and the whole civil service are at +her beck and call; that the <i>gendarmerie</i> and military are her +particular escort; that the best Catholic professors at the University +have been dismissed at her caprice. For the people nothing is done.”</p> + +<p>The last statement was untrue. If, too, the sixty<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> thousand guldens had +come out of the people’s pockets, Lola had well earned them by her +services in emancipating the country from its clerical oppressors.</p> + +<p>Louis’s concession came too late—if it should have been made at all. On +the morning of 11th February, Munich was in insurrection. Students and +citizens flew to arms, and mustered in dense masses before the palace, and +in the squares, loudly demanding the expulsion of the Countess of +Landsfeld and the immediate reopening of the University. The situation, +ministers thought, was critical. The King summoned a Cabinet Council, and +was prevailed upon to accede to the demands of his insurgent subjects. He +who had sworn before all the world that he would never give up Lola, now +signed a decree for her banishment from Munich. To save his crown he broke +all the solemn pledges he had given her. It was a base capitulation. But +Louis of Bavaria was an old man, sixty-two years of age. His vows had been +those of a young lover; but he wanted the youthful strength of will and +hand that should have defended his mistress against an armed nation. +Peace—peace—is ever the craving, the last and strongest passion of age.</p> + +<p>The King’s surrender to their demands was made known at midday to the +angry crowds before the Rathaus. The silly mob hailed with delight the +downfall of the woman who had set them free to keep their own consciences, +and speak their minds. The King’s decision was communicated to Lola by an +aide-de-camp. She was commanded to withdraw at once from the capital. The +intrepid woman could with difficulty be persuaded to credit the officer’s +words. Such pusillanimity was incomprehensible to her. She could not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> +believe that the King would abandon her without drawing the sword. +Lieutenant Nüssbaum, at the outbreak of the disturbance, had been locked +by a friend in an upper storey room to keep him out of danger, but at the +risk of breaking his neck, the young officer had jumped from the window +and hastened to offer his sword to the defenceless woman; but the King of +Bavaria had surrendered without striking a blow. His own signature at last +satisfied Lola of this. She looked up and down the street. No—there was +not a single soldier or <i>gendarme</i> to protect her. Not for an instant did +her nerve forsake her. With a smiling face she quitted the house where she +had for nearly a year directed the fortunes of a kingdom. She took the +Augsburg train, as if <i>en route</i> for Lindau; but alighted at a wayside +station and drove to Blutenburg, a few miles from Munich, three of her +faithful Alemannen—Peisner, Hertheim, and Laibinger—escorting her.</p> + +<p>The rabble, who feared her manlike valour, did not attempt to molest her +in her retreat, but having made sure that she was gone, they broke into +her house, pillaging and wrecking. A curious, unaccountable impulse drew +the King to the spot, where he must have passed many of the happiest hours +of his life. With strange emotions he must have watched the human swine +routing in this bower of Venus. He stood there, a pathetic figure—an old +man surveying the wreckage of his last and supreme passion. Unheeded and +seemingly unrecognised, he was suddenly dealt a violent blow on the head, +probably by a revolutionary agent, and tottered back to his palace, +bruised and dazed.</p> + +<p>The next night, disguised in man’s clothes, Lola the intrepid slipped back +into Munich, and took refuge in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> the house of her loyal partisan, Berks. +She sent a secret message to the King, confident that if she could see +him, she could regain her power. Those must have been anxious moments, +while she was awaiting the reply. It came at last, in the form of a letter +brought by two police commissaries, Weber and Dichtl. The King refused to +see her, and wished that he had come to that decision before. She turned +to the officials. They read an order for her expulsion from Bavaria. Lola +tore the document to pieces and threw them in their faces. Not till they +presented their pistols at her bosom did she consent to accompany them. It +was reported that she had been sent to Lindau on the Bodensee, thence to +be conducted into Switzerland. In reality, Louis had selected for her the +oddest and most fantastic place of seclusion. The mental crisis through +which he had passed seems to have weakened his understanding, and he +actually was persuaded by his new clerical friends that Lola’s power over +him was due to witchcraft. These enlightened Ultramontanes repeated some +ridiculous yarn about a great black bird that visited her room by night. +At a place called Weinsberg lived a man named Justinus Kerner, who +exercised the profession of an exorcist or expeller of devils. To this +person’s custody was Lola confided on 17th February, as was first learnt +from the charlatan’s letters, published some ten or fifteen years ago.<a name='fna_17' id='fna_17' href='#f_17'><small>[17]</small></a> +In one of these he says:—</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“Lola Montez arrived here the day before yesterday, accompanied by +three Alemannen. It is vexatious that the King should have sent her to +me, but they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> have told him that she is possessed. Before treating her +with magic and magnetism, I am trying the hunger cure. I allow her +only thirteen drops of raspberry water, and the quarter of a wafer. +Tell no one about this—burn this letter.”</p> + +<p>To another correspondent Kerner writes:—</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“Lola has grown astonishingly thin. My son, Theobald, has mesmerised +her, and I let her drink asses’ milk.”</p> + +<p>That the fiery, man-compelling Countess should have submitted to this +disagreeable tomfoolery, certainly seems to suggest hypnotic influence. It +is not unlikely that from the strain of the preceding few days a nervous +breakdown had resulted. Or, again, she may have lingered on at Kerner’s, +in the hope that the King’s love for her would revive. But before the +month of February was over she had shaken off for ever the dust of +Bavaria, and was safe in free Switzerland. Peisner, Hertheim, and +Laibinger followed her into exile. Lieutenant Nüssbaum, dismissed from the +Bavarian army because of his devotion to her, found a soldier’s grave +before the redoubts of Düppel.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span></p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="XXV" id="XXV"></a>XXV</h2> +<p class="title">THE RISING OF THE PEOPLES</p> + +<p>Louis of Bavaria had sacrificed his self-respect and the woman he loved to +wear the crown a few years longer. The sacrifice proved futile. The +expulsion of the strongest personality in Bavaria was merely the first act +in the programme of the revolutionary party. On 24th February the King of +the French was hurled from his throne, and every sovereign in Europe +trembled. The spirit of the Revolution spread from state to state with +amazing rapidity. Encouraged by the King’s late compliance, the citizens +of Munich once more gathered in their strength and demanded that the +Chambers should be convoked forthwith. Louis refused to summon a +Parliament before the end of May. Nor would he consent to the dismissal of +Berks. On the 2nd March barricades were erected in the principal streets, +and two days later the arsenal was attacked by the people, and carried +after a short struggle. Again Louis yielded to his fears, and dismissed +the unpopular minister; again the surrender came too late. The spark of +insurrection in Munich had now become absorbed in the mighty flame of a +great European revolution. Everywhere the people were feeling their +strength. The Middle Ages, even in Germany, had at last come to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> an end. +Six thousand men, armed with muskets, swords, hatchets, and pikes, surged +round the royal palace. In the market-place, the troops were ordered to +fire on the insurgents. They remained motionless, leaning on their +muskets. Some one called for cheers for the Republic; the crowd responded +heartily. Then up rode Prince Charles of Bavaria, the King’s brother, and +announced that His Majesty had conceded all the demands of his people and +pledged his royal word to summon the Chambers on the 16th of the month. +With this assurance the excited people feigned to be content, and returned +to their homes.</p> + +<p>But the opening of the Parliamentary session was attended by a renewal of +the disturbances. A report circulated that the Countess of Landsfeld had +returned to the city. The silly people again flew to arms, and demolished +the ministry of police. To calm the tumult the King published a decree, +withdrawing the rights of citizenship from his exiled favourite, and +forbidding her to re-enter his dominions. With this disgraceful act of +violence to his personal feelings, Louis lost all taste for kingship. +Rumours of his impending abdication spread through the capital, and now +the democratic party stood in fear of an Ultramontane conspiracy to defeat +their own policy. More rioting ensued. The Landwehr were eager to rescue +the King from the hands of his supposed enemies in the palace. But the old +man was weary of the whole comedy, and craved only peace. On 21st March +1848 he took leave of his people in the following proclamation:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“<span class="smcap">Bavarians</span>,—A new state of feeling has begun—a state which differs +essentially from that embodied in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> the Constitution according to which +I have governed the country twenty-three years. I abdicate my crown in +favour of my beloved son, the Crown Prince Maximilian. My government +has been in strict accordance with the Constitution; my life has been +dedicated to the welfare of my people. I have administered the public +money and property as if I had been a republican officer, and I can +boldly encounter the severest scrutiny. I offer my heartfelt thanks to +all who have adhered to me faithfully, and though I descend from the +throne, my heart still glows with affection for Bavaria and for +Germany.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 4em;"><span class="smcap">Louis.</span>”</span></p></div> + +<p>Less than six weeks thus elapsed between the downfall of Lola Montez and +the dethronement of the king who had not been man enough to uphold her. +Had the positions been reversed—had the woman been able to command one +tithe of the forces of which Louis could dispose—not the most powerful +coalition of parties would have driven her from the throne without the +bloodiest of struggles. In her, as was said of the Duchesse de Berry, +there was mind and heart enough for a dozen kings. The country that so +angrily threw off the unofficial yoke of its one strong-minded ruler, has +since acknowledged the sway of two raving madmen. The Bavarians prefer +King Log to King Stork.</p> + +<p>Louis soon recovered his popularity with his late subjects. The cares and +ambitions of kingship put aside, the tempestuous emotions of manhood at +last exhausted, the old man was now free to devote himself wholly to his +first and last love, Art. Though now a private person, his interest in the +embellishment of Munich and the enrichment of the city’s collections never +waned. He maintained more than one residence in Bavaria, and was indeed a +familiar and well-liked<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> figure in the streets of his old capital; but +most of his remaining years he spent wandering in Italy and the south of +France. He lived to witness the expulsion of his son, Otto, from the +throne of Greece; the death of his other son and successor, Maximilian +II.; and the humiliation of his country by the arms of ever-broadening +Prussia. But he could always find consolation in the contemplation of the +beautiful, and in the society of men of wit and genius. The last twenty +years of his life were, perhaps, the happiest he had known. He died at +Nice on 29th February 1868, in the eighty-third year of his age. You may +see his equestrian statue at Munich, but the whole city is virtually his +monument. A great man he was not, but he was the greatest king Bavaria has +yet known. So he passed from the stage of history:—</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“A courteous prince, and sociable, sympathetic gentleman; a poet, too, +in a small way, taking off his diamond collar at Weimar, and putting +it round Goethe’s neck; he had a gracious, winning, kingly way of his +own, and many as were his faults and his foibles, neither his son nor +his grandson supplanted him in the affections of the Bavarian +people.”<a name='fna_18' id='fna_18' href='#f_18'><small>[18]</small></a></p> + + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="XXVI" id="XXVI"></a>XXVI</h2> +<p class="title">LOLA IN SEARCH OF A HOME</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“Her last hope for Bavaria being broken,” Lola (to use her own words) +“turned her attention towards Switzerland, as the nearest shelter from +the storm that was beating above her head. She had influenced the King +of Bavaria to withhold his consent from a proposition by Austria, +which had for its object the destruction of that little republic of +Switzerland. If republics are ungrateful, Switzerland certainly was +not so to Lola Montez; for it received her with open arms, made her +its guest, and generously offered to bestow an establishment upon her for life.”</p> + +<p>At Bern, the quaint, beautiful old city of fountains and arcades, the +deposed dictatrix of Bavaria found a pleasant asylum. She was greeted with +especial cordiality by the English Chargé d’Affaires, Mr. Robert Peel (son +of the more celebrated statesman of the same name), whose fine presence, +gaiety of manner, and brilliant conversational powers rendered him a +universal favourite. Peel was a warm supporter of the anti-clerical policy +of the Government to which he was accredited, and on political grounds +alone, must have felt the strongest sympathy for the Countess of +Landsfeld. Peisner, Hertheim, and Laibinger seem to have at last parted +company with Lola at Bern, for a letter in her handwriting is preserved, +dated from that city, 2nd<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> March 1848, alluding to their probable +departure, and directing that a packet be forwarded to Peisner.</p> + +<p>From the terraces of Bern, Lola looked forth over Europe and beheld the +utter discomfiture of her enemies. If she craved revenge, here was enough +and a surfeit. Metternich, the mighty minister, whose gold had contributed +to her undoing, was dismissed and driven into exile after forty years of +unquestioned sway. Everywhere Liberal principles were in the ascendant. +Louis of Bavaria, who had not dared to save her, had now shown himself +unable to defend his own throne. Lola must have been more than human if +she experienced no inward exultation at the downfall of those who had +basely abandoned her. The reign of her clerical foes and conquerors had +indeed been short-lived. Too late did they realise that they had been +merely the instruments of their natural antagonists, the extreme +revolutionary party.</p> + +<p>But if the situation of Europe in the spring of 1848 afforded satisfaction +to Lola’s vindictive instincts, it offered little incentive to her +ambition. The men who were shaping the nation’s destinies were cast in the +stern, republican mould, and disdained to use the charms and wiles of a +woman in the furtherance of their ends. Issues were being fought out on +the battlefield, not in the boudoir. Nor did any state, from the Baltic to +the Mediterranean, present even such slight evidences of stability as a +high-flying adventuress might found her plans upon. To re-enter the +political arena at such a moment was to plunge headlong into a whirlpool. +The old order had changed. The world, hardly tolerant of kings, would no +longer brook the domination of their favourites, wise or unwise. The +princes pulled long<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> faces, and swore that the Constitution and the +Catechism should be henceforward their only rule of life. They vowed to +live like respectable citizens, indulging their amiable weaknesses only in +privacy. Pericles must no longer converse on affairs of state with Aspasia +in the market place. Beauty must exert what power it could in the boudoir +and on the back stairs. For half a century woman as a political factor +almost ceased to be. Only in our own day has her voice again been heard, +demanding in stern, menacing tones her right to a larger, nobler part in +the councils of the nations than the Pompadours and Maintenons ever +dreamed of.</p> + +<p>Weary, it may be conceived, of affairs of state, of strife and intrigue, +conscious that she had played in her greatest <i>rôle</i>, the Countess of +Landsfeld quitted Switzerland, once more to try her fortunes in England. +She had stepped down from the throne for ever. She embarked for London at +Rotterdam on 8th April 1848. By the irony of fate, it was ordered that the +bitterest, and once the most powerful, of her foes, the fallen minister, +Metternich, should be waiting at the same port seeking the same +destination. The news of the Chartist demonstration alone prevented him +sailing by the same vessel. “I thank God,” he piously remarks, “for having +preserved me from contact with her.” Assuredly, the meeting would have +been a painful and ignominious one for the fallen minister, at any rate.</p> + +<p>Lola’s arrival in the troubled state of England passed almost unnoticed. +She determined to try her fortunes once more upon the stage, and found, of +course, as a celebrity, that she was <i>persona grata</i> to the managers and +agents. The directors of Covent Garden conceived<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> the ingenious idea of +presenting her as herself in a dramatic representation of the recent +events at Munich. The play was written and entitled, “Lola Montez, ou la +Comtesse d’une Heure,” but the Lord Chamberlain declined to license a +performance in which living royal personages were introduced.<a name='fna_19' id='fna_19' href='#f_19'><small>[19]</small></a> The +scheme fell through, and Lola, having a private income to fall back upon, +retired into lodgings at 27 Halfmoon Street, Mayfair. There “she invited a +few men, including myself,” writes the Hon. F. Leveson Gower, “to visit +her in the evening. She had lost much of her good looks, but her animated +conversation was entertaining.”<a name='fna_20' id='fna_20' href='#f_20'><small>[20]</small></a> The journalist, George Augustus Sala, +then a very young man, describes Lola on the contrary, as a very handsome +lady, “originally the wife of a solicitor,” whom he met at a little +cigar-shop, under the pillars, in Norreys Street, Regent Street. She +proposed that he should write her life, “starting with the assumption that +she was a daughter of the famous matador, Montes.”<a name='fna_21' id='fna_21' href='#f_21'><small>[21]</small></a> Lola’s imaginative +powers, especially when directed to inventing romantic origins for +herself, rivalled those of the heroine of “The Dynamiter.” Lord Brougham, +that learned but relatively susceptible Chancellor, she also claimed +acquaintance with; he lived not far from her, in Grafton Street. It is +probable that a woman of Lola’s beauty, wit, and remarkable attainments +would have numbered the most brilliant and distinguished men in London +among her associates, whatever attitude may have been assumed towards her +by the little clique of prigs and prudes that arrogated to itself the +title of Society.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="XXVII" id="XXVII"></a>XXVII</h2> +<p class="title">A SECOND EXPERIMENT IN MATRIMONY</p> + +<p>The company of any number of agreeable men about town and the amenities of +life in a Mayfair lodging-house were not, however, likely to content a +woman who had lately ruled a kingdom. Experience, it is true, had taught +Lola to set limits to her ambition. She had succeeded in her design of +hooking a prince, but the catch had been torn off the hook with +considerable violence to the angler. It was of no use again to cast her +line into royal waters. The fish were now too wary. After the ordeal +through which she had passed, Lola sighed for some enduring ties and an +established position. She yearned as the most fiery and erratic do at one +time or another, for a home. Some think that they who have loved most, +love best; but I imagine Lola was a trifle weary of love just then, and +longed for some felicity more stable and material. She inclined, in fact, +towards the sweet yoke of domesticity, which was quite a fashionable +institution in England at that time. Among her visitors was a Mr. George +Trafford Heald, son of a rich Chancery barrister, and a cornet in the +Second Life Guards. This gallant officer is described as a tall young man, +of juvenile figure and aspect, with straight hair and small light<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> brown +downy mustachios and whiskers; his turned-up nose gave him an air of great +simplicity. As, however, he had, on his coming of age in January 1849, +inherited a fortune of between six and seven thousand pounds per annum, he +was considered, especially by unattached ladies, in and out of society, a +very interesting person. He was very much in love with the Countess of +Landsfeld who, no doubt, easily persuaded herself that she entertained a +strong affection for so eligible a suitor. In this respect Lola was, it is +safe to say, no more mercenary than half the good and well-brought-up +young ladies who were looking out for a good match that season. Heald +seems to have been what women call a nice boy; in many ways he probably +contrasted favourably with Lola’s bolder, more experienced wooers. So when +(with many blushes, and in shy stammering words, I doubt not) he offered +the adventuress his hand and heart and fortune, she was able without any +natural repugnance to consent to be his wife.</p> + +<p>That she ever doubted that she was free to wed again is not to be +supposed. In all likelihood, she had been made acquainted with her divorce +from Captain James only through the medium of the newspapers, and these +would lead any one to believe that the divorce had been made absolute. It +was, therefore, without any apprehension that she married Cornet Heald at +St. George’s, Hanover Square, on 19th July 1849. As she left the church on +the arm of her youthful husband, she must have thought half-regretfully of +the career of adventure that was ended, and yet looked forward with +complacency to the life of respectability and affluence that seemed to +stretch before her.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span>Vain hope! By the common domestic women of her time Lola was regarded with +bitter hatred. It is unnecessary to analyse this species of animosity. It +is compounded, apparently, of jealousy, of some vague religious sentiment +of inherited prejudice, and of the trade-unionist’s dislike for the +blackleg. This attitude, though instinctive, is not unreasonable on the +part of the vast numbers of women who consider marriage a profession, but +it is more difficult to understand in the case of an aged lady, long since +resigned to celibacy. Such a spinster was Miss Susanna Heald, of +Headington Grove, Horncastle, the aunt of Cornet George. This lady +manifested great displeasure at her nephew’s marriage; and, certain facts +having been communicated to her by Lola’s numerous enemies, she forthwith +set in motion that efficient engine of man’s injustice, the English law.</p> + +<p>The honeymoon of the newly-wed pair, if they had one at all, was brief, +for it was on 6th August, at nine o’clock in the morning, as the Countess +of Landsfeld was stepping into her carriage, at 27 Halfmoon Street, that +Police Sergeant Gray and Inspector Whall quietly requested a word or two +with her. They explained that they held a warrant for her arrest on a +charge of bigamy, she having intermarried with Cornet Heald while her +lawful husband, Captain James, was still alive. Lola replied that she had +been divorced from the captain by an act of Parliament. She added with +characteristic petulence: “I don’t know whether Captain James is alive or +not, and I don’t care. I was married in a wrong name, and it wasn’t a +legal marriage. Lord Brougham was present when the divorce was granted, +and Captain Osborne can prove it. What<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> will the King say?” she murmured, +as an after-thought, and referring no doubt to her late royal protector.</p> + +<p>They drove to the police-station, and thence to Marlborough Street Police +Court. The rumour of the arrest had spread abroad, and the approaches to +the court were thronged with people, eager to get a glimpse of the famous +Countess of Landsfeld. The “respectable married women” in the crowd no +doubt exulted at the anticipated downfall of the woman who could bind +men’s hearts without the chains of law or Church.</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“About half-past one o’clock,” says the reporter, “the Countess of +Landsfeld, leaning on the arm of Mr. Heald, her present husband, came +into court, and was accommodated with a seat in front of the bar. Mr. +Heald was also allowed to have a chair beside her. The lady appeared +quite unembarrassed, and smiled several times as she made remarks to +her husband. She was stated to be 24 years of age on the police-sheet, +but has the look of a woman of at least 30. [She was, in fact, 31.] +She was dressed in black silk, with close fitting black velvet jacket, +a plain white straw bonnet trimmed with blue, and blue veil. In figure +she is rather plump, and of middle height, of pale dark complexion, +the lower part of the features symmetrical, the upper part not so +good, owing to rather prominent cheek bones, but set off by a pair of +unusually large blue eyes with long black lashes. Her reputed husband, +Mr. Heald, during the whole of the proceedings, sat with the +countess’s hand clasped in both of his own, occasionally giving it a +fervent squeeze, and at particular parts of the evidence whispering to +her with the fondest air, and pressing her hand to his lips with +juvenile warmth.”<a name='fna_22' id='fna_22' href='#f_22'><small>[22]</small></a></p> + +<p>The magistrate, Mr. Peregrine Bingham, having<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> taken his seat, Mr. +Clarkson opened the case for the prosecution. “Sir,” he began, “however +painful the circumstances under which the lady who sits at my left (Miss +Heald) is placed, she has felt it to be a duty to her deceased brother, +the father of the young gentleman now in court, to lay before you the +evidence of this young gentleman’s marriage with the lady at the bar, and +also other evidence which has led her to impute the offence of bigamy to +that lady.” The learned counsel then went on to state that Lola had been +married to Thomas James in Ireland, in July 1837, that a divorce only a +<i>toro et mensâ</i> (<i>i.e.</i>, a judicial separation) had been pronounced by the +Consistory Court in 1842, and that Captain James was alive in India +thirty-six days before the celebration of the second marriage with Heald. +He deprecated any sort of allusion to the defendant’s distinction or +notoriety, concluding: “I am further bound to state that this proceeding +is on the part of the aunt, Miss Heald, without the consent of Mr. Heald, +her nephew, who would, no doubt, if he could, prevent these proceedings +from being carried on. No one, I think, will venture to impugn the motives +or the purity of the intentions of Miss Heald in taking this step. My +application is for the lady at the bar to be remanded till we can get the +proper witnesses from India to come forward.”</p> + +<p>Miss Heald, who went into the witness-box, explained her relationship to +the accused’s second husband, said she had been his guardian, and stated +she considered it was her duty to prosecute this enquiry. When old ladies +do any one a bad turn or make themselves a nuisance, they always explain +that they are prompted by a sense of duty. For my part, I take up the +challenge<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> thrown down sixty years ago by Mr. Clarkson, and I impugn the +purity of his client’s motives. If it had been her object to prevent any +family complications in the future, such as might have arisen from the +birth of children to Lola and her nephew, she could have laid the facts +before them in private; and if they had refused to separate, she should +have remained for ever silent. I entertain no doubt whatever that Miss +Susanna Heald wished to ruin the Countess of Landsfeld, and that this was +at any rate one of her motives in instituting police court proceedings.</p> + +<p>The rest of the evidence was purely formal, and included the testimony of +Captain Ingram, in whose ship Lola had come to England seven years before.</p> + +<p>Mr. Bodkin appeared on behalf of the lady, who had been dragged that +morning to a station-house, to answer a charge which, in all his +professional experience, was perfectly unparalleled. He never recollected +a case of bigamy in which neither the first nor the second husband came +forward in the character of a complaining party. The matter, would, +however, undergo investigation, and if anything illegal had been done, +those who had done the illegality would be held responsible for their +conduct. As far as the proof had gone he was willing to admit enough had +been laid before the court to justify further enquiry. At the proper time +he should be prepared to show that the marriage with Mr. Heald was a +lawful act. It would seem that the lady had been married when about +fifteen or sixteen years old, and that a divorce had taken place. It was +evident that the lady had a strong impression that a divorce bill had been +obtained in the House of Lords. This, however, might be a mistake, into +which the lady would be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> likely to fall from her ignorance of our laws. +Enough had been stated to show that even had the imputed offence been +committed, it had been committed in circumstances that appeared to justify +the act. He asked the court to admit the lady to bail, to appear upon such +a day as might be agreed upon. It was in the highest degree improbable +that the parties most interested would attempt to evade an enquiry of this +sort. He made no reflection on the motives of the prosecution, but it must +be clear that a private and not a public object originated the +proceedings.</p> + +<p>Mr. Bodkin had not detected the flaw in his adversary’s case, and he had +conceded too much to the prosecution. The magistrate’s decision must have +mortified his professional feelings as much as it chagrined the amiable +Miss Heald.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“Mr. Bingham, after a short consultation with Mr. Hardwick, said: ‘It +is observable in the present case that the person most immediately +interested (a person of full age and holding a commission in Her +Majesty’s army) is not the person to institute or to countenance the +prosecution. It is quite compatible with the evidence now produced +that the accused may have received by the same mail from India a few +hours later than the official return, a letter communicating the death +of Captain James from cholera or some other casualty. The law presumes +she is innocent till the usual proof of guilt is brought forward. Here +that proof is wanting, and the magistrate is requested to act on a +presumption of guilt. I feel great reluctance in doing so, even to the +extent of a remand without an assurance on the part of the prosecutor +that the evidence necessary to ensure a conviction will certainly be +producible on a future occasion. No such assurance can be given in +this case, because between the 13th<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> June and the last marriage, a +period of nearly six weeks, Captain James may have been snatched from +life by any of those numerous casualties by which life is beset in a +military profession and a tropical climate. However, upon the express +admission of the advocate that in his judgment sufficient ground has +been laid for further enquiry, and upon his offer to find security, I +shall venture to order a remand, and to liberate the prisoner, upon +finding two sureties in £500 each, and herself £1,000, for her +reappearance here on a future day.’</p> + +<p>“Bail was immediately tendered and accepted. The Countess of Landsfeld +and her husband were allowed to remain some time in court in order to +elude the gaze of the crowd.”</p></div> + +<p>Her counsel’s blunder had cost Lola and her husband two thousand pounds.</p> + +<p>The prosecution succeeded in ruining the beautiful woman against whom it +was directed. A spiteful old lady had taken advantage of a bad law. The +whole proceedings were cruel and vindictive. A law framed by bigots and +administered by idiots condemned a woman to lose her conjugal rights; and +when she attempted to contract new ties and create for herself a home, it +threatened her with the punishment of a felon. Decrees like that of Dr. +Lushington impose on women the alternatives of celibacy and prostitution. +Lola, who was too human for the one, and too highly organised for the +other, was accordingly bludgeoned, defamed, and driven out of society. +Somewhere between this world and Nirvana there should be a flaming hell +for the makers of our ancient English law; though, perhaps, we should seek +them in the limbo of unbaptized innocents and idiots.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>Lola did not share the magistrate’s belief in the probability of Captain +James having been carried off by accident or fever. On the contrary, she +thought it likely that Miss Heald would succeed in producing him in court. +To defeat the malice of her enemies, she and Heald took their departure +for the continent, <i>via</i> Folkestone and Boulogne, the day after her +appearance at Marlborough Street, as an announcement in the <i>Morning +Herald</i> testifies. For the next two years we have no reliable information +as to the movements or the doings of the pair. Certain particulars are +supplied by Eugène de Mirecourt, a wholly untrustworthy writer, who speaks +ill of everybody, especially of Lola, and is again and again to be +convicted of palpable and serious errors. According to his version,<a name='fna_23' id='fna_23' href='#f_23'><small>[23]</small></a> +the newly married couple proceeded in the first instance to Spain, where +two children were born to them. Here Monsieur de Mirecourt makes the first +heavy draft on our credulity, for we can find elsewhere no trace of or +allusion to the existence of any children of Lola Montez, who could have +had no possible interest in abandoning or repudiating them, since they +would have constituted a powerful claim on her wealthy young husband and +his affluent relatives. Despite these pledges of affection, we are told, +the domestic life of the Healds was troubled by violent quarrels. At +Barcelona, in an access of fury, Lola stabbed her husband with a stiletto. +The wounded man took to flight, but, unable to stifle his love for his +wife, returned to her with assurances of renewed affection. However, he +soon found reason to regret this step, and at Madrid again deserted the +conjugal roof.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> Lola advertised for him as for a lost dog, and rewarded +the person who found and restored him to her. Here Monsieur de Mirecourt’s +effervescent Gallic humour seems to have betrayed him into what is at +least unplausible.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“Paris,” he goes on to say, “had next the honour of sheltering this +extraordinary couple. Madame sate for her portrait to Claudius +Jacquand, but was obliged to interrupt the sitting every day on word +being brought that her husband was about to take to flight. On one +occasion she was obliged to pursue him as far as Boulogne. Claudius +Jacquand painted them both together [this rather conflicts with the +sense of the foregoing sentences], the husband presenting his wife +with a rich <i>parure</i> of diamonds. When a definite rupture of their +relations was decided upon, Heald wished the canvas to be cut in two, +as he objected to appearing beside Lola. She, however, obtained +possession of the picture in its entirety, and kept it in her room, +with its face turned to the wall. ‘My husband,’ she explained, ‘ought +not to see everything I do. It wouldn’t be decent.’</p> + +<p>“The husband, upon his return to London, obtained a decree of nullity +of marriage, and the year following was drowned at Lisbon, the swell +of a passing steamer swamping the skiff in which he was taking his +pleasure.”</p></div> + +<p>Our delightfully unreliable informant adds that Captain James died in +1852, whereas he lived to witness the Franco-German war. De Mirecourt +aimed rather at being funny than accurate, and succeeded in being neither +one nor the other. In substance his carefully-seasoned story is true. Lola +herself refers to her marriage with Heald as another unfortunate +experience in matrimony. There was, no doubt, a fundamental<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> difference in +their temperaments, and the vagrant life in France and Spain must have +brought out only too well the wife’s capacity for adventure, as much as it +must have bored and irritated the well-connected young Englishman. In +London they might have pulled together very well. He would have had his +club and his race-meetings; she would have had her well-appointed +household, her <i>salon</i>, and her box at the Opera. Miss Susanna Heald’s +interference destroyed Lola’s dream of an established position, and +wrecked two lives.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span></p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="XXVIII" id="XXVIII"></a>XXVIII</h2> +<p class="title">WESTWARD HO!</p> + +<p>In the year 1851, the Countess of Landsfeld might well have reflected, +with Byron—</p> + +<p class="poem">“Through Life’s dull road, so dim and dirty,<br /> +I have dragged to three-and-thirty.<br /> +What have these years left to me?<br /> +Nothing—except thirty-three.”</p> + +<p>She had practically exhausted the possibilities of the old world. In Paris +she met with an American agent, named Edward Willis, who made her an offer +(in theatrical parlance) for New York. Such a proposal appealed at once to +this restless woman, in whom no series of misfortunes could extinguish the +thirst for novelty and adventure. Other and more distinguished exiles who +had been worsted in the fight with Europe’s archaic traditions were also +turning their faces westward. The <i>Humboldt</i>, in which Lola sailed from +Southampton on 20th November 1851, bore, as its most illustrious +passenger, the patriot Kossuth. Of this great Magyar our adventuress saw +little, for he was confined to his cabin during the greater part of the +voyage with <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span>seasickness; what she did see she seems to have liked little. +She thought him (so she told the reporter of the <i>New York Tribune</i>) +sinister and distant. She, on an element with which she had been familiar +since childhood, was brilliant and sprightly.</p> + +<p>The <i>Humboldt</i> arrived at New York on Friday, 5th December 1851, and was +received with a salute of thirty-one guns—in honour, it need hardly be +said, of Kossuth, not of the Countess of Landsfeld. She was not altogether +overlooked in the transports of enthusiasm and public rejoicings with +which the American people hailed the exiled hero. She was promptly +interviewed by the newspaper men, who were surprised to find that she was +not a masculine woman, but rather slim in her stature.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“She has,” continues the report, “a face of great beauty, and a pair +of black [<i>sic</i>] Spanish eyes, which flash fire when she is speaking, +and make her, with the sparkling wit of her conversation, a great +favourite in company. She has black hair, which curls in ringlets by +the sides of her face, and her nose is of a pure Grecian cast, while +her cheek bones are high, and give a Moorish appearance to her face.</p> + +<p>“She states that many bad things have been said of her by the American +Press, yet she is not the woman she has been represented to be: if she +were, her admirers, she believes, would be still more numerous. She +expresses herself fearful that she will not be properly considered in +New York, but hopes that a discriminating public will judge of her +after having seen her, and not before.”<a name='fna_24' id='fna_24' href='#f_24'><small>[24]</small></a></p></div> + +<p>New York and its people in the middle of the last<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> century have been +portrayed unkindly, but I do not think unfairly, by Charles Dickens. That +great novelist visited the country for the first time only seven years +before Lola landed, and his impressions are largely embodied in “Martin +Chuzzlewit.” With the type of American delineated therein, it is evident +that the Countess of Landsfeld knew exactly how to deal. She succeeded at +once in disarming an intensely puritanical people by enthusiastic appeals +to their childlike national vanity, by delighted acquiescence in their +laughable self-righteousness. Colonel Diver and General Choke could with +difficulty have bettered her allusion to their Great Country as “this +stupendous asylum of the world’s unfortunates, and last refuge of the +victims of the tyranny and wrongs of the Old World! God grant,” devoutly +prays the Countess, “that it may ever stand as it is now, the noblest +column of liberty that was ever reared beneath the arch of heaven!” At the +conclusion of her autobiography the American people are told that the +pilgrim from the effete forms of Europe must look upon their great +Republic with as happy an eye as the storm-tossed and shipwrecked mariner +looks upon the first star that shines beneath the receding tempest. These +words, indeed, are Mr. Chauncy Burr’s, but the sentiments beyond doubt are +those that Lola constantly affected. Her mastery over men, as is always +the case, was due not so much to her physical charms as to her skill in +detecting their weakest sides. It says much for her shrewdness that she +who had hitherto found it safest to appeal to men through their passions, +perceived that the cold Yankee was most vulnerable through so artificial +and dispassionate a sentiment as patriotism. Every other woman of her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> +experience would have assumed that the animal predominated in all men, of +whatever race or country.</p> + +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img7.jpg" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">LOLA MONTEZ. (After Jules Laure).</p> +<p> </p> + +<p>No amount of judicious flattery could, however, blind the Great and +Critical American Public to the fair stranger’s imperfections as an +actress and a dancer. On 27th December she appeared in the title <i>rôle</i> of +<i>Betly, the Tyrolean</i>, a musical comedy written especially for her, at the +Broadway Theatre. It was expected that she would prove a powerful +attraction, and seats for the first performance were put up to public +auction on the preceding Saturday. But the piece was withdrawn on 19th +January 1852, public curiosity having by then been satisfied, and what +taste there was in New York not much gratified. Lola, however, secured an +engagement at the Walnut Street Theatre, at Philadelphia, that dull, +colourless city, which formed the most incongruous of all possible +settings for her personality. In May, when a faint breath of romance seems +to rustle the trees even in Union Square, she went back to New York. On +the 18th she appeared again at the Broadway Theatre in a dramatised +version of her career in Munich, written by C. P. T. Ware. She appeared as +herself, in the characters of the Danseuse, the Politician, the Countess, +the Revolutionist, and the Fugitive. The part of King Louis was sustained +by Mr. Barry, and Abel—the villain of the piece—by F. Conway. The play +ran five nights only. Even during these brief runs, and though the prices +at New York theatres did not exceed a dollar in those days, Lola had +amassed a considerable sum of money; but she was by nature prodigal, and +easily outpaced the swiftest current of Pactolus. She now hit on a +somewhat original scheme, which quickly replenished her exchequer.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> She +organised receptions, to which any one paying a dollar was admitted for +the space of a quarter of an hour, to shake her by the hand, gaze upon her +in all the splendour of her beauty, and converse with her in English, +French, German, or Spanish. The function was hardly consistent with the +Countess’s dignity, but it revealed in a striking manner her knowledge of +the American character. To shake hands with a well-known personage is +esteemed by your average Yankee a greater privilege than visiting the +Acropolis or wading in the Jordan.</p> + +<p>From New York Lola proceeded to New Orleans, that queer old city of +creoles and canals.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“A Canadian named Jones,” relates De Mirecourt, “acted as her agent, +and as there was reason to fear that in this deeply religious state, +her scandalous history might dispose the public against her, the +following plan was devised.</p> + +<p>“It was reported in the Louisiana journals that the Countess of +Landsfeld, who had recently arrived in America, was distributing alms +in abundance to the poor, the sick, and the captive, to make amends +for her misspent life.</p> + +<p>“This announcement having taken some effect, the newspapers went on to +inform the public that the famous Countess was shortly about to enter +religion; the best informed went so far as to name the day on which +she would take the veil.</p> + +<p>“But on the appointed day, behold a third and startling item of news!</p> + +<p>“Señora Lola Montez, yielding to that instinct of inconstancy so +strong in her sex, is announced to have chosen the Opera instead of +the Cloister.</p> + +<p>“That evening the theatre was crowded to suffocation, and the +following days the receipts were enormous.”</p></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span>De Mirecourt, who pronounced young Heald’s desire to marry Lola in due and +proper form, <i>idée d’Anglais</i>, must be allowed his sneer. We who know in +what spirit the adventuress ended her career, and to what strange impulses +she was subject, may hesitate to dismiss her momentary attraction to the +cloister as a mere advertising manœuvre. The woman was disillusioned, +sore at heart, and world-weary; her restlessness bespeaks a mind ill at +ease; her beauty showed signs of fading, she had no home, no ties, no +kindred. It is likely that for a moment her resolve to end her days in the +supposed tranquillity of the convent was genuine enough. It passed; as yet +the joy of living was too strong in her to be crushed down.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="XXIX" id="XXIX"></a>XXIX</h2> +<p class="title">IN THE TRAIL OF THE ARGONAUTS</p> + +<p>The Creole City at that time swarmed with gold-seekers on their way to or +returning from the newly-found Ophir of the Occident. Though the first +headlong rush to California was over, it still drew its thousands every +month, and Greeley’s famous advice to the young man was followed without +having been asked. Lola became infected with the fever. There was much of +the gambler in her nature, and her zest for adventure was keener than of +old. At this time, too, a positive distaste for civilisation appears to +have possessed her. It may have been the vision of a wild, unfettered life +in a virgin land that dispelled the sickly hankerings for the cloister.</p> + +<p>She sailed across the Gulf of Mexico to San Juan del Norte, or Greytown, +as it is now called, the newly opened halfway-house to the gold-fields. +Thence the route lay across the beautiful savannahs of Nicaragua to the +Pacific shore. She passed the white-walled towns of Leon and Rivas, which +Walker and his filibusters two years later harried with fire and sword. +This was an alternative route to that across the isthmus of Panama, which +she was fabled to have followed in a book by Russell, the +war-correspondent, called the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> “Adventures of Mrs. Seacole.” Lola refers +to this mendacious romance in her little autobiography, and quotes the +following passage in order to characterise it at the finish as a base +fabrication from beginning to end:—</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“Occasionally some distinguished passengers passed on the upward and +downward tides of ruffianism and rascality that swept periodically +through Cruces. Came one day Lola Montez, in the full zenith of her +evil fame, bound for California with a strange suite. A good-looking, +bold woman, with fine, bad eyes and a determined bearing, dressed +ostentatiously in perfect male attire, with shirt collar turned down +over a velvet lapelled coat, richly worked shirt-front, black hat, +French unmentionables, and natty polished boots with spurs. She +carried in her hand a handsome riding-whip, which she could use as +well in the streets of Cruces as in the towns of Europe; for an +impertinent American, presuming, perhaps not unnaturally, upon her +reputation, laid hold jestingly of the tails of her long coat, and, as +a lesson, received a cut across his face that must have marked him for +some days. I did not see the row which followed, and was glad when the +wretched woman rode off on the following morning.”</p> + +<p>The incident is a spicy little bit of fiction, such as is so easily +invented by the fertile journalistic brain. The adjectives applied to Lola +also illustrate, in a mildly diverting manner, the strictly orthodox +notions of morality entertained by the newspaper press, and the pontifical +confidence with which journalists pronounce on questions of conduct.<a name='fna_25' id='fna_25' href='#f_25'><small>[25]</small></a></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span>On the long journey to the golden gate, Lola had as a fellow-passenger a +young man named Patrick Purdy Hull, a native of Ohio, and editor of the +<i>San Francisco Whig</i>. The acquaintance thus formed soon ripened into an +attachment. Though, upon her arrival in California, the Countess +immediately went on tour among the mining camps, her new victim did not +lose sight of her. For the third time Lola went through the ceremony of +wedlock. On 1st July 1853 she married Hull at the Church of the Mission +Dolores, “in presence,” runs the report, “of a select party, among whom +were Beverly C. Saunders, Esq., Judge Wills, James E. Wainwright, Esq., A. +Bartol, Esq., Louis R. Lull, S. A. Brinsmade, and other prominent +citizens”—all among the most remarkable men in that country, no doubt. +“The bride and groom have since visited Sacramento, and are now in +domestic retirement at San Francisco.”<a name='fna_26' id='fna_26' href='#f_26'><small>[26]</small></a></p> + +<p>From the reports of remarkable men and prominent citizens shooting each +other in the public streets, of bandits raiding the suburbs, of fires and +floods, that accompany this announcement, we should imagine that domestic +retirement in San Francisco was at that time subject to frequent and +unpleasant interruption. On this account, perhaps, Mr. and Mrs. Hull spent +much of their time hunting in the valley of the Sacramento. Lola was in +search of new sensations, and for the moment the bear seemed a more +attractive quarry than the man. But before long a German medical man, +named Adler, himself a mighty hunter, came across her path. His prowess +excited her admiration, and he at once fell a victim to the shafts from +her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> quiver. Hull was discarded and the German reigned in his stead.</p> + +<p>In these American <i>amours</i> we seem to detect the last flickerings of the +flame of passion—the woman’s last strenuous efforts to find a real and +lasting interest in life. But Lola had played too much with love. That +mighty force which she had so often exploited and exerted to the +furtherance of her ambitions was no longer at her command. Her capacity +for love was exhausted; by passion she was no more to rule or to be ruled.</p> + +<p>She had hardly time to tire of her German lover, who accidentally shot +himself while following the chase—no bad death for a hunter. It might +have been expected that Lola would now quit California and return to more +congruous surroundings. But a distaste for men and cities, for the +restraints of civilisation, had grown strong within her. Just then she was +sick of love and sick of the world. At her best, a splendid animal, with +fierce elemental passions, she turned almost instinctively, to draw fresh +supplies of vitality from “the green, sweet-hearted earth.” She made +herself a home in a cabin at Grass Valley, a lawless mining camp, among +the foot-hills of the Sierra Nevada. All her life she had loved animals, +and these she now made her special friends and companions, finding in +their marvellous stores of affection and devotion ample compensation for +the muddy evanescent emotion that men call love. She did not, of course, +lead the life of a hermit. We catch glimpses of her in a despatch from +Nevada City, dated 20th January 1854:—</p> + +<p class="blockquot"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span>“The merry ringing of sleigh bells has been heard for several days +past in our city. Several sleighs have been fitted up, and the young +gentlemen have treated the ladies to some dashing turn-outs. On +Tuesday last, Lola Montez paid us a visit by this conveyance and a +span of horses, decorated with impromptu cowbells. She flashed like a +meteor through the snowflakes and wanton snowballs, and after a tour +of the thoroughfares, disappeared in the direction of Grass Valley.”</p> + +<p>There she continued to dwell during the rest of that year, her liking for +the simple life unabated. A correspondent of the <i>San Francisco Herald</i>, +who visited her on 13th December, describes her as—</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“living a quiet, and apparently cosy life, surrounded by her pet +birds, dogs, goats, sheep, hens, turkeys, pigs, and her pony. The +latter seems to be a favourite with Lola, and is her companion in all +her mountain rambles. Surely it is a strange metamorphosis to find the +woman who has gained a world-renowned notoriety, and has played a part +upon the stage of life with powerful potentates, and with whose name +Europe and the world is familiar, finally settled down at home in the +mountain wilds of California.”</p> + +<p>A strange change, indeed, but no unpleasant life it could have been. What +memories, what scenes, must have supplied food for the lonely woman’s +musings, as she galloped over the hills, or, seated with her dogs, gazed +into her great fire of resinous logs! In communion thus with our great +mother, treading these virgin forests, and breathing an air hardly yet +inhaled by man, she might have attained to a higher, truer plane of +existence than that which she finally took to be firm ground. But luck was +against her here, as always. A fire swept<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> away the township of Grass +Valley, and with it Lola’s little homestead—the only home that she had +ever known. Her animals were dispersed, she was without funds. But she had +renewed her stock of vitality at Nature’s fountains. She went on her +travels again, reinvigorated: a coarser woman, no doubt, thanks to her +contact with miners and hunters, but, perhaps, a better one. She still +loved the new auriferous lands. In the track of the sun she would continue +to journey, and in June sailed from California across the ocean to +Australia.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="XXX" id="XXX"></a>XXX</h2> +<p class="title">IN AUSTRALIA</p> + +<p>Even to the antipodes—in the ’fifties unconnected by the telegraph with +the rest of the world, and distant a three months’ journey from +England—the fame of the Countess of Landsfeld had extended. Her name had +travelled completely round the world, and was as familiar to the people of +Sydney as to those of London and Paris. Lola found that her prolonged rest +cure had weakened in no way her hold on public curiosity. The moment for +her arrival in New South Wales was not, however, well chosen. Commerce and +agriculture were alike depressed, and the mind of the Colonists was +preoccupied with the business of constitution-making. The city lay, too, +under the spell of a celebrated Irish singer, Miss Catherine Hayes, “the +sweet swan of Erin.” It is, perhaps, worth noting that this vocalist was +born at the same town as Lola, was married at the same church (St. +George’s, Hanover Square), and was to die the same year; that she made her +<i>début</i> under the same manager (Benjamin Lumley), at the same theatre, and +that the two women had for the last year or two trodden undeviatingly in +each other’s footsteps. Miss Hayes had been in possession of the Prince of +Wales’s Theatre nearly a fortnight, when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> Lola’s arrival startled the +eldest Australian city. The newcomer was engaged by Tonning of the +Victoria Theatre, and was announced to appear, together with Mr. Lambert, +Mr. Falland, and Mr. C. Jones, on 23rd August 1855, in the four-act drama, +<i>Lola Montez in Bavaria</i>. The theatre was crowded to excess.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“The Countess looked charming, and acted very archly. She was cheered +vociferously, and recalled before the curtain, when she delivered a +short address. Mr. Lambert (well known in London) created quite a +sensation in the King of Bavaria (by which name he is now known), and +at the end of the performance the Countess presented him with a +handsome bundle of cigarettes—a very great compliment, as she is an +inveterate smoker, and seldom gives any cigars away.</p> + +<p>“The excitement about her immediately empties the Prince of Wales’s +Theatre, and Miss Hayes is then taken suddenly ill. Two nights after +the Countess of Landsfeld is seriously indisposed, and Miss Hayes +recovers. Her recovery restores Lola Montez to perfect health.”<a name='fna_27' id='fna_27' href='#f_27'><small>[27]</small></a></p></div> + +<p>On 27th August she appeared in <i>Yelva, or the Orphan of Russia</i>, “a new +and exciting drama” she had herself translated from the French. On +Wednesday, 6th September, she took a benefit, playing in <i>The Follies of a +Night</i>, and two farces. Into one of these she introduced her “Spider +Dance,” which seems to have outraged colonial opinion. We need not condemn +it on that account as immodest, for in our own day we have seen a +performance interdicted as offensive to public morals in Manchester, and +pronounced (rightly) to be the quintessence of mobile grace and the truest +poetry<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> of motion in the not less considerable city of London. Immodesty +in the minds of many people definitely connotes that which pleases the +eyes and the senses.</p> + +<p>Business continued dull at Sydney, and Lola departed in the second week of +September for Melbourne. A dispute had arisen between her and another +member of her company, Mrs. Fiddes, who issued a writ of attachment +against her. Brown, the sheriff, went aboard the steamer to apprehend +Lola, who retired to her cabin till the vessel was well under weigh. She +then sent word that the officer could arrest her if he would, but she was +obliged to tell him that she was quite naked. The bold expedient was, of +course, successful. “Poor Brown,” we are told, “blushed and retired, and +was put on shore at the Heads, about twenty miles from Sydney, and was +greeted on his return to the city with roars of laughter.” The sheriff +evidently did not object to repeating a good story, even at his own +expense.</p> + +<p>At Melbourne, Lola must have been vividly reminded of California. The gold +fever was at its height. The population of the Port Philip district had +swollen in five years from 76,000 to 364,000, of which number at least +two-thirds were men. Men, too, they were, of every nationality under the +sun, and of every class, though the more criminal and dangerous elements +were in the ascendant. In ’55 life and property were, notwithstanding, +somewhat more secure here than in California, thanks to the firmer, less +corrupt administration of British officials. Prices were, it need not be +said, extravagantly high, though the barest necessities of decent life +were hardly obtainable outside Melbourne and Geelong. A goldfield would +seem to be one of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> the most brutalising environments to which a human +being can adapt himself.</p> + +<p>For our knowledge of Lola’s doings in the Victorian capital, we are +indebted to the <i>Era’s</i> local correspondent. He writes:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“Lola Montez made her <i>début</i> on 21st September, in a short drama +allusive to her own Bavarian transactions, but the piece might well +have borne curtailment. There was a very crowded audience. The +<i>ci-devant</i> Countess of Landsfeld seemed determined to preserve her +notoriety intact by the selection, but entrenched so far upon decorum +in the ‘Spider Dance’ on a subsequent evening, that she did not face +the clamour raised in consequence till the objectionable portions were +agreed to be omitted. She is certainly a very singular character, but +there is an ever lively and brusque style in her action that seems to +catch general approbation for the time being.</p> + +<p>“After a brief stay, Lola departed for Geelong; but there, I learn, +her performances were freely condemned. Indeed, their laxness was also +much canvassed with us, and the more staid of the visitors openly +enough expressed their censure. Subsequently to the performance, Dr. +Milman demanded of the Mayor at the City Court, in the name of an +outraged community, that a warrant be issued against all repetition of +the performances of Mme. Lola Montez at the Theatre Royal. The Mayor +referred the matter to the private room of the magistrates, +considering that should be the proper place for its discussion. The +bench declared that the law would not sustain them in issuing a +warrant unless the Doctor had actually witnessed the performance, and +had his information properly attested by witnesses. This he declared +he would do.”</p></div> + +<p>The methods of these self-constituted champions of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> outraged morality are +the same in every age. They condemn first, and collect evidence +afterwards—if at all.</p> + +<p>Opinion in Geelong does not seem to have been as hostile as the <i>Era’s</i> +correspondent supposed. In the <i>Geelong Advertiser</i> of 10th October is to +be found the following paragraph:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="center"><span class="smcap">Illness of Lola Montez</span></p> + +<p>“Owing to severe indisposition, this talented actress is unable to +appear before a Geelong audience. When competent to perform, her +reappearance will be duly notified. Madame is suffering from severe +cold and bronchitis, and is now under the care of Dr. Thompson, of +Melbourne. To previous indisposition was superadded a severe attack +induced by exposure to the thunderstorm on Saturday.”</p></div> + +<p>Lola’s illness was of a passing character. That it in no way impaired her +vigour we shall presently see. From Melbourne she proceeded to the +goldfields, moving among the most desperate characters of the two +hemispheres undismayed and unafraid, a woman capable of defending herself +with whip and tongue. A singular character, in truth was hers, thus +equally at home in kings’ courts and miners’ camps, able to parry and to +counterplot against the schemes and intrigues of Metternich, able to +subdue and to tame the half-savage ex-convicts and desperadoes of the +Australian diggings.</p> + +<p>At Ballaarat occurred the celebrated fracas with Mr. Seekamp. This man was +the editor of the local newspaper (the <i>Times</i>), and upon Lola’s arrival +in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> town, he published an article, putting the worst construction on +the episodes of her past life, and reflecting in uncomplimentary terms on +her character. He was, no doubt, another guardian of public morality, +which in mining camps is, of course, a very delicate growth. A few +evenings afterwards, he was so rash as to call at the United States Hotel, +where the woman he had traduced was staying. Being informed that he was +below, Lola ran downstairs with a riding-whip, and laid it across his back +with right good will. The journalist also held a whip, with which he +defended himself lustily. Before long the combatants had each other +literally by the hair. The bystanders interposed, and the two were +separated, but not before life-preservers and revolvers had been produced. +It seems to us an unedifying performance, though a woman, if insulted, has +undoubtedly the right to chastise her offender physically, if she is able. +Such was the view taken by the miners of Ballaarat. At the theatre that +evening she was the object of an ovation, which she acknowledged at the +conclusion of the performance.</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“I thank you,” she said, “most sincerely for your friendship. I regret +to be obliged to refer again to Mr. Seekamp, but it is not my fault, +as he again in this morning’s paper repeated his attack upon me. You +have heard of the scene that took place this afternoon. Mr. Seekamp +threatens to continue his charges against my character. I offered, +though a woman, to meet him with pistols; but the coward who could +beat a woman, ran from a woman. He says he will drive me off the +diggings; but I will change the tables, and make Seekamp <i>de</i>camp +(applause). My good friends, again I thank you.”<a name='fna_28' id='fna_28' href='#f_28'><small>[28]</small></a></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span>This conduct was “unladylike,” no doubt, but courageous; ungracious, but +absolutely necessary.</p> + +<p>Seekamp, bruised and humiliated, thirsted for revenge. We find him +publishing a story of his conqueror’s defeat in the <i>Ballaarat Times</i>. The +authority can hardly be regarded as unimpeachable, but with amusing +simplicity it has been accepted as such by all who have written about +Lola. According, then, to the ungallant Mr. Seekamp, the Countess of +Landsfeld was engaged by a manager, named Crosby—of what theatre is not +stated. At “treasury” the actress had a misunderstanding with this +gentleman, and flew into a violent rage. At this opportune moment a relief +force appeared in the person of Mrs. Crosby, armed with a whip. With this +she chastised Lola so severely that the weapon broke. The antagonists then +threw themselves upon each other, and the rest (says the delicately-minded +journalist) may be imagined rather than described. Mr. Seekamp’s recent +experience should indeed have enabled him to imagine such a scene without +difficulty; in fact, he probably imagined this one. He concludes: “At last +this terrible virago has found, not her master, but her mistress, and for +many a long day will be incapable of performing at any theatre.”</p> + +<p>These words were written, possibly, while Lola was on her way to Europe. +She appears to have quitted Australia in March or April 1856. With her +arrival in France in August that year, she completed her trip round the +world.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span></p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="XXXI" id="XXXI"></a>XXXI</h2> +<p class="title">LOLA AS A LECTURER</p> + +<p>We have no knowledge of the business that took Lola once more to France on +this occasion. She probably went there to spend, in the most agreeable way +possible, the considerable sums she had amassed in her Australian tour. It +may be supposed that she spent some time at Paris, renewing the +acquaintance of her old friends. Dumas, Méry, De Beauvoir, were all +living, and death had made few gaps in her circle of friends during the +past ten years. In August, Lola followed the fashionable crowd to the +southern watering-places, and stayed at St. Jean de Luz, within easy reach +of the imperial court at Biarritz. Hence she addressed this extraordinary +letter to the <i>Estafette</i>:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="right">“<span class="smcap">St. Jean de Luz, Hôtel du Cygne</span>,<br /> +<span style="padding-right: 2em;">“<i>2nd September, 1856</i>.</span></p> + +<p>“The Belgian newspapers, and some French ones, have asserted that the +suicide of the actor, Mauclerc, who, it is reported, has thrown +himself from the summits of the Pic du Midi, was caused by domestic +troubles for which I was responsible. This is a calumny which M. +Mauclerc himself will be ready to refute. We separated amicably, it is +true, after eight days of married life, but urged only by our common +and imperious need of personal liberty. It is probable that the +tragedy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> of the Pic du Midi exists only in the imagination of some +journalist on the look-out for sensational news. Trusting to your +sense of fairness to insert this explanation in your excellent +journal, I remain, yours, etc.,</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 4em;"><span class="smcap">Lola Montez.</span>”</span></p></div> + +<p>This letter was copied by <i>La Presse</i>, which De Girardin still edited, and +was presently noticed by the person most interested. His reply was duly +published:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="right">“<span class="smcap">Bayonne</span>, <i>9th September, 1856</i>.</p> + +<p>“<span class="smcap">Sir</span>,—I read in your issue of the 7th. inst. a letter from Lola +Montez, wherein there is talk of a suicide of which I have been the +victim, and a marriage in which I have been principal actor. I am a +complete stranger to such catastrophes. I have never had the least +intention of throwing myself from the Pic du Midi, or from any other +peak, and I do not recollect having had the advantage of +marrying—even for eight days—the celebrated Countess of +Landsfeld,—Yours, etc.,</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 4em;"><span class="smcap">Mauclerc.</span>”<a name='fna_29' id='fna_29' href='#f_29'><small>[29]</small></a></span></p></div> + +<p>The simplest and most probable explanation of this affair is to set it +down as a hoax. Bayonne and St. Jean de Luz are neighbouring towns, and it +is possible that the actor had (perhaps unwittingly) incurred the anger of +the Countess, who devised this rather elaborate means of revenge.</p> + +<p>Soon after, Lola returned to the United States, a country for which she +had conceived a strong liking. She considered it her home, says the Rev. +F. L. Hawks, and had a sincere admiration for its institutions. Lola was +by nature a republican, and intimacy with sovereigns had not much awakened +her distaste for them.</p> + +<p class="poem"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> +“To Freedom ever true, true, true,<br /> +All his long life was Harlequin!”</p> + +<p>On 2nd February 1857 we find her fulfilling a week’s engagement at the +Green Street Theatre at Albany, acting in <i>The Eton Boy</i>, <i>The Follies of +a Night</i>, and <i>Lola in Bavaria</i>. She was not unknown at the state capital, +having appeared there, with a <i>troupe</i> of twelve dancers, at the Museum, +in May 1852. On the present occasion she gave another proof of her +dare-devil courage, by crossing the Hudson River in an open skiff among +the floating ice.</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“She got over in safety, but part of her wardrobe was carried down +stream. By going to Troy she could have avoided all danger, but her +love of notoriety led her to offer a hundred dollars to be carried across here.”<a name='fna_30' id='fna_30' href='#f_30'><small>[30]</small></a></p> + +<p>This recklessness may have proceeded from that want of interest in life, +that utter sense of desolation, which assailed her whenever she was not +distracted by travel and adventure. A lonely, disenchanted woman, without +any ties or hold on life, she found herself now on the verge of forty. Her +days for adventure had passed. At times she must have sighed for her home +among the Californian foothills. Surely it was wise and dignified, for one +who had exhausted her strength and vitality in the struggles of an +artificial society, to throw herself on the placid bosom of our common +mother? There, in time, she would have awakened to fuller comprehension of +man’s place in the universe, and have learned at once the true value<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> of +all her past actions, and the futility of remorse. But in New York no one +listened for the whisperings of Nature; instead, they fancied they heard +voices from some other world. Women who have lost their hold on life +readily give ear to visionaries: having exhausted the joys of this world, +they wish to test those of another. Lola became a believer in +spiritualism. The imagined touch of some fatuous phantom would thrill her +as no man’s had power to do. One day she announced that the spirits had +directed her to abandon the stage, and to become a lecturer. Apparently, +however, she had no confidence in their ability to inspire her on the +platform, for she caused her lectures to be written by the Rev. C. Chauncy +Burr. At the <i>séances</i> she seems to have been brought into touch (in two +senses) with several of the clergy of various Protestant denominations. +Her first lecture was delivered at a place of worship called the Hope +Chapel, 720 Broadway, New York, on 3rd February 1858.</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“Lola Montez at Hope Chapel is good,” chuckles a reporter. “It is +plain that the scent of the roses hangs round her still. We have heard +some queer things in that conventicle in our time, and have now and +then assisted at an entertainment there twice as funny, but not half +so intellectual nor half so wholesome, as the lecture our desperado in +dimity gave us last night.”</p> + +<p>The New York pressman was more easily pleased than is the modern reader. +Lola’s lectures were published that same year in book form, together with +her autobiography, and they may be pronounced very poor stuff. They are +respectively headed, “Beautiful<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> Women,” “Gallantry,” “Heroines of +History,” “The Comic Aspect of Love,” “Wits and Women of Paris,” and +“Romanism.” Here and there their dullness is enlivened by a flash of +Lola’s own native wit, or a shrewd observation that only her experience +could have supplied. Sometimes she begins by what is evidently an +exposition of her own views, winding up with some trite moralisings +calculated to appease her audience. Speaking, for instance, of the +heroines of history, she dwells with enthusiasm on the valour of Margaret +of Anjou, the sagacity of Isabel the Catholic, the administrative ability +of Elizabeth, the diplomatic skill of Catharine II., and recollects +herself in time to impress on her hearers that one</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“who is qualified to be a happy wife and a good mother, need never +look with envy upon the woman of genius, whose mental powers, by +fitting her for the stormy arena of politics, may have unfitted her +for the quiet walks of domestic life.”</p> + +<p>As might have been expected, Lola spoke somewhat disdainfully of women who +preferred to vote rather than to cajole the men who voted. The lecturer +forgot, perhaps, that all her sisters were not as well equipped as she for +the business of fascination, and that to some of them the personal +exercise of the franchise might seem less unwomanly and objectionable than +the arts of blandishment and intimidation.</p> + +<p>Lola was bold enough to tell her American audience that the palm of beauty +must be awarded to Englishwomen, and that the Yankees were too mercantile +and practical to entertain the old spirit of gallantry. She mollified her +hearers by adding that, after all, in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> America, “love dived the deepest +and came out dryest”—a dark saying, from which she derived the conclusion +that love in the United States was as brave, honest, and sincere a passion +as elsewhere. The lecture on Romanism will not be regarded as a very +formidable instrument of attack upon the Catholic Church. It concludes: +“America does not yet recognise how much she owes to the Protestant +principle. It has given the world the four greatest facts of modern +times—steam-boats, railroads, telegraphs, and the American Republic!”</p> + +<p>We can imagine with what enthusiasm this sentiment was received in Hope +Chapel, where the lecture was delivered in October 1858, in aid of a fund +for a church which should be open free to the poor and unfortunate (as, by +the way, all Roman Catholic churches are). By this time Lola appears to +have been weaned of her spiritualistic heresies, and had become interested +in Methodism. In her new zeal for her own soul’s welfare she did not, +however, forget the corporal needs of her fellows, and with native +generosity, stimulated by religious considerations, she showered the money +earned at her lectures upon the poor and afflicted. To replenish her +store, and encouraged by the success of her new enterprize in New York, +she resolved to try her luck once more on the other side of the Atlantic.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="XXXII" id="XXXII"></a>XXXII</h2> +<p class="title">A LAST VISIT TO ENGLAND</p> + +<p>Lola landed from the American steam-ship, <i>Pacific</i>, at Galway on 23rd +November 1858. She had not set foot in her native land since she left it, +the bride of Thomas James, more than twenty years before. In Dublin she +had last appeared as a <i>débutante</i> at the viceregal court; now, on 10th +December, she appeared there, on the boards of the Round Room, as a public +curiosity, as a woman whose fame not one among her auditors would have +envied. But they flocked to see her in hundreds, and the opening promised +a highly profitable tour. In her regenerate frame of mind the lecturer was +distressed by the publication in the <i>Freeman</i> of a long article referring +to her connection with Dujarier and the King of Bavaria. Being the +daughter of an Anglo-Indian officer, Lola had inherited a tendency to +write to the papers on every possible occasion, and she at once sent a +letter to the journal, defending her character. Her relations with +Dujarier and Louis were, she insisted, absolutely proper and regular: to +the former she was engaged; of the latter she was merely the friend and +the adviser. The aspersions of her fair fame she attributed to the +intrigues of Austria. She was in Ireland, and it was as well not to refer +to the Jesuits.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span>At the new year she crossed over to England, beginning her tour at +Manchester. We hear of her at Sheffield, Nottingham, Leicester, +Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Leamington, Worcester, Bristol, and Bath. She +drew crowded houses, though everywhere she went she had to contend with a +strong counter-attraction in the person of Phineas T. Barnum, the +celebrated showman, who was also touring England. Of course, she +disappointed expectation. The public wanted to see the dashing, dazzling +dare-devil of other days, not a rather sad woman, slightly tinged with +Yankee religiosity. She arrived at last in London, where she lectured at +St. James’s Hall. Two or three of the writer’s friends faintly recollect +having seen her on this occasion. For the impression she produced on her +audience, I prefer, however, to rely on the notice in the <i>Era</i>, under +date 10th April 1859.</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“Following closely upon the heels of Mr. Barnum, Madame Lola Montez, +parenthetically putting forth her more aristocratic title of Countess +of Landsfeld, commenced on Thursday evening [7th April 1859] the first +of a series of lectures at the St. James’s Hall. Revisiting this +country, she has first felt her footing as a lecturer in the +provinces, and now venturing upon the ordeal of a London audience, she +has boldly added her name to the list of those who have sought, +single-handed, to engage their attention. If any amongst the full and +fashionable auditory that attended her first appearance fancied, with +a lively recollection of certain scandalous chronicles, that they were +about to behold a formidable-looking woman of Amazonian audacity, and +palpably strong-wristed, as well as strong-minded, their +disappointment must have been grievous; greater if they anticipated +the legendary bull-dog at her side and the traditionary pistols in her +girdle and the horsewhip<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> in her hand. The Lola Montez who made a +graceful and impressive obeisance to those who gave her on Thursday +night so cordial and encouraging a reception, appeared simply as a +good-looking lady in the bloom of womanhood, attired in a plain black +dress, with easy, unrestrained manners, and speaking earnestly and +distinctly, with the slightest touch of a foreign accent that might +belong to any language from Irish to Bavarian. The subject selected by +the fair lecturer was the distinction between the English and the +American character, which she proceeded to demonstrate by a discourse +that must be pronounced decidedly didactic rather than diverting. With +most of the characteristics mentioned as illustrative of each country, +we presume the majority of her hearers had, in the course of their +reading or experience, become already acquainted. That America looked +to the future for her greatness, England to the past; that Americans +believed in the spittoon as a valuable institution, and speed as the +great condition of success in all things—it hardly needed a Lola +Montez to come from the West to inform us. The excitable temperament +of our transatlantic brethren, their readiness to raise idols and to +demolish them, the great liberty of opinion that there prevails, and +the little toleration of its expression, were the leading points of a +lecture lasting an hour and a quarter, blended with a compliment to +the American ladies, a tributary acknowledgment of the virtues of our +own, and a digression into American politics as connected with +everything. There was no attempt to weave into the subject a few +threads of personal interest, no mention of any incident that had +happened to her, and no anecdote that might have enlivened the +dissertation in any way. The lecture might have been a newspaper +article, the first chapter of a book of travels, or the speech of a +long-winded American ambassador at a Mansion House dinner. All was +exceedingly decorous and diplomatic, slightly gilded here and there +with those commonplace laudations that stir a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> British public into the +utterance of patriotic plaudits. A more inoffensive entertainment +could hardly be imagined; and when the six sections into which the +lady had divided her discourse were exhausted, and her final bow +elicited a renewal of the applause that had accompanied her entrance, +the impression on the departing visitors must have been that of having +spent an hour in company with a well-informed lady who had gone to +America, had seen much to admire there, and, coming back, had had over +the tea-table the talk of the evening to herself. Whatever the future +disquisitions of the Countess of Landsfeld may be, there is little +doubt that many will go to hear them for the sake of the peculiar +celebrity of the lecturer.”</p> + + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="XXXIII" id="XXXIII"></a>XXXIII</h2> +<p class="title">THE MAGDALEN</p> + +<p>That celebrity was very far from corresponding to the present dispositions +and aspirations of the ex-adventuress. While travelling from town to town +the transmutation of her emotions into religious fervour had gone on +unchecked. The love she had once borne to men found an object in the +unseen God; the wondering disgust excited by the memory of her relations +with men she had learned to dislike became translated into repentance for +sin; latent ambition now leaped up at the thought of a crown to be won +beyond the tomb. Christianity offers us new worlds for old, promises new +joys to those who have lost all zest for the old, proposes an objective +which may be pursued to the brink of the grave, and assures every human +being of the tremendous importance of his own destiny. For these reasons +religion has always appealed with especial force to women in Lola’s +situation, who, moreover, being usually deficient in the logical and +critical faculties, are the less able to resist its appeal to their +emotions.</p> + +<p>During her stay in England Lola kept a spiritual diary, some fragments of +which have been preserved to us. It is certainly illustrative of the depth +and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> earnestness of her religious convictions, and it would be a +cold-blooded act to analyse and to dissect the state of mind it portrays. +The sentiments are often morbid in the extreme, as might be expected from +one whose ideas of religion were derived from teachers of the extreme +evangelical school. She writes:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“Oh, I dare not think of the past! What have I not been? I lived only +for my own passions; and what is there of good even in the best +natural human being? What would I not give to have my terrible and +fearful experiences given as an awful warning to such natures as my +own! And yet when people generally, even my mother, turned their backs +upon me and knew me not, Jesus knocked at my heart’s door. What has +the world ever given to me? (And I have known <i>all</i> that the world has +to give—<i>all</i>!) Nothing but shadows, leaving a wound on the heart +hard to heal—a dark discontent.</p> + +<p>“Now I can more calmly look back on the stormy passages of my life—an +eventful life indeed—and see onward and upward a haven of rest to the +soul. I used once to think that heaven was a place somewhere beyond +the clouds, and that those who got there were as if they had not been +themselves on the earth. But life has been given to me to know that +heaven begins in the human soul, through the grace of God and His holy +word. Those who cannot feel somewhat of heaven here will never find it +hereafter.”</p></div> + +<p>On another page we find:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“To-morrow (the Lord’s day) is the day of peace and happiness. Once it +seemed to me anything but a happy day, but now all is wonderfully +changed in my heart.... What I loved before now I hate. Oh! that in +this coming week, I may, through Thee, overcome all sinful thoughts, +and love every one.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span>“Thankful I am that I have been permitted to pray this day. Three +years ago I cried aloud in agony to be taken; and yet the great, +All-Wise Creator has spared me, in His mercy, to repent. All that has +passed in New York has not been mere illusion. I feel it is true. The +Lord heard my feeble cry to Him, and I felt what no human tongue can +describe. The world cast me out, and He, the pure, the loving, took me +in.</p> + +<p>“To-morrow is Sunday, and I shall go to the poor little humble chapel, +and there will I mingle my prayers with the fervent pastor, and with +the good and true. There is no pomp or ceremony among these. All is +simple. No fine dresses, no worldly display, but the honest Methodist +breathes forth a sincere prayer, and I feel much unity of soul. What +would I give to have daily fellowship with these good people! to teach +in the school, to visit the old, the sick, the poor. But that will be +in the Lord’s good time, when self is burned out of me completely.”</p></div> + +<p>The following entry is dated Saturday, in London:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“Since last week my existence is entirely changed. When last I wrote I +was calm and peaceful—away from the world. Now, I must again go +forth. It was cruel, indeed, of Mr. E. to have said what he did; but I +am afraid I was too hasty also. Ought I to have resented what was +said? No, I ought to have said not a word. The world would applaud me; +but, oh! my heart tells me that for His sake I ought to bear the +vilest reproaches, even unmerited.</p> + +<p>“Good-bye, all the calm hours of reflection and repose I enjoyed at +Derby! My calm days at the cottage are gone—gone. But I will not look +back. Onward! must be the cry of my heart.</p> + +<p>“Lord, have mercy on the weary wanderer, and grant me all I beseech of +Thee! Oh, give me a meek and lowly heart!”</p></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span>It seems from this final extract that some painful circumstance compelled +the writer against her will to go on her travels again. The diary affords +proof that she was in England as late as September 1859; and the following +year, she was again at New York.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="XXXIV" id="XXXIV"></a>XXXIV</h2> +<p class="title">LAST SCENE OF ALL</p> + +<p>Lola the saint was no more provident than Lola the sinner. She dissipated +the large sums she had amassed in her English tour in the space of a few +months, and with a mind tormented by remorse and religious scruples, could +turn her thoughts to no system of livelihood. Threatened with poverty, and +in a state of deep dejection, she was one day met in the streets of New +York by a lady and gentleman who stopped and considered her attentively. +Finally, evidently at the man’s suggestion, his wife stepped up to Lola, +and recalled herself to her recollection as an old school-fellow and +playmate of her Montrose days. She was now the wife of Mr. Buchanan, a +florist of some standing. Lola was deeply affected by this meeting. This +voice from her childhood supplied the human note in her present state of +spiritual desolation and exaltation. The friendship begun thirty years +before in far-off Scotland was renewed. To the penitent Lola Mrs. +Buchanan’s recognition of her seemed an act of amazing kindness and +condescension. But the florist and his wife were not only religious but +good people. They made provision for the ex-adventuress, perhaps by a +judicious investment of the little money that remained to her;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> and Mrs. +Buchanan sympathising warmly with her old friend’s spiritual regeneration, +was able to calm her doubts and scruples, and to divert her piety into +practical channels.</p> + +<p>The wayward, troubled soul of Lola Montez at last tasted peace—thanks, +perhaps, as much to the consolations of true friendship as to those of +religion. She abandoned the Methodist connection, and embraced the +possibly less gloomy tenets of the Episcopal Church of America. She passed +much of her time in deep retirement, reading and studying the Bible. One +who knew her at this time says that her bearing was calm, graceful, and +modest; of her beauty there remained no trace except her deep, lustrous +Spanish eyes. A conviction that she was soon to die of consumption +possessed her, and she spent the rest of the year 1860 in preparation for +her end.</p> + +<p class="blockquot">“So far as outward actions could show,” says her spiritual adviser, +Dr. F. L. Hawks, “with her ‘old things had passed away, and all things +had become new.’ With a heart full of sympathy for the poor outcasts +of her own sex, she devoted the last few months of her life to +visiting them at the Magdalen Asylum, near New York, warning them and +instructing them with a spirit which yearned over them, that they, +too, might be brought into the fold. She strove to impress upon them +not only the awful guilt of breaking the divine law, but the +inevitable earthly sorrow which those who persisted with thoughtless +desperation in sinful courses were treasuring up for themselves. Her +effort was thus to redeem the time as far as she could; and the result +of her labours can only be known on that day when she will meet her +erring sisters at the impartial tribunal of the Eternal Judge.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span>Lola’s premonition was verified. In December 1860 she was suddenly struck +down—not by consumption, but by partial paralysis. She was conveyed to +the Asteria Sanatorium, where Mrs. Buchanan took charge of her. She +lingered in great pain, patiently borne, for several weeks, and it was +seen that there was no hope of her recovery. Dr. Hawks visited her +frequently. To him, her chosen confidant at this final stage of her +chequered life, and the most fitted to sympathise with the ideas that then +dominated her, may be left the description of her last hours.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“In the course of a long experience as a Christian minister, I do not +think I ever saw deeper penitence and humility, more real contrition +of soul and more of bitter self-reproach than in this poor woman. +Anxious to probe her heart to the bottom, I questioned her in various +forms; spoke as plainly as I could of the qualities of a genuine +repentance; set forth the necessity of the operations of the Holy +Spirit really to convert from sin to holiness, and presented Christ as +all in all—the only Saviour. For myself I am quite satisfied that God +the Holy Ghost had renewed her sinful soul into holiness.</p> + +<p>“There was no confident boasting, however. I never saw a more humble +penitent. When I prayed with her, nothing could exceed the fervour of +her devotion; and never had I a more watchful and attentive hearer +than when I read the Scriptures. She read the blessed volume for +herself, also, when I was not present. It was always within reach of +her hand; and, on my first visit, when I took up her Bible from the +table, the fact struck me that it opened of its own accord to the +touching story of Christ’s forgiveness of the Magdalene in the house +of Simon.</p> + +<p>“If ever a repentant soul loathed past sin, I believe hers did.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span>“She was a woman of genius, highly accomplished, of more than usual +attainments, and of great natural eloquence. I listened to her +sometimes with admiration, as with the tears streaming from her eyes, +her right hand uplifted, and her regularly expressive features (her +keen blue eyes especially) speaking almost as plainly as her tongue, +she would dwell upon Christ, and the almost incredible truth that He +could show mercy to such a vile sinner as she felt herself to have +been, until I would feel that she was the preacher and not I.</p> + +<p>“When she was near her end, and could not speak, I asked her to let me +know by a sign whether her soul was at peace, and she still felt that +Christ would save her. She fixed her eyes on mine, and nodded her head +affirmatively.”</p></div> + +<p>Thus, on 17th January 1861, in the odour of sanctity, died Lola Montez, +Countess of Landsfeld, Baroness Rosenthal, Canoness of the Order of St. +Theresa, sometime ruler of the kingdom of Bavaria, in the forty-third year +of her age. She, whose fame had filled three continents, was committed to +the custody of Mother Earth in Greenwood Cemetery, two days later, with +the rites and ceremonial of the Episcopal Church. Her grave was marked by +a tablet, bearing the inscription: “Mrs. Eliza Gilbert, born 1818, died +1861.” The men who had risked crowns and fortune for her love would have +hardly recognised her in her last part or under her last homely +description.</p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;" /> + +<p>At the bar of God Lola Montez pleaded guilty. I, as her advocate in the +court of Humanity, may enter another plea.</p> + +<p>For half a century the world has taken this woman<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> at her own last +valuation, and dismissed her as a criminal and a sinner. The orthodox +Christian reproaches her with unchastity, exaggerating, as is his wont, +the gravity of this particular transgression of his code. He would have +had her waste her glorious beauty, made to gladden the hearts of men, and +refuse the <i>rôle</i> of woman which nature had assigned her—because, +forsooth! a petty English tribunal would not set her free from a tie it +should never have allowed her to contract. The law was made for man; the +claims and instincts of womanhood must override the decrees of any +Consistory Court. Lola Montez was pre-eminently and essentially a +woman—specially fitted and charged, therefore, to bring the great +happiness of love to men. This which was her glory the sexless moralist +makes her reproach. For him the perfect woman is the most unhuman; he +admires the woolless sheep and the scentless flower.</p> + +<p>Hers was a capacity for immense passion, happiness, and power. She longed +not only to charm men but to rule them. By the happiness she procured +them, she enslaved them. She exploited their passions, it will be said; +and since when have we ceased to exploit the weakness of woman? In the +pursuit of power we use the instruments easiest to our hands, we attack +our opponents’ most vulnerable points. This Lola did; this did every +strong man of whom history has any record. Her qualities of mind, as +evinced in the administration of Bavaria, were of a high order, and in a +man would have commanded success; but men were dazzled by her beauty, and +cried out to be influenced by that alone. We esteem in our own sex the +faculties by which we are helped, led, and ruled; in the other, we prate<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> +of chastity, and value only that which ministers to our vanity, comfort, +and sensuality. Women must be human in just so far as may conform to our +individual needs. When we prize intellectual worth in women as highly as +physical beauty, it will be time to protest against the methods of Lola +Montez.</p> + +<p>She subdued men by their passions, but she ruled them well. She challenged +history to adduce a case where a woman had wielded so much power so wisely +and so disinterestedly. She was no Pompadour or Du Barry to whom the +scurrile De Mirecourt compared her. Guilty at moments, as we all are, of +derelictions from her principles, she was throughout life a lover of +liberty in thought, word, and deed. When Europe lay under the feet of +Metternich and the Ultramontanes, she, almost single-handed, struck a blow +for freedom. The wiles of the cleverest intriguers in Europe proved +powerless against her bold policy. At scheming she was no adept, trusting, +as the strong will ever trust, to her force and personality to defeat the +manœuvres of her foes. Had Louis of Bavaria not bowed before the storm, +she and his kingdom would have played a great part in European history. As +it was, to her intervention Switzerland partly owes the freedom of her +institutions from clerical control. The terms in which she speaks of that +country and of the United States, though purposely exaggerated, display +her profound sympathy with the principles of democracy. Setting aside the +qualities of the woman, let us gratefully acknowledge that Lola Montez, on +a small stage and for a brief period, proved herself an able and humane +administratrix and a staunch friend to liberty. In her we have another of +the many instances of capacity<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> for government as the concomitant of an +intensely feminine temperament.</p> + +<p>She was valiant as an antique worthy. She was never at an end of her +resources, never unnerved by catastrophe. Disaster after disaster left +unexhausted her marvellous powers of recuperation. She could adapt herself +to all men and all circumstances. She was at home in the courts of +emperors and kings, in the <i>salons</i> of the learned, in the backwoods of +California, in the mining camps of Australia, in the conventicles of New +York. To the life of a recluse in a primeval wilderness she adapted +herself as readily as to a London drawing-room. She was eloquent in many +tongues, witty and light-hearted, adding to the world’s gaiety. She was +kindly and compassionate, cherishing dogs, and all four-footed things, +visiting the sick and the afflicted, saying a kind word for the despised +coolies of India. Her money she showered with reckless generosity on all +who stood in need. Her excellences were her own; her faults lie at the +door of society.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span></p> +<h2>SOURCES OF INFORMATION</h2> + + +<p><i>The files of the following newspapers</i>: Times, Morning Herald, Era, +Illustrated London News; Le Constitutionnel, Le Figaro, Le Journal des +Debats; New York Tribune; Sydney Morning Herald, Melbourne Argus.</p> + +<p><i>“Autobiography and Lectures of Lola Montez” (by C. Chauncy Burr); “An +Englishman in Paris” (Vandam); “Letters from Up-Country” (Hon. Emily +Eden); “You have heard of them?” (Q). “History of the 44th Regiment” +(Carter); “Revelations of Russia” (Henningsen); “Life and Adventures” +(George A. Sala); “Bygone Years” (Leveson Gower); “Fraser’s Magazine,” +1848; “Players of a Century” (Phelps); “New York Stage” (Ireland); “Story +of a Penitent” (Hawks); “Dictionary of National Biography.”</i></p> + +<p><i>“Les Contemporains” (De Mirecourt); “Mes Souvenirs” (Claudin); +“Souvenirs” (Theodore de Banville); “Histoire de l’Art Dramatique en +France” (Théophile Gautier); “Dictionnaire Larousse.”</i></p> + +<p><i>“Ein Vormarzliches Tanzidyll” (Fuchs); “Ludwig Augustus” (Sepp); “Ludwig +I.” (Heigel); “Unter den vier ersten Königen Bayerns” (Kobell); “Lola +Montez und die Jesuiten” (Erdmann); “Bayern’s Erhebung”; “Franz Liszt als +Mensch ung Künstler” (Ramann); Metternich’s Memoirs: Bernstorff Papers; +etc., etc.</i></p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><strong>Footnotes:</strong></p> + +<p><a name='f_1' id='f_1' href='#fna_1'>[1]</a> Historical Record of the 44th, or East Essex Regiment (1864), by +Thomas Carter, of the Adjutant-General’s Office.</p> + +<p><a name='f_2' id='f_2' href='#fna_2'>[2]</a> Dodwell and Miles, Indian Army List, 1760-1834.</p> + +<p><a name='f_3' id='f_3' href='#fna_3'>[3]</a> “You have Heard of Them,” New York, 1854.</p> + +<p><a name='f_4' id='f_4' href='#fna_4'>[4]</a> <i>Morning Herald</i>, 8th June 1843.</p> + +<p><a name='f_5' id='f_5' href='#fna_5'>[5]</a> “An Englishman in Paris,” 1892. The author of this book was A. D. +Vandam, who could not have had this from Lola personally, seeing that he +was born in 1842.</p> + +<p><a name='f_6' id='f_6' href='#fna_6'>[6]</a> Vandam, “An Englishman in Paris.”</p> + +<p><a name='f_7' id='f_7' href='#fna_7'>[7]</a> De Mirecourt (<i>Contemporains</i>) fixes the date of this episode in 1843, +and bases it in reports in the <i>Constitutionnel</i>, which I have been unable +to trace.</p> + +<p><a name='f_8' id='f_8' href='#fna_8'>[8]</a> All the statements made concerning Lola in “An Englishman in Paris” +must be received with caution, as they can only be taken at the best as +hearsay evidence transcribed by Vandam.</p> + +<p><a name='f_9' id='f_9' href='#fna_9'>[9]</a> The foregoing section may seem more in the style of a novel than a +biography, but, the dialogue not excepted, it is an exact <i>résumé</i> of the +evidence given at the subsequent trial.</p> + +<p><a name='f_10' id='f_10' href='#fna_10'>[10]</a> It is imitated by Heine in some ironical verse, condoling with +Frederick William of Prussia on Lola’s preference for Louis.</p> + +<p><a name='f_11' id='f_11' href='#fna_11'>[11]</a> <i>Morning Herald</i>, 3rd March 1868.</p> + +<p><a name='f_12' id='f_12' href='#fna_12'>[12]</a> “Unter den vier ersten Königen Bayerns,” 1894.</p> + +<p><a name='f_13' id='f_13' href='#fna_13'>[13]</a> “Ein Vormärzliches Tanzidyll.” Berlin.</p> + +<p><a name='f_14' id='f_14' href='#fna_14'>[14]</a> I have used and slightly abridged the translation given in the +<i>Morning Herald</i>.</p> + +<p><a name='f_15' id='f_15' href='#fna_15'>[15]</a> Frau Von Kobell calls her Countess of Landsberg, a place to be found +on the map, which Landsfeld is not.</p> + +<p><a name='f_16' id='f_16' href='#fna_16'>[16]</a> This was the house built by Metzger, now number 19 Barerstrasse.</p> + +<p><a name='f_17' id='f_17' href='#fna_17'>[17]</a> Fuchs, “Ein Vormärzliches Tanzidyll.”</p> + +<p><a name='f_18' id='f_18' href='#fna_18'>[18]</a> Times, 4th March 1868.</p> + +<p><a name='f_19' id='f_19' href='#fna_19'>[19]</a> So says Mr. Boase in the “Dictionary of National Biography,” but +quotes no authority.</p> + +<p><a name='f_20' id='f_20' href='#fna_20'>[20]</a> “Bygone Years,” 1905.</p> + +<p><a name='f_21' id='f_21' href='#fna_21'>[21]</a> “Life and Adventures of G. A. Sala,” 1896.</p> + +<p><a name='f_22' id='f_22' href='#fna_22'>[22]</a> <i>Times</i>, 7th August 1849.</p> + +<p><a name='f_23' id='f_23' href='#fna_23'>[23]</a> <i>Les Contemporains</i>, Paris, 1857. No sources of information are +indicated. De Mirecourt’s real name was Jacquot.</p> + +<p><a name='f_24' id='f_24' href='#fna_24'>[24]</a> <i>New York Tribune</i>, 6th December 1851.</p> + +<p><a name='f_25' id='f_25' href='#fna_25'>[25]</a> By way of digression I cannot refrain from instancing the absurd +practice obtaining in some newspapers of printing the title Mrs., when +applied to a woman not legally married, in inverted commas, in spite of +the dictum of English law which says that any one can call themselves by +any description they please.</p> + +<p><a name='f_26' id='f_26' href='#fna_26'>[26]</a> <i>New York Tribune</i>, 10th August 1853.</p> + +<p><a name='f_27' id='f_27' href='#fna_27'>[27]</a> <i>Era</i>, 6th January 1856.</p> + +<p><a name='f_28' id='f_28' href='#fna_28'>[28]</a> <i>Morning Herald</i>, 7th May, 1856.</p> + +<p><a name='f_29' id='f_29' href='#fna_29'>[29]</a> De Mirecourt.</p> + +<p><a name='f_30' id='f_30' href='#fna_30'>[30]</a> Phelps, “Players of a Century.”</p> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Lola Montez, by Edmund B. d'Auvergne + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOLA MONTEZ *** + +***** This file should be named 38512-h.htm or 38512-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/5/1/38512/ + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Lola Montez + An Adventuress of the 'Forties + +Author: Edmund B. d'Auvergne + +Release Date: January 6, 2012 [EBook #38512] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOLA MONTEZ *** + + + + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive.) + + + + + + + + + +LOLA MONTEZ + + + + +UNIFORM LIBRARY EDITION OF THE WORKS OF GUY DE MAUPASSANT, newly +translated into English by Marjorie Laurie. + + +Volume 1. BEL-AMI. + + "Bel-Ami" is an extraordinarily fine full-length portrait of an + unscrupulous rascal who exploits his success with women for the + furtherance of his ambitions. The book simmers with humorous + observations, and, as a satire on politics and journalism, is no less + biting because it is not bitter. + +Volume 2. A LIFE. + + This story of a woman's life, harrowed first by the faithlessness of + her husband and later by the worthlessness of her son, has been + described as one of the saddest books that has ever been written; it + is remorseless in its utter truthfulness. + +Volume 3. "BOULE DE SUIF" and other Short Stories. + + A story of the part played by a little French prostitute in an + incident of the war of 1870. It was published in a collection of tales + by distinguished French writers of the day, and was so clearly the gem + of the collection that it established the Author at once as a master. + +Volume 4. THE HOUSE OF TELLIER. + + + + +[Illustration: LOLA MONTEZ. Countess of Landsfeld] + + + + + LOLA MONTEZ + AN ADVENTURESS OF THE 'FORTIES + + + BY EDMUND B. D'AUVERGNE + + + ILLUSTRATED + + + LONDON + T. WERNER LAURIE, LTD. + 30 NEW BRIDGE STREET, E.C.4 + + + + + _First Printed April 1909 + Second Edition, December 1909 + Third Impression, November 1924 + Fourth Impression, February 1925_ + + _Printed in Great Britain by + Fox, Jones & Co., at the Kemp Hall Press, Oxford, England_ + + + + +PREFACE + + +The story of a brave and beautiful woman, whose fame filled Europe and +America within the memory of our parents, seems to be worth telling. The +human note in history is never more thrilling than when it is struck in +the key of love. In what were perhaps more virile ages, the great ones of +the earth frankly acknowledged the irresistible power of passion and the +supreme desirability of beauty. Their followers thought none the less of +them for being sons of Adam. Lola Montez was the last of that long and +illustrious line of women, reaching back beyond Cleopatra and Aspasia, +before whom kings bent in homage, and by whose personality they openly +confess themselves to be swayed. Since her time man has thrown off the +spell of woman's beauty, and seems to dread still more the competition of +her intellect. + +Lola Montez, some think, came a century too late; "in the eighteenth +century," said Claudin, "she would have played a great part." The part she +played was, at all events, stirring and strange enough. The most +spiritually and aesthetically minded sovereign in Europe worshipped her as +a goddess; geniuses of coarser fibre, such as Dumas, sought her society. +She associated with the most highly gifted men of her time. Equipped only +with the education of a pre-Victorian schoolgirl, she overthrew the ablest +plotters and intriguers in Europe, foiled the policy of Metternich, and +hoisted the standard of freedom in the very stronghold of Ultramontane and +reactionary Germany. + +Driven forth by a revolution, she wandered over the whole world, +astonishing Society by her masculine courage, her adaptability to all +circumstances and surroundings. She who had thwarted old Europe's skilled +diplomatists, knew how to horsewhip and to cow the bullies of young +Australia's mining camps. An indifferent actress, her beauty and sheer +force of character drew thousands to gaze at her in every land she trod. +So she flashed like a meteor from continent to continent, heard of now at +St. Petersburg, now at New York, now at San Francisco, now at Sydney. She +crammed enough experience into a career of forty-two years to have +surfeited a centenarian. She had her moments of supreme exaltation, of +exquisite felicity. Her vicissitudes were glorious and sordid. She was +presented by a king to his whole court as his best friend; she was dragged +to a London police-station on a charge of felony. But in prosperity she +never lost her head, and in adversity she never lost her courage. + +A splendid animal, always doing what she wished to do; a natural pagan in +her delight in life and love and danger--she cherished all her life an +unaccountable fondness for the most conventional puritanical forms of +Christianity, dying at last in the bosom of the Protestant Church, with +sentiments of self-abasement and contrition that would have done credit to +a Magdalen or Pelagia. + +In my sympathy with this fascinating woman, it is possible that I have +exaggerated the importance of her _role_; probable, also, that I have +digressed too freely into reflections on her motives and on the forces +with which she had to contend. Those who prefer a bare recital of the +facts of her career, I refer at once to the admirable epitome to be found +in the "Dictionary of National Biography." Here I have not hesitated to +include all that seemed to me to throw light on the subject of my sketch, +on the people around her, and on the influences that shaped her destiny. + +EDMUND B. D'AUVERGNE. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAP. PAGE + + I. CHILDHOOD 1 + + II. A RUNAWAY MATCH 11 + + III. FIRST STEPS IN MATRIMONY 17 + + IV. INDIA SEVENTY YEARS AGO 21 + + V. RIVEN BONDS 31 + + VI. LONDON IN THE 'FORTIES 39 + + VII. WANDERJAHRE 47 + + VIII. FRANZ LISZT 59 + + IX. AT THE BANQUET OF THE IMMORTALS 65 + + X. MERY 75 + + XI. DUJARIER 79 + + XII. THE SUPPER AT THE FRERES PROVENCAUX 83 + + XIII. THE CHALLENGE 87 + + XIV. THE DUEL 95 + + XV. THE RECKONING 101 + + XVI. IN QUEST OF A PRINCE 107 + + XVII. THE KING OF BAVARIA 111 + + XVIII. REACTION IN BAVARIA 121 + + XIX. THE ENTHRALMENT OF THE KING 125 + + XX. THE ABEL MEMORANDUM 135 + + XXI. THE INDISCRETIONS OF A MONARCH 143 + + XXII. THE MINISTRY OF GOOD HOPE 149 + + XXIII. THE UNCROWNED QUEEN OF BAVARIA 157 + + XXIV. THE DOWNFALL 163 + + XXV. THE RISING OF THE PEOPLES 173 + + XXVI. LOLA IN SEARCH OF A HOME 177 + + XXVII. A SECOND EXPERIMENT IN MATRIMONY 181 + + XXVIII. WESTWARD HO! 193 + + XXIX. IN THE TRAIL OF THE ARGONAUTS 199 + + XXX. IN AUSTRALIA 205 + + XXXI. LOLA AS A LECTURER 213 + + XXXII. A LAST VISIT TO ENGLAND 219 + + XXXIII. THE MAGDALEN 223 + + XXXIV. LAST SCENE OF ALL 227 + + SOURCES OF INFORMATION 234 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + + LOLA MONTEZ, COUNTESS OF LANDSFELD _Frontispiece_ + + NICHOLAS I. _To face page_ 54 + + FRANZ LISZT " 60 + + ALEXANDRE DUMAS, SENIOR " 70 + + LOUIS OF BAVARIA, WHEN ELECTORAL PRINCE " 112 + + LOUIS I, KING OF BAVARIA " 144 + + LOLA MONTEZ (AFTER JULES LAURE) " 194 + + + + +LOLA MONTEZ + +AN ADVENTURESS OF THE 'FORTIES + + + + +I + +CHILDHOOD + + +The year 1818 was, on the whole, a good starting-point in life for people +with a taste and capacity for adventure. This was not suspected by those +already born. They looked forward, after the tempest that had so lately +ravaged Europe, to a golden age of slippered ease and general stagnation. +The volcanoes, they hoped, were all spent. "We have slumbered seven years, +let us forget this ugly dream," complacently observed a German prince on +resuming possession of his dominions; and "the old, blind, mad, despised, +and dying king's" worthy regent expressed the same confidence when he gave +the motto, "A sign of better times," to an order founded in this +particular year. Yet the child that thus with royal encouragement began +life in England at that time learned before he could toddle to tremble at +the mysterious name of "Boney," and later on would thrill with fear, +delight, and horror at his nurse's recital of the atrocities and final +glorious undoing of that terrific ogre. Presently he would meet in his +walks abroad, red-coated, bewhiskered veterans who had met the monster +face to face (or said they had); who would recount stories of decapitated +kings, dreadful uprisings, and threatened invasions; who had lost a leg or +an arm or an eye at Waterloo or Salamanca; which victories (they assured +him) were mainly due to their individual valour and generalship. As the +child grew older he would begin to make a coherent story out of these +strange happenings: he would realise through what a period of storm and +stress the world had passed immediately before his advent. He would listen +eagerly at his father's table to more trustworthy relations of the great +battles by men whose share in them his country was proud to acknowledge. +Waterloo, Trafalgar, the Nile, would be fought over again in the school +playground. For the best part of his life he might expect to have as +contemporaries, men who had seen Napoleon with their own eyes, and shaken +Nelson by his one hand--men who had seen thrones that seemed as stable as +the everlasting hills come crashing down, to be pieced together with a +cement of blood and gunpowder. How often the boy, or, as in this +particular case, the girl, must have longed for a recurrence of those +brave days, and deprecated the peaceful present. But for him (or her) far +more amazing things were in store. His it was to see society emerge from +its worn-out feudal chrysalis, and to take the path which may yet lead to +civilisation. Those born in 1818 could have the delightful distinction of +being carried in the first railway train, of sending the first "wire," of +boarding the first "penny 'bus." Born in the age of the coach and the hoy, +they would die in the era of the locomotive and mail steamer. Theirs was +an age of transition indeed, most curious to watch, most thrilling to +traverse. And--most valuable privilege of all to those that loved to play +a part in great affairs--they would be in good time to assist at the +widest spread and most terrific upheaval Europe had known since the +downfall of the Roman Empire. To have been thirty years of age in that +year of years, 1848! Those who witnessed the great drama must have felt +that to have come into the world more than three decades before would have +been a mistake the most grievous. + +Among the children fortunate enough, then, to be born when the nineteenth +century was in its eighteenth year was the heroine of our history. +Limerick, the city of the broken treaty, was her birthplace, Maria Dolores +Eliza Rosanna the names bestowed upon her in baptism. Only a year before +(on 3rd July 1817) her father, Edward Gilbert, had been gazetted an ensign +in the old 25th regiment of the line, now the King's Own Scottish +Borderers. He may have been, as his daughter and only child afterwards +claimed, the scion of a knightly house, but he could boast a far more +honourable distinction--that he rose from the ranks and earned his +commission by valour and good conduct in the long Napoleonic wars.[1] +Promotion it was, perhaps, that emboldened him to marry in the same year. +His wife was a girl of surpassing beauty, a Miss Oliver, of Castle Oliver, +wherever that may be, and a descendant of the Count de Montalvo, a Spanish +grandee, who had lost his immense estates in the wars. The ancestors of +this unfortunate noble (we are told) were Moors, and came into Spain in +the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, which was certainly the worst +possible moment they could have chosen for so doing. For this account of +Mrs. Gilbert's ancestry we are indebted to her daughter, whose names +certainly suggest a Spanish origin. It was by her mournful second name, or +rather by its lightsome diminutive, Lola, that she was ever afterwards +known. Perhaps she was so called in remembrance of one of the proud +Montalvos. At all events, she never ceased to cherish the belief in her +half-Spanish blood. When she was a romantic young girl--for young girls +_were_ romantic seventy years ago--Spain obsessed the Byronic caste of +mind. It was regarded as the home of chivalry, romance, love, poetry, and +adventure. To be ever so little Spanish was accounted a most enviable +distinction. So it would be ungenerous of us to impugn Lola's claim to +what she and her contemporaries considered an inestimable privilege. True +or false, the idea was one she imbibed with her mother's milk--though I +forgot to say that, according to her own statement, she was nourished at +this early period by an Irish nurse. I wish I could say in what religion +the new daughter of the regiment was educated. Somewhere she says that her +mother eloped with her father from a convent. The strong dislike she +manifested in after years for the Roman Catholic Church may have been +inspired by this circumstance, and suggests, at any rate, in one not +keenly sensible of nice theological distinctions, some personal motive +arising from a bitter experience. + +If the baby Lola gave promise of the woman, Edward Gilbert must have been +proud of his child--as proud of her as of his pretty wife and his hard-won +commission. But those years in troubled Ireland must have been anxious +ones for him. There is no evidence that he possessed private means, and to +support a wife and child on the pay of an ensign in a marching regiment +would necessitate economies of the most painful description. In the East, +now that Europe was at peace, lay the only hope of immediately increased +pay and rapid promotion. The establishment of the King's Own Scottish +Borderers was reduced, in August 1822, from ten to eight companies, and +Gilbert was able to obtain, in consequence, a transfer to the 44th of the +line, already under orders for India. His appointment to his new +regiment--now the first battalion Essex regiment--is dated 10th October +1822. With his young wife and child he embarked, accordingly, for the land +of promise. Probably the four-year-old Lola endured best of the three the +unspeakable fatigue and tedium of that long, long journey round the +Cape--a voyage which in those days it was no uncommon thing to prolong by +a call at Rio de Janeiro. It was not till four months had been passed at +the mercy of wind and wave that our weary travellers set foot in Calcutta. + +The regiment was stationed at Fort William, and there the ensign's hopes +of speedy advancement early received encouragement. At one time seventeen +of his brother officers lay sick with the fever, and before six months had +fled, the last post was sounded over the graves of Major Guthrie, Captain +O'Reilly, and Lieutenants Twinberrow and Sargent. The unspoken question on +every one's lips was, Whose turn next? In this Indian pest-house there +must have been moments when the young mother, fearful for her husband and +child, longed fiercely for the rain-drenched streets of Limerick. At last +the regiment was ordered to Dinapore. The journey was effected, as was +usual in those days, by water, an element to which the Gilberts were now +well accustomed. But here, instead of the monotonous expanse of ocean, +they had slowly unfolded before them the strange and brightly-coloured +panorama of the East--gorgeous, teeming cities, the dreadful, burning +ghats, rank jungle, dense forests, rich rice-fields. As the flotilla +travelled only 12 or 14 miles a day, the passengers had ample time to +stretch their limbs ashore, and to visit the towns and villages passed _en +route_. The voyage, too, did not lack incident. On one occasion nine boats +were swamped, and eight British redcoats went to swell the horrible +procession of corpses which floats ever seaward down the Sacred River. +Another night the Colonel's boat took fire, and the flames, spreading to +other vessels, consumed the regimental band's music and instruments, which +were so sorely needed to revive the drooping spirits of the fever-stricken +troops. + +However, in the excitement of taking up their new quarters at Dinapore, +these evil omens were, no doubt, forgotten. Pretty women were rare in +India in those days, and Mrs. Gilbert received (from the men, at all +events) a right royal welcome. She was acclaimed queen of the station, +and, as her husband, the Ensign, became, of course, a person of +consequence. This was better than Ireland, after all. Dinapore was a +fairly lively spot, and regimental society was not overshadowed, as at +Calcutta, by the magnates of Government House. So Lola's mother flirted +and danced, while Lola herself was petted by grey-haired generals and +callow subs., and Lola's father began to dream of a captaincy. One day, +in the early part of 1824, his place at the mess-table was vacant. The +doctor looked in, and said "Cholera," and a few faces blanched. Craigie, +the Ensign's best friend, hurried to his bedside. The dying man was +speechless, but conscious. Beckoning to his friend, he placed his weeping +wife's hand in his, and, having thus conveyed his last wish, died. + +Lola was left fatherless before she was seven years old. She and her +mother, she tells us, were promptly taken charge of by the wife of General +Brown. + + "The hearts of a hundred officers, young and old, beat all at once + with such violence, that the whole atmosphere for ten miles round + fairly throbbed with the emotion. But in this instance the general + fever did not last long, for Captain Craigie led the young widow + Gilbert to the altar himself. He was a man of high intellectual + accomplishments, and soon after this marriage his regiment was ordered + back to Calcutta, and he was advanced to the rank of major." + +We are thus able to identify Lola's stepfather with John Craigie of the +Bengal Army, who was gazetted Captain on 11th May 1816, and Major, 18th +May 1825. Four years later he attained the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel.[2] +He seems to have been a generous, warm-hearted man, who never forgot the +trust placed in him by his dying friend at Dinapore. To him Lola was +indebted for such education as she received in India. That was not of a +very thorough character. With a mother who, we learn, was passionately +fond of society and amusement, little Miss Gilbert must have passed most +of her time in the company of ayahs and orderlies, picking up the native +tongue with the facility which distinguished her in after life, and +domineering tremendously over idolatrous sepoys and dignified khansamahs. +I can imagine her on the knees of veterans at her father's table, +delighting them with her beauty, and still more with her boldness and +childish ready wit. Of course, His Excellency (Lord William Bentinck) +would take notice of the pretty, pert child of handsome Mrs. Craigie, and +it is not to be wondered at that all her life she should hanker after the +atmosphere of a court, remembering the vice-regal glories at Calcutta. + +It seems to have dawned upon Mrs. Craigie, not very long after her second +marriage, that her daughter was, to use a common expression, running wild. +A little discipline, it was felt, would do her good. It was decided to +send her home to her stepfather's relatives at Montrose. With screams, +sobs, and wild protests, the eight-year-old girl accordingly found herself +torn from the redcoats and brown faces that she loved, once more to +undertake that terrible four months' journey to a land which she had +probably completely forgotten. + +The contrast between Calcutta, the gorgeous city of palaces, and Montrose, +the dour, wintry burgh among the sandhills by the northern sea, must have +chilled the heart of the passionate child. Yet she does not seem in after +life to have thought with any bitterness of the place, and speaks with +respect, if not affection, of her new guardian, Major Craigie's father. +She writes:-- + + "This venerable man had been provost of Montrose for nearly a quarter + of a century, and the dignity of his profession, as well as the great + respectability of his family, made every event connected with his + household a matter of some public note, and the arrival of the queer, + wayward, little East Indian girl was immediately known to all + Montrose. The peculiarity of her dress, and I dare say not a little + eccentricity in her manners, served to make her an object of curiosity + and remark; and very likely she perceived that she was somewhat of a + public character, and may have begun, even at this early age, to + assume airs and customs of her own." + +That is, indeed, very likely. Further information concerning our heroine's +stay at Montrose we have little. She does not seem to have retained any +very vivid impressions of her childhood. One of the few events in the +meagre history of the little Scots town she was privileged to witness--the +erection of the suspension bridge from Inchbrayock over the Esk. Here it +was, too, that she formed that friendship with the girl, afterwards Mrs. +Buchanan, which was destined to form her greatest consolation in the +evening of her days. The Craigies were strict Calvinists, and some of her +biographers have assumed, in consequence, that they must have treated the +child with rigour and inspired her with a distaste for religion. She never +said so, as far as I can ascertain. On the contrary, throughout her life +she evinced a marked bias in favour of Protestantism, which is quite as +compatible with an erotic temperament as was the zeal for Catholicism +displayed by the favourite mistress of Charles II. + +Her parents, says Lola, being somehow impressed with the idea that she was +being petted and spoiled (by the gloomy Calvinists aforesaid), she was +removed to the family of Sir Jasper Nicolls, of London. It is to be +observed that neither now nor after do we hear of her father's relatives, +who one would suppose to have been her proper guardians. This circumstance +certainly discountenances the theory of Edward Gilbert's exalted +parentage. Sir Jasper Nicolls, K.C.B., Major-General, was succeeded by +Major-General Watson in the command of the Meerut Division in 1831, in +which year it may be presumed he returned to England, and took his friend +Craigie's stepdaughter under his wing. Like most Indian officers, he +preferred to spend his pension out of England, and gladly hurried his +girls off to Paris to complete their education. They missed the July +Revolution by a year; but all France was presently ringing with the +exploits of the brave Duchesse de Berry, who became the idol of the +_pensionnats_. To Lola, no doubt, she seemed a heroine worthier of +imitation than the young Princess Alexandrina Victoria, who was just then +touring her uncle's dominions. The romantic fever was at its height in +Paris. To her schoolfellows the beautiful Anglo-Indian girl, with her +Spanish name and ancestry, must have appeared a new edition of De Musset's +"Andalouse." The influences about her at this time tended to stimulate all +that was romantic and adventurous in her temperament, and determined, +perhaps, her action in the first great crisis of her life. + + + + +II + +A RUNAWAY MATCH + + +It was now fifteen years since Mrs. Craigie had visited England, and +rather more than ten since she had seen her daughter. She had been made +aware that Lola's beauty far exceeded the promise of her childish years, +and this she took care to make known to all the eligible bachelors of +Bengal. The charms of the erstwhile pet of the 44th were eagerly discussed +by men who had never seen her. Lonely writers in up-country stations +brooded on her perfections, as advertised by Mrs. Craigie, and came to the +conclusion that she was precisely the woman wanted to convert their +secluded establishments into homes. It was difficult to get a wife of the +plainest description in the India of William IV.'s day, and the +competition for the hand of the unknown beauty oversea was proportionately +keen. If marriage by proxy were recognised by English law Lola's fate +would have been sealed long before she was aware of it. From a worldly +point of view the most desirable of these ardent suitors was Sir Abraham +Lumley, whom our heroine unkindly describes as a rich and gouty old rascal +of sixty years, and Judge of the Supreme Court in India. We see that in +that rude age it was not the custom to speak of sexagenarians as in the +prime of life. To the venerable magistrate Mrs. Craigie promised her +daughter in marriage. Remembering the hard times she had gone through with +her first husband, the penniless ensign, and forgetting, as we do when +past thirty, how those hardships were lightened by love, she no doubt felt +that she had acted extremely well by her daughter. Women's ideas on the +subject of marriage are usually absolutely conventional, and since unions +between men of sixty and girls of eighteen are not condemned by the +official exponents of religion, you would never have persuaded Mrs. +Craigie that they were immoral. Outside the Decalogue (and the Police +Regulations) all things are lawful. Well pleased with herself, the still +handsome Anglo-Indian lady sailed for home in the early part of the year +1837, proposing to bring her daughter back with her to the bosom of +Abraham. + +She found Lola at Bath, whither she had been sent from Paris with Fanny +Nicolls "to undergo the operation of what is properly called finishing +their education." I do not suppose the meeting between mother and daughter +was especially cordial, considering the temperament of the former and the +long period of separation, but Mrs. Craigie was delighted to find that +report had nowise exaggerated the young girl's charms. This was also the +private opinion of Mr. Thomas James, a lieutenant in the 21st regiment of +Native Infantry (Bengal), a young officer who had attached himself to Mrs. +Craigie on the voyage and accompanied her to Bath. The mother thought him +quite safe, as he had told her that he was betrothed, and had consulted +her about his prospects, or, rather, the want of them. The married ladies +of India have always been full of maternal solicitude for poor young +subalterns, who frequently repay their kindness with touching devotion. +It was probably the wish to be useful to his benefactress that had drawn +Mr. James to Bath. Or it may have been that he wished to drink the waters, +for I forgot to say that he had been ill during the voyage, and owed his +recovery to Mrs. Craigie's careful nursing. + +Lola was staggered by the kindness and liberality of her mother. Visits to +the milliner's and the dressmaker's succeeded each other with startling +rapidity; jewellery, _lingerie_, all sorts of delightful things were +showered upon her in bewildering profusion. Lieutenant James was kept on +his legs all day, escorting the ladies to the _modistes_ and running +errands to Madame Jupon and Mademoiselle Euphrosine. At last the girl +began to suspect that there must be some other motive for this excessive +interest in her personal appearance than maternal fondness. She made bold +one day (she tells us) to ask her mother what this was all about, and +received for an answer that it did not concern her--that children should +not be inquisitive, nor ask idle questions. (Lola is the only girl on +record who protested that too much money was being spent on her wardrobe.) +Her suspicions naturally increased tenfold. In her perplexity she sought +information from the Lieutenant, of whose interest in her she had probably +become conscious. Then she learnt the horrible truth. The wardrobe so fast +accumulating was her _trousseau_, and she was the promised bride of a man +in India old enough to be her grandfather. For a moment Lola was stunned. +For a full-blooded, passionate girl of eighteen the prospect was hideous. +We may be sure, too, that her informant did not understate the personal +disadvantages of Sir Abraham Lumley. Neither did he neglect this +favourable opportunity to declare his own passion for the proposed victim, +and to press his suit. An interview with Mrs. Craigie followed. + + "The little madcap cried and stormed alternately. The mother was + determined--so was her child; the mother was inflexible--so was her + child; and in the wildest language of defiance she told her that she + never would be thus thrown alive into the jaws of death. + + "Here, then, was one of those fatal family quarrels, where the child + is forced to disobey parental authority, or to throw herself away into + irredeemable wretchedness and ruin. It is certainly a fearful + responsibility for a parent to assume of forcing a child to such + alternatives. But the young Dolores sought the advice and assistance + of her mother's friend...." + +She was probably a little in love with that friend, who was a fine-looking +fellow, about a dozen years older than herself, and who had certainly +conceived a violent passion for her. The situation was conventionally +romantic. The books of that time were full of distressed damsels being +forced into hateful unions. Lola, it is safe to say, relished her new +_role_ of heroine not a little. So when her lover proposed a runaway +match, she felt that she was bound to comply with the usual stage +directions. After all, what could be more delightful?--an elopement in a +post-chaise with a dashing young officer, an angry mamma in pursuit, and, +happily, no angry papa, armed with pistols or horse-whip. + +Away they went. Lola has left us no particulars of the flight. The +runaways reappear, in the first month of Queen Victoria's reign, in the +girl's native land, where she was placed under the protection of her +lover's family. "They had a great muss [_sic_] in trying to get married." +Lola was under age, and her mother's consent was indispensable. James sent +his sister to Bath to intercede with Mrs. Craigie. The lady was furious. +Not only had her daughter upset her most cherished project, but had run +off with her most devoted friend and admirer. Mrs. Craigie was a prey to +the most mortifying reflections. No doubt she asked Miss James what had +become of the young lady to whom her brother had declared he was +affianced. She probably said some very unkind things about the Lieutenant. +At last, however, "good sense so far prevailed as to make her see that +nothing but evil and sorrow could come of her refusal, and she consented, +but would neither be present at the wedding, nor send her blessing." We +are not told if she sent the voluminous _trousseau_, which had been the +cause of all the mischief. She returned soon after, I gather, to India, to +announce to the unfortunate Sir Abraham the collapse of his matrimonial +scheme. + +Miss James returned to Ireland with the necessary authority, and Thomas +James, Lieutenant, and Maria Dolores Eliza Rosanna Gilbert, spinster, were +made man and wife in County Meath on the 23rd July 1837. The bride's +reflections on this event are worth quoting:-- + + "So, in flying from that marriage with ghastly and gouty old age, the + child lost her mother, and gained what proved to be only the outside + shell of a husband, who had neither a brain which she could respect, + nor a heart which it was possible for her to love. Runaway matches, + like runaway horses, are almost sure to end in a smash up. My advice + to all young girls who contemplate taking such a step is, that they + had better hang or drown themselves just one hour before they start." + +This warning was obviously intended to counteract the dreadful example of +the writer's subsequent life and adventures, and to dissuade ambitious +young ladies from following in her footsteps. Lola did not, of course, +believe what she said. Even "when wild youth's past" and the glamour of +love has worn thin, no sensible woman could believe that she would have +got much happiness out of life if it had been passed in wedlock with a man +half a century her senior. Perhaps, however, Lola sadly reflected that if +she had become Sir Abraham's wife, she would probably have become his +widow a very few years after. + + + + +III + +FIRST STEPS IN MATRIMONY + + +Thus Lola found herself in Ireland, the wife of a penniless +subaltern--exactly the position of her mother twenty years before. "All +for love and the world well lost," she might have exclaimed. There is no +reason to suppose that disillusionment came to her any sooner than to +other hot-headed and romantic young ladies similarly placed. She was +accustomed to view her early married life in the bitter light of +subsequent experience, and forgot all the sweets and raptures of first +love. Women of her temperament always find it hard to believe that they +ever really loved men whom they have since learned to hate. Even by her +own account, those months in Ireland were not altogether unrelieved by the +glitter for which her soul craved. Her husband took her to Dublin, she +informs us, and presented her to the Lord-Lieutenant. His Excellency Lord +Normanby was one of the few good rulers England has placed over Ireland, +and like most clever men, he was an admirer of pretty women. Lola seems to +have been made much of by him. He paid her many compliments, among others +this, "Women of your age are the queens of society"--a remark which may be +addressed with equally good effect to ladies anywhere between seventeen +and seventy. Mr. James began to grow restive under the fire of admiration +directed by great personages upon his young wife. It is not impossible to +believe that she flirted. Her husband decided to withdraw her from the +seductions of the viceregal court, and retired with her to some spot in +the interior, the name of which has not been transmitted to us. Lola, in +memoirs she contributed years after to a Parisian newspaper, describes her +life in this retreat as unutterably tedious. The day was passed in hunting +and eating, these exercises succeeding each other with the utmost +regularity. Meanwhile, the system was sustained by innumerable cups of +tea, taken at stated intervals, and with much deliberateness. + +Ireland had changed since the emancipation of the Catholics. It was not +with tea that the heroes of Charles Lever's time beguiled the tedium of +existence. + +"This dismal life," continues our heroine, "weighed on me to such an +extent that I should assuredly have done something desperate if my husband +had not just then been ordered to return to India." Lola, it will have +been seen, entertained little affection for her native land. She had no +recollection of her childhood there, and she never afterwards thought of +the country except in connection with the detested husband of her youth. + +In the second year of the Queen's reign she left Ireland, to return years +after in very different circumstances. Her fondest memories were of the +East, towards which she now gladly turned her face for the second time. +"On the old trail, on the out trail," she sailed aboard the East Indiaman, +_Blunt_, her husband at her side. There is a curious parallelism between +her mother's life and her own up till now, which she could not have +failed to notice. Her memories of the voyage strike me rather as having +been specially spiced for the consumption of Parisian readers, than as an +authentic relation. James, we are told, neglected his young wife, and +exhibited an amazing capacity for absorbing porter. Finding the time heavy +on her hands, Lola resorted to the commonest of all distractions on +passenger ships--flirting. While her consort lay sleeping "like a +boa-constrictor" in his bunk, his wife's admirers used to slip notes under +the door, these serving her as spills for Mr. James's pipe. The gentlemen +who fell under the spell of Lola's fascinations at this stage of her +career were three in number--a Spaniard called Enriquez, an Englishman, +simply described as John, and the skipper himself. This "colossal sailor" +seems to have been somewhat of a philosopher. One of his profound +reflections has been handed down to us, and is worth recording: "Love is a +pipe we fill at eighteen, and smoke till forty; and we rake the ashes till +our exit." + +Lola thus pictures as a man-enslaving Circe the girl who was described by +a contemporary as a good little thing, merry and unaffected. I doubt if +the flirtations here magnified into intrigues were very serious affairs, +after all. It is rather pathetic, the woman's shame for the simplicity of +the girl, and her evident desire to paint her redder than she was. It is +probable that the girl would have been quite as much ashamed if she could +have seen herself at thirty. + + + + +IV + +INDIA SEVENTY YEARS AGO + + +The land to which little Mrs. James was eager to return seems to us now to +have been a poor exchange for the rollicking Ireland of Lever's day. India +in 1838, as for a score of years after, was under the rule of John +Company. Collectors and writers of the Jos. Sedley type were still able to +shake the pagoda tree, and Englishmen in outlying provinces often became +suddenly rich, how or why nobody asked, and only the natives cared. Indigo +planters beat their half-caste wives to death, and English magistrates +looked the other way. Our people died, like flies in autumn, of cholera, +snakebites, and the thousand and one fevers to which India was subject. We +were still shut in by powerful native states. Ranjit Singh ruled in the +Punjaub, the Baluchis in Scinde; there was yet a king in Oude and a rajah +at Nagpur. Slavery was only abolished in the British dominions that very +year, and Hindoo widows had but lately lost the privilege of burning +themselves on their husbands' funeral pyres. The chronic famine had +assumed slightly more serious proportions. + +It was a land of loneliness, remote and isolated. A postal service had +been introduced only the year before, and letters took at least three +months to come from England. This was by the overland route, which was +liable at any moment to interruption by the caprice of the Pasha of Egypt +or the enterprise of Bedouins. There were, of course, no railways and no +telegraphs. You travelled wherever possible by river, in boats called +budgerows, which had not increased in speed since Ensign Gilbert's day. +Going up the Ganges you might have seen the Danish flag waving over +Serampore. If you were in a hurry and could afford it, you travelled +_dak_--that is, in a palanquin, carried by four bearers, who were changed +at each stage like posting-horses. This method of travel--about the most +uncomfortable, I conceive, ever devised by man--greatly impressed and +interested Lola. She thought it repugnant to one's sense of humanity, but +could not help observing the lightheartedness of the bearers. They jogged +briskly along to the accompaniment of improvised songs, which were not +always flattering to their human load. + + "I will give you a sample," says our traveller, "as well as it could + be made out, of what I heard them sing while carrying an English + clergyman who could not have weighed less than two hundred and + twenty-five pounds. Each line of the following jargon was sung in a + different voice:-- + + "'Oh, what a heavy bag! + No, it is an elephant; + He is an awful weight. + Let us throw his palki down, + Let us set him in the mud-- + Let us leave him to his fate. + Ay, but he will beat us then + With a thick stick. + Then let's make haste and get along, + Jump along quickly!' + + "And off they started in a jog-trot, which must have shaken every bone + in his reverence's body, keeping chorus all the time of 'Jump along + quickly,' until they were obliged to stop for laughing. + + "They invariably (continues Lola) suit these extempore chants to the + weight and character of their burden. I remember to have been + exceedingly amused one day at the merry chant of my human horses as + they started off on the run. + + "'She's not heavy, + Cabbada [take care]! + Little baba [missie], + Cabbada! + + Carry her swiftly, + Cabbada! + Pretty baba, + Cabbada!' + + "And so they went on, singing and extemporising for the whole hour and + a half's journey. It is quite a common custom to give them four annas + (or English sixpence) apiece at the end of every stage, when fresh + horses [_sic_] are put under the burden; but a gentleman of my + acquaintance, who had been carried too slowly, as he thought, only + gave them two annas apiece. The consequence was that during the next + stage the men not only went faster, but they made him laugh with their + characteristic song, the whole burden of which was: 'He has only given + them two annas, because they went slowly; let us make haste, and get + along quickly, and then we shall get eight annas, and have a good + supper.'" + +The burden of the European's life in India at this period is voiced in +"Marois'" poem, _The Long, Long, Indian Day_. It was the empire of +_ennui_. A strongly puritanical tone, too, was observable in certain +influential circles, and the clergy frequently discountenanced and +condemned the poor efforts at relaxation made by officers and their wives. +Dances and amateur theatricals were often the subject of censure from the +pulpit. So the men fell back on brandy pawnee, loo, and tiger-shooting. +The women were worse off. To the Honourable Emily Eden we are indebted for +some vivid pictures of Anglo-Indian society during the viceroyalty of her +brother, Lord Auckland (1836-1842). They enable us to realise Lola's +emotions and manner of life during her second visit to India. Miss Eden's +compassionate interest was excited by + + "a number of young ladies just come out by the last ships, looking so + fresh and English, and longing to amuse themselves--and it must be + such a bore at that age to be shut up for twenty-three hours out of + the twenty-four; and the one hour that they are out is only an airing + just where the roads are watered. They have no gardens, no villages, + no poor people, no schools, no poultry to look after--none of the + occupations of young people. Very few of them are at ease with their + parents; and, in short, it is a melancholy sight to see a new young + arrival." + +Another passage runs:-- + + "It is a melancholy country for wives at the best, and I strongly + advise you never to let young girls marry an East Indian. There was a + pretty Mrs. ---- dining here yesterday, quite a child in looks, who + married just before the _Repulse_ sailed, and landed here about ten + days ago. She goes on next week to Neemuch, a place at the farthest + extremity of India, where there is not another European woman, and + great part of the road to it is through jungle, which is only passable + occasionally from its unwholesomeness. She detests what she has seen + of India, and evidently begins to think 'papa and mamma' were right in + withholding for a year their consent to her marriage. I think she + wishes they had held out another month. There is another, Mrs. ----, + who is only _fifteen_, who married when we were at the Cape, ... and + went straight on to her husband's station, where for five months she + had never seen a European. He was out surveying all day, and they + lived in a tent. She has utterly lost her health and spirits, and + though they have come down here for three weeks' furlough, she has + never been able even to call here [at Government House]. He came to + make her excuse, and said, with a deep sigh: 'Poor girl! she must go + back to her solitude. She hoped she could have gone out a little in + Calcutta, to give her something to think of.' And then, if these poor + women have children, they must send them away just as they become + amusing. It is an abominable place." + +This was not realised at once by Mrs. James, whose first season (she tells +us) was passed "in the gay and fashionable city of Calcutta." There she +became an acknowledged beauty. Not long after the outbreak of the first +Afghan War she was torn away from the comparative brilliance of the +capital, and accompanied her husband most reluctantly, to Karnal, a town +between Delhi and Simla, on the Jumna Canal. The place is no longer a +military station. At this juncture, happily for us, a flood of light is +poured upon Lola's character and history by the letters of Miss Eden, +dated from Simla and Karnal in the latter part of the year 1839. I include +some extracts not directly relating to Lola, as they describe scenes in +which she must have taken part, and which formed the background against +which she moved. + + "_Sunday, 8th September_ [1839]. + + "Simla is much moved just now by the arrival of a Mrs. J[ames], who + has been talked of as a great beauty of the year, and that drives + every other woman, with any pretensions in that line, quite + distracted, with the exception of Mrs. N., who, I must say, makes no + fuss about her own beauty, nor objects to it in other people. Mrs. + J[ames] is the daughter of a Mrs. C[raigie], who is still very + handsome herself, and whose husband is Deputy-Adjutant-General, or + some military authority of that kind. She sent this only child to be + educated at home, and went home herself two years ago to see her. On + the same ship was Mr. J., a poor ensign, going home on sick leave. + Mrs. C. nursed him and took care of him, and took him to see her + daughter, who was a girl of fifteen [_sic_] at school. He told her he + was engaged to be married, consulted her about his prospects, and in + the meantime privately married this girl at school. It was enough to + provoke any mother, but as it now cannot be helped, we have all been + trying to persuade her for the last year to make it up, as she frets + dreadfully about her only child. She has withstood it till now, but at + last consented to ask them for a month, and they arrived three days + ago. The _rush on the road_ was remarkable, and one or two of the + ladies were looking absolutely nervous. But nothing could be more + unsatisfactory than the result, for Mrs. James looked lovely, and Mrs. + Craigie had set up for her a very grand jonpaun [kind of sedan-chair], + with bearers in fine orange and brown liveries, and the same for + herself; and James is a sort of smart-looking man, with bright + waistcoats and bright teeth, with a showy horse, and he rode along in + an attitude of respectful attention to _ma belle mere_. Altogether it + was an imposing sight, and I cannot see any way out of it but + magnanimous admiration. They all called yesterday when I was at the + waterfalls, and F[anny] thought her very pretty." + + + "_Tuesday, 10th September._ + + "We had a dinner yesterday. Mrs. James is undoubtedly very pretty, and + such a merry, unaffected girl. She is only seventeen now [twenty-one, + in fact], and does not look so old, and when one thinks that she is + married to a junior lieutenant in the Indian army fifteen years older + than herself, and that they have 160 rupees a month, and are to pass + their whole lives in India, I do not wonder at Mrs. Craigie's + resentment at her having run away from school. + + "There are seventeen more officers come up to Simla on leave for a + month, partly in the hope of a little gaiety at the end of the rains; + and then the fancy fair has had a great reputation since last year, + and as they will all spend money, they are particularly welcome.... + + + "_Wednesday, 11th September._ + + "We had a large party last night, the largest we have had in Simla, + and it would have been a pretty ball anywhere, there were so many + pretty people. The retired wives, now that their husbands are on the + march back from Cabul, ventured out, and got through one evening + without any prejudice to their characters." + +Are regimental ladies in India nowadays expected to keep in seclusion +while their husbands are on active service? I think not. + + "_Monday, 16th September._ + + "We are going to a ball to-night, which the married gentlemen give us; + and instead of being at the only public room, which is a broken, + tumble-down place, it is to be at the C.'s [the Craigies'?], who very + good-naturedly give up their house for it." + + + "_Wednesday, 18th September._ + + "The ball went off with the greatest success: transparencies of the + taking of Ghaznee, 'Auckland' in all directions, arches and verandahs + made up of flowers; a whist table for his lordship, which is always a + great relief at these balls; and every individual at Simla was there. + There was a supper room for us, made up of velvet and gold hangings + belonging to the Durbar, and a standing supper all night for the + company in general, at which one very fat lady was detected in eating + five suppers.... It was kept up till five, and altogether succeeded." + + + "_Friday, 27th September._ + + "We had our fancy fair on Wednesday, which went off with great + _eclat_, and was really a very amusing day, and, moreover, produced + 6,500 rupees, which, for a very small society, is an immense sum. X. + and L. and a Captain C. were disguised as gipsies, and the most + villainous-looking set possible; and they came on to the fair, and + sang an excellent song about our poor old Colonel and a little hill + fort that he has been taking; but after the siege was over, he found + no enemy in it, otherwise, it was a gallant action. + + "We had provided luncheon at a large booth with the sign of the + 'Marquess of Granby.' L. E. was old Weller, and so disguised I could + not guess him; X. was Sam Weller; K., Jingle; and Captain C., Mrs. + Weller; Captain Z., merely a waiter, with one or two other gentlemen; + but they all acted very well up to their characters, and the luncheon + was very good fun.... The afternoon ended with races--a regular + racing-stand, and a very tolerable course for the hills; all the + gentlemen in satin jackets and jockey caps, and a weighing stand--in + short, everything got up regularly. Everybody likes these out-of-door + amusements at this time of year, and it is a marvel to me how well X. + and K. and L. E. contrive to make all their plots and disguises go + on. I suppose in a very small society it is easier than it would be in + England, and they have all the assistance of servants to any amount, + who do all they are told, and merely think the 'sahib log' are mad." + + + "_Tuesday, 15th October._ + + "The Sikhs are here. Our ball for them last night went off very well. + The chiefs were in splendid gold dresses, and certainly very + gentleman-like men. They sat bolt upright on their chairs, with their + feet dangling, and I dare say suffered agonies from cramp. C. said we + saw them amazingly divided between the necessity of listening to + George [Lord Auckland], and their native feelings of not _seeming_ + surprised, and their curiosity at men and women dancing together. I + think that they learned at least two figures of the quadrilles by + heart, for I saw Gholab Singh, the commander of the Goorcherras, who + has been with Europeans before, expounding the dancing to the others." + +Lola's month at Simla had now expired, but she probably postponed her +departure to witness the reception of these chiefs. Having been reconciled +with her mother--partly, it seems, through the kindly intervention of the +Governor-General's sister, and partly, as she afterwards declared, through +her stepfather--she returned with her husband to his cantonment. Here she +was fortunate again to attract the attention of the viceregal party. + +Miss Eden writes from Karnal, under date 13th November 1839:-- + + "We had the same display of troops on arriving, except that a bright + yellow General N. has taken his liver complaint home, and a pale + primrose General D., who has been renovating some years at Bath, has + come out to take his place. We were at home in the evening, and it was + an immense party, but except that pretty Mrs. James who was at Simla, + and who looked like a star among the others, the women were all plain. + + "I don't wonder if a tolerable-looking girl comes up the country that + she is persecuted with proposals.... That Mrs. ---- we always called + the little corpse is still at Karnal. She came and sat herself down by + me, upon which Mr. K., with great presence of mind, offered me his + arm, and said to George that he was taking me away from that corpse. + 'You are quite right,' said George. 'It would be very dangerous + sitting on the same sofa; we don't know what she died of.'" + + + "_Sunday, 17th November._ + + "We left Karnal yesterday morning. Little Mrs. James was so unhappy at + our going that we asked her to come and pass the day here, and brought + her with us. She went from tent to tent, and chattered all day, and + visited her friend Mrs. ----, who is with the camp. I gave her a pink + silk gown, and it was altogether a very happy day for her evidently. + It ended in her going back to Karnal on my elephant, with E. N. by her + side and Mr. James sitting behind, and she had never been on an + elephant before, and thought it delightful. She is very pretty, and a + good little thing, apparently, but they are very poor, and she is very + young and lively, and if she falls into bad hands she would soon laugh + herself into foolish scrapes. At present the husband and wife are very + fond of each other, but a girl who marries at fifteen hardly knows + what she likes." + + + + +V + +RIVEN BONDS + + +Miss Eden's misgivings were warranted by the events. "Husband and wife are +very fond of each other"--that was, doubtless, true, but Lola's lips would +have curled had she read the passage in after years. Abandoned by the +departure of the viceregal party once more to the slender social resources +of Karnal, the young wife, I conjecture, fretted and moped. The glitter of +the Court made the boredom of the cantonment all the more oppressive. The +year after the Simla festivities Karnal had another distinguished visitor, +the famous Dost Mohammed Khan, Amir of Kabul, but as during his six +months' stay he was kept a close prisoner in the fort, his presence could +not have sensibly relieved the monotony. Lieutenant James's subsequent +readiness to divorce his wife proves that he had no very strong attachment +to her, and gives some colour to her allegations against him. Of course, +it is safe to conclude that both were in the wrong, or, more truthfully, +had made a mistake. So long, however, as people regard marriage more as a +contract than a relation, each party will be anxious to throw the +responsibility for the rupture upon the other. As the husband had the +opportunity of stating his case in the law courts, it is only fair that +the wife should be allowed to plead hers here. Her version of the +circumstances which brought about the breach is as follows:-- + + "She was taken to visit a Mrs. Lomer--a pretty woman, who was about + thirty-three years of age, and was a great admirer of Captain [_sic_] + James. [His bright waistcoats and bright teeth were not without their + effect, we see.] Her husband was a blind fool enough; and though + Captain James's little wife, Lola, was not quite a fool, it is likely + enough that she did not care enough about him to keep a look-out upon + what was going on between himself and Mrs. Lomer. So she used to be + peacefully sleeping every morning when the Captain [read Lieutenant] + and Mrs. Lomer were off for a sociable ride on horseback. In this way + things went on for a long time, when one morning Captain James and + Mrs. Lomer did not get back to breakfast, and so the little Mrs. James + and Mr. Lomer breakfasted alone, wondering what had become of the + morning riders. + + "But all doubts were soon cleared up by the fact fully coming to light + that they had really eloped to Neilghery Hills. Poor Lomer stormed, + and raved, and tore himself to pieces, not having the courage to + attack any one else. And little Lola wondered, cried a little, and + laughed a good deal, especially at Lomer's rage." + +The injured husband, apparently, was never pieced together again, as we do +not hear that he ever instituted any proceedings against the seducer of +his wife. It is true that by Lola's account they may be considered to have +put themselves beyond his reach, for the Neilghery Hills lie, as the crow +flies, about 1,400 miles from Karnal, and a stern chase in a palanquin +over that distance is an undertaking from which even Menelaus would have +shrank. Nor did the peccant Lieutenant James think it worth while to +resign his commission. + +Whatever may have been the immediate cause, it is clear that husband and +wife were on bad terms when the cantonment at Karnal was broken up in the +year 1841. Lola took refuge under her mother's roof at Calcutta. She +admits that her reception was cold, and that Mrs. Craigie pressed her to +return to Europe. On this course she finally decided, probably without +great reluctance. It was given out, and not perhaps altogether untruly, +that she was leaving India for the benefit of her health. Her husband came +down to Calcutta, and himself saw her aboard the good ship, _Larkins_. Her +stepfather, to whose relations in Scotland she was again to be confided, +was much affected at her departure. + + "Large tears rolled down his cheeks when he took her on board the + vessel; and he testified his affection and his care by placing in the + hands of the little grass-widow a cheque for a thousand pounds on a + house in London." + +Thus for the second and last time Lola saw the swampy shores of Bengal +receding from her across the waves. She was never again to see India or +those who bid her adieu. The merry, unaffected schoolgirl of Simla had +become in one short year a disappointed, disillusioned woman. While +husband and wife exchanged cold farewells, probably neither expected nor +wished to see the other again. Both had made a mistake, and both knew it. +Now they were placing half a world between them. Lola's heart must have +lightened, as the good ship sped before the wind southwards across the +Indian Ocean. Accustomed to shipboard, the _desagrements_ of the voyage +were nothing to her, and she immediately began to take an interest in her +companions. She speaks of a Mr. and Mrs. Sturges, Boston people, who were +nominally in charge of her; and of a Mrs. Stevens, another American lady, +a very gay woman, who had some influence in supporting her determination +not to go to the Craigies' on reaching England. There was a Mr. Lennox on +board, sometimes described as an aide-de-camp to some governor, who also +may have had something to do with this resolution. It all came about as +Lord Auckland's sister had feared. Lola had fallen into evil hands, and +laughed herself into a bad scrape. She had been accustomed to admiration; +she was young, beautiful, and passionate. Her heart was empty; she was +angered against her husband. She was by no means unwilling to face the +possibility of a final separation from him. Lennox remains for us the +shadowiest of personalities, but his disappearance, implying abandonment +of the woman he had compromised, tells against him. In this instance I +think we may safely conclude that the man was to blame. + +Out of affection for him, then, or a determination to lead her own life, +uncontrolled and unshackled, Mrs. James, on arriving in London, flatly +refused to accompany Mr. David Craigie, "a blue Scotch Calvinist," whom +she found awaiting her. + + "At first he used arguments and persuasion, and finding that these + failed, he tried force; and then, of course, there was an explosion, + which soon settled the matter, and convinced Mr. David Craigie that he + might go back to the little dull town of Perth as soon as he pleased, + without the little grass-widow. Now she was left in London, sole + mistress of her own fate. She had, besides the cheque given her by her + stepfather, between five and six thousand dollars' worth of various + kinds of jewellery, making her capital, all counted, about ten + thousand dollars--a very considerable portion of which disappeared in + less than one year by a sort of insensible perspiration, which is a + disease very common to the purses of ladies who have never been taught + the value of money." + +It was in the early spring of 1842 that Lola set foot in London. +Considering the rapidity for those times with which her husband became +informed of her next movements, these must have been amazingly open; and +it is hard to resist the conclusion that she was deliberately trying to +bring about a divorce. She knew that the English law grants no relief to +those who come to it both with clean hands. She knew also that so long as +her husband neither starved nor beat her, she could not set the law in +motion against him. English law, supposed to vindicate the sanctity of +marriage, sets a premium on adultery and cruelty: these are the only +avenues of escape from unhappy unions into which high-minded men and women +may have been betrayed by youthful folly, by over-persuasion, by +sentiments they innocently over-estimated. If Lola Gilbert at the age of +eighteen had signed a bill for ten pounds, the courts would have annulled +the transaction, on the ground that her youth rendered her incapable of +appreciating its gravity. As it was, she had signed away her life--a less +important thing than property--and our Rhadamanthine law sternly held her +to her bargain. + +James was not slow to avail himself of the pretext she afforded him. He +instituted through his proctors a suit against her for divorce in the +Consistory Court of London, to which jurisdiction in all matrimonial +causes at that time belonged. Lola, as he probably expected she would do, +ignored the proceedings from first to last. The case was heard before Dr. +Lushington on 15th December 1842. Mrs. James was accused of misconduct +with Mr. Lennox on board the ship _Larkins_, and of subsequently +cohabiting with him at the Imperial Hotel, Covent Garden, and in lodgings +in St. James's. The court was satisfied with the proofs adduced, and +pronounced a divorce _a mensa et toro_. In modern legal language this was +a judicial separation. These two people, though they were to live apart, +were sentenced never to marry again during the lifetime of each other. It +is by such dispositions that the law of England proposes to promote +morality and the interests of society. + +Both lover and husband disappear from the scene. James rose to the rank of +captain, retired from the Indian army in 1856, and died in 1871. He never +crossed Lola's path again, and she ever afterwards referred to him with +contempt and bitterness. If it was in any vindictive spirit that he +divorced her, he would have done well to remember how in former years he +had taken advantage of her youth and inexperience. It was a squalid ending +to the romantic runaway match. It would be interesting to know with what +emotions Captain James heard of his ex-wife's adventures in high places in +the years that followed. It must have seemed odd that monarchs should risk +their crowns for the charms that he so lightly prized. Perhaps his wonder +was not untinged with regret. More likely it might have been written of +him as of Lola:-- + + "Who have loved and ceased to love, forget + That ever they lived in their lives, they say-- + Only remember the fever and fret, + And the pain of love that was all his pay." + +Mrs. Craigie put on mourning as though her child was dead, and sent out to +her friends the customary notifications. The good old +Deputy-Adjutant-General alone thought kindly of Lola. + + + + +VI + +LONDON IN THE 'FORTIES + + +To a woman in Lola's situation, London in the early 'forties offered every +inducement to go to the devil. Between a roaring maelstrom of the coarsest +libertinism, on the one hand, and an impregnable barrier of heartless +puritanism on the other, her destruction was well-nigh inevitable. The +hotchpotch of unorganised humanity that we call Society seldom presented +an uglier appearance than it did in the first decade of Victoria's reign. +Sir Mulberry Hawk and Pecksniff are types of the two contending forces. +Blackguardism was matched against snivelling cant. Luckily, the victory +fell to neither. Those were the days of Crockfords, of Vauxhall, of the +spunging-house, of public executions turned into popular festivals; when +gentlemen of fashion painted policemen pea-green, and beat them till they +were senseless; when peers got drunk and the people starved. Opposed to +this debauchery was a religion of convention and propriety, narrow, +stupid, and un-Christlike--the cult of the correct and the respectable, +the fetishes to which Lady Flora Hastings and many another woman were +coldly sacrificed. + +In spite of Sir Mulberry and Mr. Pecksniff, however, Lola, ex-Mrs. James, +had no intention of going under. Her exclusion from society, after her +wearisome experiences in India, she probably regarded as no great +hardship. Her youth, her sprightliness, and her beauty made her many +friends. Some of these as quickly became enemies, when they discovered +that a divorced woman is not necessarily for sale. More than one _roue_ +vowed vengeance against the girl who, with bursts of laughter and +dangerous gusts of anger, rejected the offer of his protection. It was, +perhaps, in this way she offended the elegant Lord Ranelagh, who was then +swaggering about in the Spanish cloak he had worn in the Carlist Wars. +Lola was strong enough to swim in the maelstrom. Independence and +adversity brought out the latent force in the character of the "good +little thing" of Simla. Instead of looking out for a refuge, she sought a +career. + +She turned, of course, towards the stage, the one profession in Early +Victorian times that offered any promise to an ambitious woman. She took +more pains to acquire a knowledge of her art than are deemed necessary by +most beautiful aspirants nowadays. She studied under Miss Fanny Kelly, a +gifted actress, who had distinguished herself by her efforts to improve +the social status of her profession, and who had opened a dramatic school +for women adjacent to what is now the Royalty Theatre. Lola describes Miss +Kelly as a lady as worthy in the acts of her private life as she was +gifted in genius. This opinion was shared by all the contemporaries of the +venerable actress. In after years Mr. Gladstone thought fit to recognise +her services to the theatre by a royal grant of one hundred and fifty +pounds, but the money arrived in time only to be expended on a memorial +over her grave in the dismal cemetery at Brompton. Since Lola was a +friend of Miss Kelly, she must have been very far from being the depraved +character she is represented by some. + +With all the goodwill in the world, the experienced mistress could not +make an actress of her beautiful pupil, who accordingly determined to +approach the stage through a back-door. If talent of the intellectual +order was denied her, she could fall back on her physical advantages. She +determined to become a dancer. She was instructed for four months by a +Spanish professor, and then (so she assures us) underwent a further +training at Madrid. It was now that she assumed the name of Lola +Montez--so soon to be known throughout Europe. She passed herself off as a +Spaniard, partly, no doubt, for professional reasons, and partly to +conceal her identity with the wife of Captain James. Society can hardly +expect its quarry to step out into the open to be shot at. Her beauty and +her dancing so impressed Benjamin Lumley, the experienced director of Her +Majesty's Theatre, that it was on his stage that she actually made her +first appearance. + +The morning papers of Saturday, 3rd June 1843, announced accordingly that +between the acts of the opera (_Il Barbiere di Seviglia_), Donna [_sic_] +Lola Montez, of the Teatro Real, Seville, would make her first appearance +in this country, in the original Spanish dance, "El Olano." Attracted by +this advertisement, a critic, who afterwards wrote under the pseudonym of +"Q.," called at the theatre, and was presented to the _debutante_. In her +he recognised a lady living opposite his lodgings in Grafton Street, +Mayfair, who had long been the object of his silent adoration. He dwells +on her extreme vivacity, on her brilliancy of conversation, and on her +foreign accent, which struck him as assumed. She was persuaded to give a +rehearsal for his special benefit. + + "At that period," he goes on to say, "her figure was even more + attractive than her face, lovely as the latter was. Lithe and graceful + as a young fawn, every movement that she made seemed instinct with + melody as she prepared to commence the dance. Her dark eyes were + blazing and flashing with excitement, for she felt that I was willing + to admire her. In her _pose_, grace seemed involuntarily to preside + over her limbs and dispose their attitude. Her foot and ankle were + almost faultless. Nadaud, the violinist, drew the bow across his + instrument, and she began to dance. No one who has seen her will + quarrel with me for saying that she was not, and is not, a finished + _danseuse_, but all who have will as certainly agree with me that she + possesses every element which could be required, with careful study in + her youth, to make her eminent in her then vocation. As she swept + round the stage, her slender waist swayed to the music, and her + graceful neck and head bent with it, like a flower that bends with the + impulse given to its stem by the changing and fitful temper of the + wind."[3] + +On that eventful June evening, then, manager, critics, not least of all +Lola herself, confidently looked forward to a striking success. The house +was crowded, and many notabilities were present. There were the King of +Hanover, the Queen-Dowager, the Duchess of Kent, and the Duke and Duchess +of Cambridge. There was also Lola's old enemy, my Lord Ranelagh, who with +a party of friends occupied one of the two omnibus-boxes--an admirable +point from which to examine the ankles and calves of the long-skirted +ballet-girls. When the curtain rose in the _entr'acte_, a Moorish chamber +was revealed. On either side stood a damsel, gazing expectantly towards +the draped entrance at the back of the stage. A moment later and there +glided through this a figure enveloped in a mantilla. One of the handmaids +snatched away this drapery, and the commanding form of Donna Lola Montez +was revealed in all its glory. + + "And a lovely picture it is to contemplate! There is before you the + perfection of Spanish beauty--the tall, handsome person, the full, + lustrous eye, the joyous, animated face, and the intensely raven hair. + She is dressed, too, in the brightest of colours: the petticoat is + dappled with flaunting tints of red, yellow, and violet, and its showy + diversities of hue are enforced by the black velvet bodice above, + which confines the bust with an unscrupulous pinch. Presently this + Andalusian _Papagena_ lifts her arms, and the sharp, merry crack of + the castanets is heard. She has commenced one of the merry dances of + her nation, and many a piquant grace does she unfold."[4] + +The audience are bewitched, enraptured. The stage is strewn with bouquets. +Suddenly from the right omnibus-box comes the surprised exclamation: "Why, +it's Betty James!" Lord Ranelagh has recognised the woman who rebuffed +him, and hurriedly whispers to his friends. Above the applause from stalls +and gallery, there is heard on the stage, at least, a prolonged and +ominous hiss. My lord's friends in the opposite box act upon the hint, and +the hissing grows louder and more insistent. The body of the audience, +knowing nothing about the matter, conclude that the dancer cannot know +her business, and presently begin to hiss, too. In ten minutes more the +curtain comes down upon her, and Lola's career as a dancer is terminated +in England. + +Lord Ranelagh had had his revenge. This species of blackguardism was only +too common in those days. The notorious Duke of Brunswick that same year +had gone with his attorney, Mr. Vallance, and a party of friends, to +Covent Garden Theatre, for the express purpose of hooting down an actor, +Gregory, who took the part of Faust. He succeeded in his design, and +bragged about it afterwards. In Early Victorian times the theatre was +completely under the thumb of certain aristocratic sets. The exasperated +Lumley was powerless to resist the fiat of these gilded snobs. Lola +Montez, they insisted, must never appear on his stage again. He obeyed. +The Press was very far from imitating his subserviency. The _Era_ and +_Morning Herald_ praised the new _danseuse_ in what seem to us extravagant +terms, and deliberately ignored the inglorious _denouement_ of her +performance. Indeed, but for the pen of "Q." we might be left to share the +surprise expressed at her disappearance by the _Illustrated London News_, +which, ironically perhaps, suggested that the votaries of what might be +called the classical dance had set their faces against the national. + +Lola herself was under no misapprehension as to the cause and authors of +her defeat. She wrote to the _Era_ on 13th June, protesting passionately +against a report that was being circulated to the effect that she had long +been known in London as a disreputable character. She positively asserted +that she was a native of Seville, and had never before been in London. She +complains of the cruel calumnies that had got abroad concerning her, and +says that she has instructed her lawyer to prosecute their utterers. Of +course, the greater part of this statement was untrue, but she had her +back against the wall, and with their reputation, social and professional, +and means of livelihood at stake, few women would have acted otherwise. My +own view is that after her affair with Lennox, Lola tried hard "to keep +straight," and made powerful enemies in consequence. The alliance of +Pecksniff and Sir Mulberry proved too strong for her. + + + + +VII + +WANDERJAHRE + + +London, then, was closed to Lola. She was recognised, and for the divorced +wife of Lieutenant James there were no prospects of a career. Her defeat +determined her to aim higher, not lower, as most women would have done. In +the English country towns she would have been quite unknown, and might +have earned a modest competence. But her experience of Montrose and Meath +did not predispose her towards the provincial atmosphere. Devoting England +and its serpent seed to the infernal gods, she took wing to Brussels. So +rapidly were her preparations made that when "Q." called the very morning +after the "frost" at Her Majesty's at her apartments in Grafton Street, he +found her gone--none knew whither. We must feel sorry for our anonymous +friend, for it is evident from his confessions that Lola's blue eyes had +bored a big hole in his heart. He consoled himself for her loss by writing +(I suspect) some of the flattering notices on her performance to which +reference has been made. + +It is impossible to trace his enchantress's movements in their proper +sequence during the next nine or ten months (June 1843 to March 1844). We +find her at Brussels, Berlin, Dresden, Warsaw, and St. Petersburg. She +reached the Belgian capital practically with an empty purse. She +afterwards said[5] that she went there partly because she had not enough +money wherewith to go to Paris, partly because she hoped to make her way +on to The Hague. She proposed to lay siege to the heart of his Dutch +Majesty William II., then a man fifty-one years of age. She had, quite +probably, met his son, the Prince of Orange, who was visiting Lord +Auckland about the time she was at Simla, and had heard tales in Calcutta +about the Dutch Court. The House of Orange has not been fortunate in its +domestic relations. It is said that during the last king's first +experience of wedlock, the heads of chamberlains often intercepted the +books aimed by the Royal spouses at each other, while the whole palace +re-echoed with the slamming of doors and the crash of crockery. William +II., though not possessed of the reputation of his son and grandson, the +celebrated "_Citron_," was known to be on bad terms with his Russian wife, +Anna Pavlovna. He seemed to Lola a promising subject for the exercise of +her powers of fascination. The design, if she ever really entertained it, +was not one that moralists could applaud, but in extenuation it must be +urged that Lola's late defeat could not have encouraged her to persevere +in the path of virtue. However, the Dutch project came to nothing, and the +display of our heroine's statecraft was reserved for another capital and +another day. + +In Brussels she found herself friendless and penniless. She was reduced to +singing in the streets to save herself from starvation--she who only four +years before had been borne from the stately Indian Court enthroned on +the Viceroy's elephant! Her distress is rather to the credit of her +reputation, for it would have been easy enough for so beautiful a woman to +have found a wealthy protector in the Belgian capital. She was noticed by +a man, whom she believed to be a German, who took her with him to Warsaw. +"He spoke many languages," says Lola, "but he was not very well off +himself. However, he was very kind, and when we got to Warsaw, managed to +get me an engagement at the Opera."[6] I cannot help wishing that Lola had +given us some account of a journey that must have been performed in a +carriage right across Central Europe from Belgium to Poland. + +Warsaw in 1844 must have been as cheerless a spot as any in Europe. The +great insurrection of 1831 had been suppressed with ruthless severity by +the soldiers of the Tsar, and there was not a family of rank in the city +that was not mourning for some one of its members who had passed beyond +the ken of its living, into dread Siberia. Order reigned at Warsaw, +indeed, in its conqueror's famous phrase, but it was order obtained only +with the knout and the bayonet. The Polish language was barely tolerated, +the Catholic religion proscribed. Women, half-naked, were publicly flogged +for their attachment to their faith, school-boys and school-girls sent to +perish beyond the Urals. The secret service ramified through every grade +of society. Fathers distrusted their sons, husbands feared to discover in +their own wives the tools of the Muscovite Government. To this day Poles +are seldom free from the nightmare of the Russian spy. The present writer +remembers how, some years ago, at Bern, in the capital of a free +republic, a Polish medical man refused, with every symptom of +apprehension, to discuss the condition of his country within the longest +ear-shot of a third party. + +Yet unhappy Warsaw, under the heel of the terrible Paskievich, could be +coaxed into a smile by the flashing eyes of the new Andalusian dancer. Her +beauty enraptured the Poles, and drew from one of their dramatic critics +the following elaborate panegyric:-- + + "Lola possesses twenty-six of the twenty-seven points on which a + Spanish writer insists as essential to feminine beauty--and the real + connoisseurs among my readers will agree with me when I confess that + blue eyes and black hair appear to me more ravishing than black eyes + and black hair. The points enumerated by the Spanish writer are: three + white--the skin, the teeth, the hands; three black--the eyes, + eye-lashes, and eyebrows; three red--the lips, the cheeks, the nails; + three long--the body, the hair, the hands; three short--the ears, the + teeth, the legs; three broad--the bosom, the forehead, the space + between the eyebrows; three full--the lips, the arms, the calves; + three small--the waist, the hands, the feet; three thin--the fingers, + the hair, the lips. All these perfections are Lola's, except as + regards the colour of her eyes, which I for one, would not wish to + change. Silky hair, rivalling the gloss of the raven's wing, falls in + luxuriant folds down her back; on the slender, delicate neck, whose + whiteness shames the swan's down, rests the beautiful head. How, too, + shall I describe Lola's bosom, if words fail me to describe the + dazzling whiteness of her teeth? What the pencil could not portray, + certainly the pen cannot. + + "'Vedeansi accesi entro le gianci belle + Dolci fiamme di rose e di rubini, + E nel ben sen per entro un mar di latte + Tremolando nutar due poma intatte.' + + "Lola's little feet hold the just balance between the feet of the + Chinese and French ladies. Her fine, shapely calves are the lowest + rungs of a Jacob's ladder leading to Heaven. She reminds one of the + Venus of Knidos, carved by Praxiteles in the 104th Olympiad. To see + her eyes is to be satisfied that her soul is throned in them.... Her + eyes combine the varying shades of the sixteen varieties of + forget-me-not...." + +And so forth, and so on. + +It is indisputable that in this, her twenty-sixth year, Lola was extremely +beautiful. Her bitterest detractors have never denied her the possession +of almost magical loveliness. This was informed by sparkling vivacity, and +a force of personality, without which we should never have heard the name +of Lola Montez. A human masterpiece of this sort is as much a source of +trouble in a community as a priceless diamond. Everyone's cupidity is +excited, probity and honour melt away in the fierce heat of temptation. +The upright think that here at last is a prize worth the sacrifice of all +the standards that have hitherto guided them. St. Anthony, after forty +years of sainthood, succumbs--and is glad that he does. Even miserable +Poland for a moment forgot her woes when she looked on Lola; and her stern +conqueror, the terrible Paskievich, felt a new spring pervading his grim, +sixty-year-old frame. He, the master of many legions, he at whose frown a +nation paled--why should he not grasp this treasure? Who should say him +nay? + +I will let Lola tell the story in her own words. + + "While Lola Montez was on a visit to Madame Steinkiller the wife of + the principal banker of Poland, the old viceroy sent to ask her + presence at the palace one morning at eleven o'clock. She was assured + by several ladies that it would be neither politic nor safe to refuse + to go; and she did go in Madame Steinkiller's carriage, and heard from + the viceroy a most extraordinary proposition. He offered her the gift + of a splendid country estate, and would load her with diamonds + besides. The poor old man was a comic sight to look upon--unusually + short in stature, and every time he spoke, he threw back his head and + opened his mouth so wide as to expose the artificial gold roof of his + palate. A death's-head making love to a lady could not have been a + more disgusting or horrible sight. These generous gifts were most + respectfully and very decidedly declined. But her refusal to make a + bigger fool of one who was already fool enough was not well received. + +[This, I take it, is the only instance of the word fool being applied to +one of the ablest, if most ruthless, men Russia has ever produced.] + + "In those countries where political tyranny is unrestrained, the + social and domestic tyranny is scarcely less absolute. + + "The next day His Majesty's tool, the colonel of the _gendarmes_ and + director of the theatre, called at her hotel to urge the suit of his + master. + + "He began by being persuasive and argumentative, and when that availed + nothing, he insinuated threats, when a grand row broke out, and the + madcap ordered him out of her room. + + "Now when Lola Montez appeared that night at the theatre, she was + hissed by two or three parties who had evidently been instructed to do + so by the director himself. The same thing occurred the next night; + and when it came again on the third night, Lola Montez, in a rage, + rushed down to the footlights, and declared that those hisses had been + set at her by the director, because she had refused certain gifts + from the old prince, his master. Then came a tremendous shower of + applause from the audience; and the old princess, who was present, + both nodded her head and clapped her hands to the enraged and fiery + Lola. + + "Here, then, was a pretty muss. An immense crowd of Poles, who hated + both the prince and the director, escorted her to her lodgings. She + found herself a heroine without expecting it, and indeed without + intending it. In a moment of rage she had told the whole truth, + without stopping to count the cost, and she had unintentionally set + the whole of Warsaw by the ears. + + "The hatred which the Poles intensely felt towards the government and + its agents found a convenient opportunity of demonstrating itself, and + in less than twenty-four hours Warsaw was bubbling and raging with the + signs of an incipient revolution. When Lola Montez was apprised of the + fact that her arrest was ordered, she barricaded her door; and when + the police arrived she sat behind it with a pistol in her hand, + declaring that she would certainly shoot the first man dead who should + break in. The police were frightened, or at least they could not agree + among themselves who should be the martyr, and they went off to inform + their masters what a tigress they had to confront, and to consult as + to what should be done. In the meantime, the French Consul gallantly + came forward and claimed Lola Montez as a French subject, which saved + her from immediate arrest; but the order was peremptory that she must + quit Warsaw." + +I have no means of verifying this account. Riots were of frequent +occurrence in Warsaw during the 'forties, but, thanks to a rigid +censorship of the Press, the particulars concerning them have failed to +reach us. That the citizens would at once side with any one who for any +reason whatsoever was "agin the Government" is not to be doubted, and Lola +was quite clever enough to make a slight to her appear as an insult to +the Warsaw public. In defending herself with the pistol, she only gave +proof of the manlike courage and resolution conspicuous throughout her +whole career. As to the cause of the row, one of Lola's recent biographers +remarks that if Prince Paskievich had made the offer alleged, it is quite +certain that she would have closed with it. It is far from being certain. +The Russian Viceroy was definitely repugnant to her, and her subsequent +experiences show that she never bestowed herself upon a man whom she could +not, or did not, love. She was new, too, to her _role_ of adventuress. +Altogether, there is no good reason for doubting that Lola's relation of +her experiences in the Polish capital is substantially true. + +On the other hand, vanity certainly betrayed her into several deviations +from the truth in her reminiscences of St. Petersburg. She went thither, +she informs us, upon her expulsion from Poland--an odd refuge! Of her +journey in a _caleche_ across the wastes of Lithuania and through the dark +forests of Muscovy; of St. Petersburg, still half an Oriental city, where +all men below the rank of nobles wore the long beard and caftan of the +Asiatic--our _raconteuse_ has nothing to say. She introduces us at once to +the Tsar and the innermost arcanum of his Court. + + "Nicholas was as amiable and accomplished in private life as he was + great, stern, and inflexible as a monarch. He was the strongest + pattern of a monarch of this age, and I see no promise of his equal, + either in the incumbents or the heirs-apparent of the other thrones of + Europe." + +Lola, we see, speaks as an authority on crowned heads. In her estimate +of Nicholas I. she seems to have forgotten the republican principles she +generally professed. The Tsar was, no doubt, the most commanding figure of +his time, and Russia's influence in the counsels of Europe has never since +had as much weight as in the earlier part of his reign. His fine +proportions, as much as his strength of character, probably excited Lola's +admiration, and blinded her to defects, physical and temperamental, which +did not escape the notice of more keen-eyed critics. She did not see that +the autocrat's majestic demeanour was a pose, that his stern, hawk-like +glance was deliberately cultivated, and that he had only three expressions +of countenance, all put on at will. Horace Vernet, who knew Nicholas well, +was firmly convinced that he was not wholly sane. As to his amiability in +private life, he is said to have been, like many tyrants, a good husband, +and he often condescended to take tea with his nurse, "a decent Scotch +body." It was to this respectable exile that the members of the imperial +family owed that fluent and colloquial English, which often as much +astonished as gratified our countrymen. It is recorded that one of the +Grand Dukes genially accosted the British chaplain at St. Petersburg with +the enquiry: "God damn your eyes, and how the devil are you?"--language, +very properly remarks an Early Victorian writer, which no man on earth had +the right to address to a person in Holy Orders. + + +[Illustration: NICHOLAS I.] + + +The Tsar himself was better bred. His relations with Mademoiselle Montez +were characterized by politeness and liberality. Not only he, but his +right-hand man, the astute Livonian, Benkendorf, held the lady's political +acumen in high esteem. While she and the Emperor and the Minister of the +Interior were in a somewhat private chat about vexatious matters connected +with Caucasia, airily relates Lola, a humorous episode occurred. + + "It was suddenly announced that the superior officers of the Caucasian + army were without, desiring audience. The very subject of the previous + conversation rendered it desirable that Lola Montez should not be seen + in conference with the Emperor and the Minister of the Interior; so + she was thrust into a closet, and the door locked. The conference + between the officers and the Emperor was short but stormy. Nicholas + got into a towering rage. It seemed to the imprisoned Lola that there + was a whirlwind outside; and womanly curiosity to hear what it was + about [did she then understand Russian?], joined with the great + difficulty of keeping from coughing, made her position a strangely + embarrassing one. But the worst of it was, in the midst of this grand + quarrel the parties all went out of the room, and forgot Lola Montez, + who was locked up in the closet. For a whole hour she was kept in this + durance vile, reflecting upon the somewhat confined and cramping + honours she was receiving from Royalty, when the Emperor, who seems to + have come to himself before Count Benkendorf did, came running back + out of breath, and unlocked the door, and not only begged pardon for + his forgetfulness, in a manner which only a man of his accomplished + address could do, but presented the victim with a thousand roubles, + saying laughingly: 'I have made up my mind whenever I imprison any of + my subjects unjustly, I will pay them for their time and suffering.' + And Lola Montez answered him: 'Ah, sire, I am afraid that rule will + make a poor man of you.' He laughed heartily, and replied: 'Well, I am + happy in being able to settle with you, anyhow.'" + +Lola makes here a rather heavy draft on the reader's credulity. However, +from the nice things she has to say about His Imperial Majesty, it is +clear that she had been admitted at one time or another to his presence. +Had not Nicholas I. been a pattern of the domestic virtues, we might have +attributed his embarrassment at Lola's being discovered in his closet, and +the donation of the thousand roubles, to reasons entirely unconnected with +the Caucasus. After all, Lola may have argued, if she had been courted by +a king, why should she not have been consulted by an emperor? + +Before or after her visit to St. Petersburg the dancer saw the Tsar at +Berlin. Mounted on a fiery Cordovan barb, she was among the spectators at +a review given by King Frederick William in honour of his imperial guest. +The horse was scared by the firing, and bolted, carrying its rider +straight into the midst of the Royal party. Lola was not sorry to find +herself in such company, but a _gendarme_ struck at her horse and +endeavoured to drive it away. An insult of this sort Lola was the last +woman to tolerate. Raising her whip, she slashed the policeman across the +face. Out of respect for the Royal party, the incident was allowed to end +there, for the moment; but the next day the dancer was waited upon with a +summons. She instantly tore the document to pieces, and threw them into +the face of the process-server. Such contempt for the law might have been +attended with very serious consequences, but Lola went, as a matter of +fact, scot-free. Perhaps her friends in high places interceded for her; +but it is hard to believe, as she afterwards declared, that the _gendarme_ +came to her lodgings to sue for her pardon.[7] In every capital of Europe +it soon became known that the beautiful Spanish dancer was able and +prepared to defend herself against the most determined antagonists of +either sex. + +But a nobler quarry than Tsar and Viceroy was now to fall before the +shafts from Lola's eyes. + + + + +VIII + +FRANZ LISZT + + +In the year 1844 Franz Liszt may be considered to have reached the zenith +of his fame. In the two-and-twenty years that had elapsed since his first +triumph, when a lad of eleven, at Vienna, the young Hungarian had taken +pride of place before all the pianists of his day. The crown still rested +securely on his brow, despite the formidable rivalry of Thalberg. Paris, +London, Berlin, St. Petersburg, Rome, and Milan had in turn felt his +spell, and rapturously acclaimed him the king of melody. Honours and +wealth poured in upon him. The magnates of his native land--the proudest +of all aristocracies--presented him with a sword of honour. The monarchs +of Europe publicly recognised the lofty genius of one whom they knew to be +no friend of theirs. For Liszt, the devotee of later years, glowed then +with generous enthusiasm for freedom, political and religious. Frederick +William sent him diamonds, and he pitched them into the wings; the Tsar +found him unabashed and contemptuous; the Kings of Bavaria and Hanover he +scorned to invite to his concerts; before Isabel II. he refused to play at +all, because Spanish Court etiquette forbade his personal introduction to +her. The Catholic Church, he wrote, knew only curse and ban. He was the +friend of Lamennais. The bourgeois--the Philistine, as we should call him +now--he held in greater abhorrence even than the tyrant. In Louis Philippe +he saw bourgeoisie enthroned. Yet the King of the French courted the man +whose empire was more stable than his own. He reminded the pianist of a +former meeting when the one was but a boy, and the other only Duke of +Orleans. "Much has changed since then," said the Citizen-King. "Yes, sire, +but not for the better!" bluntly replied the artist. + +In 1844 Europe was more liberal in some respects than America is to-day. +Honours and applause were not denied to Liszt because he openly +transgressed the sex conventions. Since 1835 his life had been shared by +the beautiful Comtesse d'Agoult, the would-be rival, under the name +"Daniel Stern," of the more celebrated Georges Sand. Of this union were +born three children, one of whom became the wife of Richard Wagner. Madame +d'Agoult was a Romanticist, and a very typical figure of her time and +circle. She was an interesting woman, and tried hard to be more +interesting still. But it was no affectation of passion that led her to +abandon home, husband, and position, to throw herself into the pianist's +arms at Basle. She was deeply in love with him; but she wished to be more +than a wife, more than a lover: she aspired to be his muse. Liszt, +however, needed no inspiration from without. In an oft-quoted phrase, he +said that the Dantes created the Beatrices; "the genuine die when they are +eighteen years old." The man chafed more and more under the ties that +bound him. He had no wish to abandon the mother of his children, but his +genius demanded to be unfettered. He wandered over Europe, sad and +bitter at heart, but heaping up his laurels. The Comtesse and the +children stayed in Paris, or at the villa Liszt had rented on the +beautiful islet of Nonnenwerth, in the shadow of "the castled crag of +Drachenfels." There he joined them from time to time, while unable to +resist the conclusion that he and she must part. The evolution of their +temperaments and intellects was in rapidly diverging directions. He was no +longer willing to throw himself out of the window at her bidding as he had +publicly declared himself to be four years before. The cord that bound +them was frayed and fretted to a thread. + + +[Illustration: FRANZ LISZT.] + + +At Dresden fate threw Liszt and Lola Montez across each other's path. The +intense, artistic nature of the man cried out with joy at the glorious +beauty of the woman. Her inextinguishable vivacity, her almost masculine +boldness, her frank and splendid animalism enraptured the musician, now +sick to death of soulful conversations and the sentimentalities of +Romanticism. It was the old struggle for the possession of the artist, +waged by Silvia and Gioconda. Lola was beautiful as a tigress. To Liszt +she could surrender herself proudly. She was one of those erotic women, +whose passion is excited rather by a man's mental attributes than by his +physical advantages. Intellect she adored. Her own strong nature could +yield only to a stronger. We have heard how she spoke of Nicholas I.; we +shall find this almost sensuous craving for force of personality in her +subsequent relations. To her, the pianist must have been a new revelation +of manhood. Her life so far had brought her in contact with Indian +officers and civilians, a few men about town, and (for a few hours) with +one or more potentates. Now she met a great man with a beautiful soul. +She had heard the stories current of Liszt's abnegation, his boundless +generosity, his pride in his vocation. In her, too, he recognised a +haughty intolerance of patronage, a contempt for those in high places, +such as he had himself exhibited. Both could laugh over the slights to +which they had subjected the King of Prussia, and their demeanour in +presence of the mighty Tsar. It is likely enough that their conversation +may have begun in some such fashion; how their love ripened we are left to +guess. On this episode in her history Lola exhibits unwonted reserve. She +mentions meeting Liszt at Dresden, and speaks of the furore he created. As +to their love passages, she is silent. I like to think that this was a +secret she held sacred, that her love for the great musician had in it +something fresh and noble, which distinguished it from the emotions +excited in her by all other men. Women of many attachments are prone to +idealise one among them. + +The world was bound by no such scruples. The rumour ran from capital to +capital that Liszt was enthralled by the Andalusian. It reached the +Comtesse d'Agoult in her retreat at Nonnenwerth. She penned a fierce, +reproachful letter. Liszt, in Calypso's grotto at Dresden, answered +proudly and coldly. The Comtesse wrote, announcing the end of their +relations. Most men are frightened at the abrupt termination of a love +affair of which they have long been heartily weary. Liszt gave the +Comtesse time to think it over. She made no further overtures, expecting +that he would come to kneel at her feet. He did not. The lady went to +Paris, and they never met again. + +The artist at least owed Lola a service, since she had been the unwitting +instrument of a rupture so long desired by him. But he valued his +newly-recovered freedom too highly to jeopardise it by linking his life +again with a woman's. His love affair with Lola may have been simply an +infatuation. Lucio would soon have tired of Gioconda had he lived with +her. We hardly know how this brief love story began; we are quite in the +dark as to how it ended. A report was current that the two travelled +together from Dresden to Paris, where both appeared in the spring of '44. +We do not hear that they were seen together in the French capital, so the +adieux may already have been exchanged. Liszt stayed there but a few +weeks, and then started on a tour through the French departments. Then he +crossed the Pyrenees, and pushed as far south as Gibraltar. Less than +three years later he was in the toils of a third woman--the Princess Zu +Sayn-Wittgenstein, with whom his relations endured twelve years. It is +noteworthy that he and Lola turned their thoughts from love to religion +almost at the same time, though half a world lay between them. + +Of the third actor in this little drama it is hardly within my province to +speak. The Comtesse d'Agoult found consolation in the care of her children +and in those wider interests of which she never tired. She ardently +espoused the cause of the Revolution in 1848. More fortunate than her old +lover, she never lost the sane and generous sympathies of her youth. You +may read her _Souvenirs_, published at Paris the year after her death +(1877). Liszt long survived the women who had loved him--not a fate that +either of them would have envied him. + + + + +IX + +AT THE BANQUET OF THE IMMORTALS + + +Lola's first appearance in Paris was, like her _debut_ at Her Majesty's, a +fiasco. Thanks, no doubt, to her reputation for beauty and audacity, she +secured an engagement at the Opera, then under the management of Leon +Pillet. The power behind the throne was the great Madame Stoltz, who some +years later was to be hooted off the stage by a hostile clique just as +Lola had been nine months before. At that time, however, no one dreamed of +a revolt against the all-powerful _cantatrice_ whose favour the _danseuse_ +was fortunate to procure. The great Stoltz looked best and was luckiest in +men's parts, and therefore saw no rival in the now famous "Andalouse." + +Lola, accordingly, made her bow to the Parisian public on Saturday, 30th +March 1844, in _Il Lazzarone_, an opera in two acts by Halevy. Her +audience was more fastidious than the playgoers of Dresden and Warsaw. Her +beauty ravished them, but in her dancing they saw little merit. Seeing +this, Lola made a characteristic bid for their favour. Her satin shoe had +slipped off. Seizing it, she threw it with one of her superb gestures into +the boxes, where it was pounced upon and brandished as a precious relic by +a gentleman of fashion. The manoeuvre seems to have succeeded in its +object, for the _Constitutionnel_ next morning found it necessary to warn +young dancers against the danger of factitious applause, while "abstaining +from criticising too severely a pretty woman who had not had time to study +Parisian tastes." Theophile Gautier was less gallant:-- + + "We are reluctant," he writes, "to speak of Lola Montes, who reminds + us by her Christian name of one of the prettiest women of Granada, and + by her surname of the man who excited in us the most powerful dramatic + emotions we have ever experienced--Montes, the most illustrious + _espada_ of Spain. The only thing Andalusian about Mlle. Lola Montes + is a pair of magnificent black eyes. She gabbles Spanish very + indifferently, French hardly at all, and English passably [_sic_]. + Which is her country? That is the question. We may say that Mlle. Lola + has a little foot and pretty legs. Her use of these is another matter. + The curiosity excited by her adventures with the northern police, and + her conversations, _a coups de cravache_, with the Prussian _gens + d'armes_, has not been satisfied, it must be admitted. Mlle. Lola + Montes is certainly inferior to Dolores Serrai, who has, at least, the + advantage of being a real Spaniard, and redeems her imperfections as a + dancer by a voluptuous _abandon_, and an admirable fire and precision + of rhythm. We suspect, after the recital of her equestrian exploits, + that Mlle. Lola is more at home in the saddle than on the boards." + +As at Her Majesty's, so at the Opera. Lola's first appearance was her +last. For the rest of the year, as far as I can learn, she was out of an +engagement. She had, no doubt, made some money during her German and +Russian tour, and Liszt would not have forgotten her when he started on +his southern tour at the end of April. + +If her association with him had begotten in Lola Montez a thirst for wit +and genius, she had every chance of slaking it in Paris. There were giants +on the earth in those days, and they were all gathered together on the +banks of the Seine. It is not too much to say that since the Medici ruled +in Florence, no capital has boasted so brilliant an assemblage of men of +genius as did Paris under the paternal government of July. In the year +'44, Victor Hugo, attended by a score of minor poets, daily appeared on +his balcony to acknowledge the homage of the public; Lamartine was +dividing his attention between politics and literature. Alfred de Musset +was wrecking his constitution by spasms of debauchery. Balzac was dodging +his creditors, playing truant from the National Guard, and finding time to +write his "Comedie Humaine"; Theophile Gautier, a man of thirty-three, if +he had not yet received the full meed of his genius, was already well +known and widely appreciated. Alexandre Dumas had long since become a +national institution, and his son was looking out for copy among the +ladies of the _demi-monde_. Delphine Gay was writing her brilliant +"Lettres Parisiennes" for her husband's newspaper. The Salon was still +rejecting the masterpieces of Delacroix, but Vernet was painting the +ceiling of the Palais Bourbon. Auber, though past the prime of life, had +not yet scored his greatest success. Paris was like Athens in the age of +Pericles. + +Life was really worth living then, when Louis Phillippe was king. He was +an honest, kindly-natured man, this pear-headed potentate, who reigned, +"comme la corniche regne autour d'un plafond." He was the king of the +_bourgeois_, and he looked it every inch, with his white felt hat and +respectable umbrella; but in the calm sunshine of his reign the arts +flourished and the world was gay. Those days before the Revolution remind +us of that strange picture in our National Gallery, "The Eve of the +Deluge." Paris, as the old stagers regretfully assure us, was Paris then, +and not the caravanserai of all the nations of the world. The good +Americans who died then, had they gone to Paris, would have thought they +had reached the wrong destination. Men of Pontus and Asia had not then +made the French capital their own. The invasion of the Barbarians, says +Gustave Claudin, took place in 1848. They came, not conducted by Attila, +but by the newly-constructed railways. As these strangers had plenty of +money to spend, they naturally sought the most fashionable quarters. + + "The true Parisians disappeared in the crowd, and knew not where to + find themselves. In the evening, the restaurants where they used to + dine, the stalls and boxes where they used to assist at the opera and + the play, were taken by assault by cohorts of sightseers wishing to + steep themselves up to the neck in _la vie Parisienne_." + +The tide of the invasion has never diminished in volume, and the true +Parisian has become extinct. + +In the year 1844 the fine flower of Parisian society was in undisputed +possession of the Boulevard--the quarter between the Opera and the Rue +Drouot. + + "By virtue of a selection which no one contested," says the author + just quoted, "nobody was tolerated there who could not lay claim to + some sort of distinction or originality. There seemed to exist a kind + of invisible moral barrier, closing this area against the mediocre, + the insipid, and the insignificant, who passed by, but did not linger, + knowing that their place was not there." + +The headquarters of the noble company of the Boulevard was the famous Cafe +de Paris, at the corner of the Rue Taitbout. Dumas, Balzac, and Alfred de +Musset were to be seen there twice or thrice a week; the eccentric Lord +Seymour, founder of the French Jockey Club, had his own table there. Lola, +doubtless, often tasted the unsurpassed _cuisine_ of this celebrated +restaurant, for she soon penetrated into the circle of the Olympians, and +was presented with the freedom of the Boulevard. + +She met Claudin (who indeed knew everybody). + + "Lola Montez," he says, "was an enchantress. There was about her + something provoking and voluptuous which drew you. Her skin was white, + her wavy hair like the tendrils of the woodbine, her eyes tameless and + wild, her mouth like a budding pomegranate. Add to that a dashing + figure, charming feet, and perfect grace. Unluckily," the notice + concludes, "as a dancer she had no talent." + +That multiple personality whom Vandam embodies in "An Englishman in Paris" +admits that Lola was naturally graceful, that her gait and carriage were +those of a duchess. When he goes on to say that her wit was that of a +pot-house, I seem to detect one of his not infrequent lapses from the +truth. Only three years had elapsed since Lola had shone in Court circles +in India, where the social atmosphere was not that of a bar-room; and +since then she had been wandering about in countries where her ignorance +of the language must have left her manner of speech and modes of thought +almost unaffected. Pot-house wit would not have fascinated Liszt, nor the +fastidious Louis of Bavaria. "Men of far higher intellectual attainments +than mine, and familiar with very good society," admits our nebulous +chronicler,[8] "raved and kept raving about her." + +Dumas, he says in another place, was as much smitten with her as her other +admirers. This, of course, is no guarantee of her refinement, for the +genial Creole had the reputation of not being over nice in his attachments +and amours. He was then in the prime of life, and may be considered to +have just reached the zenith of his fame by the publication of "Les Trois +Mousquetaires," "Monte Cristo," and "La Reine Margot" (1844-5). Two years +before he had formally and legally married Mademoiselle Ida Ferrier--this +step, so inconsistent with his temperament and mode of life, having +resulted from his own reckless disregard of the conventions. The lady had +fascinated him while she was interpreting a _role_ of his creation at the +Porte-St.-Martin. It did not strike him that it would be irregular to take +her with him to a ball given by his patron, the Duke of Orleans, and he +straightway did so. "Of course, my dear Dumas," said His Highness affably, +"it is only your _wife_ that you would think of presenting to me." Poor +Alexandre, the lover of all women and none in particular, was hoisted with +his own petard. A prince's hints, above all when he is your patron and +publisher, are commands. Dumas was led to the altar, like a sheep to the +slaughter, by the charming Ida. Chateaubriand supported the bridegroom +through the ordeal. However the chains of matrimony sat lightly on the +irrepressible _romancier_. Madame Dumas soon after departed for Florence, +greatly to the relief of her spouse. He was living, at the time of Lola's +visit to Paris, at the Villa Medicis at St. Germain. There he could +superintend the building of his palace of Monte Cristo, on the road to +Marly, a part of which, with imperturbable _sang-froid_, he actually +raised on the land belonging to a neighbour, without so much as a "by your +leave." This ambitious residence emptied Dumas's pockets of the little +money that the ladies he loved had left in them. + + +[Illustration: ALEXANDRE DUMAS, SENIOR.] + + +Alexandre, of course, fell passionately in love with Lola Montez. We need +no written assurance of that. We read that he told her that she had acted +"like a gentleman" in her treatment of Frederick William's policemen, and +with what far-fetched compliments he followed up this commendation it is +easy to imagine. There were certain resemblances in their temperaments, +though the woman was far the stronger. Posterity is never likely to agree +on an estimate of Dumas's character. Theodore de Banville thought him a +truly great man. + + "Dumas," he wrote, "had no more need to husband his strength and his + vitality than a river has to economise with its waters, and it seemed, + in fact, that he held in his strong hands inexhaustible urns, whence + flowed a stream always clear and limpid. In what formidable metal had + he been cast? Once he took it into his head to take his son, + Alexandre, to the masked ball of Grados, at the Barriere Montparnasse, + and, attired as a postilion, the great man danced all night without + resting for a moment, and held women with his outstretched arm, like a + Hercules. When he returned home in the morning, he found that his + postilion's breeches had, through the swelling of the muscles, become + impossible to remove; so Alexandre was obliged to cut them into strips + with a penknife. After that what did the historian of the + Mousquetaires do? Do you think he chose his good clean sheets or a + warm bath? He chose work! And having taken some _bouillon_, set + himself down before his writing paper, which he continued to fill with + adventures till the evening, with as much 'go' and spirit as if he had + come from calm repose. + + "Nature has given up making that kind of man; by way of a change, she + turns out poets, who, having composed a single sonnet, pass the rest + of their lives contemplating themselves and--their sonnets." + +Prodigious! It is gratifying to think that this indefatigable worker had +always two sincere admirers--himself and his son. The latter, it is true, +would have his joke at the former's expense. "My father," remarked the +son, "is so vain that he would be ready to hang on to the back of his own +carriage, to make people believe he kept a black servant." +Notwithstanding, the two loved each other tenderly. Innumerable anecdotes +bear witness to the paternal fondness of the one, the filial devotion of +the other. Yet their relation was more that of two sworn friends, as is so +touchingly expressed in these lines from the "Pere Prodigue":-- + + "... I have sought your affection, more than your obedience and + respect.... To have all in common, heart as well as purse, to give and + to tell each other everything, such has been our device. We have lost, + it seems, several hundred thousands of francs; but this we have + gained--the power of counting always on one another, thou on me, I on + thee, and of being ready always to die for each other. That is the + most important thing between father and son." + +These are the words of Frenchmen. An Englishman would have put such +language into the mouths of husband and wife. + +Enjoying the friendship of Dumas _pere_, Lola no doubt had the privilege +of meeting Alexandre junior. The young man was then in his twenty-first +year, and had piled up debts to the respectable total of fifty thousand +francs. It was just about this time, as has been said, that he turned his +attention to literature. He found "copy" for his most celebrated work in +the pale, flower-like courtesan, Alphonsine Plessis, who shared with Lola +the devotion of the erotic Boulevard. The two were women of very different +stamp. The Irish woman confronted the world with head erect and flashing +eyes; the Lady of the Camellias, with a blush and trembling lips. They +were typical of two great classes of women: those who rule men, and those +whom men rule. The loved of the God of Love died young. After Alphonsine's +early death, the fair Parisiennes flocked to her apartments, as to the +shrine of some patron saint, and touched, as though they were precious +relics, her jewellery and trinkets, her _lingerie_, and her slippers. + + + + +X + +MERY + + +Another most delightful friend had Lola--he whom she refers to in her +autobiography as "the celebrated poet, Mery." To describe this charming +and impossible personage as a poet, is to indicate only one department of +his genius: as a dramatist he was not far inferior to his great +contemporaries, as a novelist he revealed an amazing power of paradox, and +a bewildering fertility of imagination. He wrote descriptions of countries +he had never seen (though he had travelled far), which, by their accuracy +and colour, deceived and delighted the very natives. He was not merely +rich in rhymes, said Dumas, he was a millionaire. He could write, too, in +more serious vein, and was a profound and ardent classicist. + +In 1845 Mery was approaching his half-century. Thirty years before he had +come to Paris from Marseilles in hot pursuit of a pamphleteer who had +dared to attack him. He found time to cross swords with somebody else, and +got the worst of the encounter. As a result he took a voyage to Italy for +the benefit of his health. His adventures remind us alternatively of those +of Brantome and Benvenuto Cellini. At a later period he was associated +with Barthelemy in an intrigue for the restoration of the Bonapartes; and +went to pay his respects to Queen Hortense, while his colleague vainly +endeavoured to talk with the Eaglet through the gilded bars of his cage. + +Mery could, in short, do everything, and everything very well. He +possessed the faculty of turning base metal into gold. Geese in his eyes +became swans, and in every lump of literary coke he saw a diamond of the +purest ray. It was, above all, in his dramatic criticism, remarks De +Banville, that this faculty produced the most surprising results. + + "One day, reading in Mery's review the pretended recital of a comedy + of which I was the author, I could not but admire its gaiety, grace, + unexpected turns, and happy confusion, and I said to myself: 'Ah, if + only this comedy were really the one I wrote!'" + +On another occasion, says the poet, at the theatre, + + "he said to me: 'What a superb drama!'--and he was perfectly right. + The play, as he described it to me, was, in fact, superb, only + unfortunately it had been entirely reconstructed by Mery on the absurd + foundation imagined by Mr. * * *. The _denouement_ he invented--for + though the third act was not finished, he spoke of the fifth as an old + acquaintance--was of such tragic power and daring originality, that + after hearing him expound it, I had no desire to witness Mr. * * *'s." + +Reviewers and dramatic critics of this kind are now, unhappily, rare. + +These few anecdotes sufficiently justify De Banville's claim that Mery was +something altogether unheard of and fabulously original. He should have +been (and probably was) the happiest of men, and his peculiar powers must +have lightened his critical labours as much as they benefited those he +criticised. He was as incapable of envy as Dumas was of rancour. Certainly +no more lovable and agreeable creature ever haunted the slopes of +Parnassus. + +I doubt if such men would be appreciated in our society. Ours is the reign +of the glum Boeotian. We know not how to converse, and wits are as dead +as kings' jesters. There is no scholarship in our senate, and the standard +of oratory there would not have satisfied an Early Victorian debating +society. If we talk less, assuredly we do not think the more. Every +social, political, and religious idea that occupies our dull brains had +entered into the consciousness of the men of the 'forties. They thought +quickly and talked brilliantly. Their young men were youths--full of fire, +enthusiasm, love, and fun. They did not talk about the advantages of +devotion to business in early life. They were not born tired. Wonderful, +too, as it may seem, people in those days used to like to meet each other +in social converse, and were not ashamed to admit it. It was not then +fashionable to affect a disinclination for society--the handiest excuse +for an inability to talk and to think. Lola Montez learned in Paris what +was meant by the _joie de vivre_. In '45 wit was at the prow and pleasure +at the helm. + + + + +XI + +DUJARIER + + +As an _artiste_, Lola was naturally anxious to conciliate the Press, which +had not spoken too kindly of her first performance on the Paris stage. +Gautier's unflattering notice had appeared in one of the most influential +newspapers--_La Presse_. This journal was under the direction of the +famous De Girardin, the Harmsworth of his generation. Till 1st July 1836 +the lowest annual subscription to any newspaper in Paris was eighty +francs; on that day De Girardin issued the first number of _La Presse_ at +a subscription of forty francs a year. This startling reduction in the +price of news excited, of course, no little animosity, but its successful +results were immediately manifest. The daring journalist's next innovation +was the creation of the _feuilleton_. The new paper prospered exceedingly, +though it represented the views of the editor rather than those of any +large section of the public. In 1840 De Girardin acquired a half of the +property, the other being held by Monsieur Dujarier, who assumed the +functions of literary editor. + +In 1845 Dujarier was a young man of twenty-nine, a writer of no mean +ability, and a smart journalist. He was well known to all the Olympians of +the Boulevard, and entered with zest into the gay life of Paris. Lola +became acquainted with him soon after her arrival in the capital, probably +in an effort to win the paper over to her side. He spent, she tells us, +almost every hour he could spare from his editorial duties with her, and +in his society she rapidly ripened in a knowledge of politics. But before +her political education had proceeded far, the woman's beauty and the +man's wit had produced the effect that might have been looked for. "They +read no more that day"--Lola and Dujarier loved each other. + +"This," continues our heroine, "was in autumn [the autumn of '44], and the +following spring the marriage was to take place." I fancy the word +"marriage" is introduced here out of respect for the susceptibilities of +the American public. The Old Guard of the Boulevard, in Louis Philippe's +golden reign, _se fianca mais ne se maria pas_. Besides, Lola was still +legally the wife of that remote and forgotten officer, Captain James. "It +was arranged that Alexandre Dumas and the celebrated poet, Mery, should +accompany them on their marriage tour through Spain." Dumas, Mery, and +Lola, to say nothing of Dujarier, travelling together through +Andalusia--here would have been a gallant company indeed, with which one +would have gladly made a voyage even to Tartarus and back! The narrative, +too, of the journey would have permanently enriched literature. But the +scheme has gone, these sixty years, to the cloudy nether-world of glorious +dreams unrealized. + +The success of De Girardin's newspaper had intensely embittered his +competitors, who made it the object of venomous attack. The founder dipped +his pen in gall and acid, and his sword in the blood of his enemies. He +fought four duels, and having killed Armand Carrel, sheathed his rapier. +But he did not lay aside his pen, which was even more dreaded. Dujarier +proved an apt pupil, and by his command of irony and sarcasm at last +attracted to himself as much hatred and jealousy as his senior. The +special rival of his paper was the _Globe_, edited by Monsieur Granier de +Cassagnac, a journalist of the type we now denominate yellow. He had at +one time been on the staff of _La Presse_, to which he remained +financially indebted. Dujarier came across the debit notes signed by him, +and obtained a judgment against him. The exasperation of the _Globe_ knew +no bounds. The editor may be conceived addressing to his satellites the +reproaches used by Henry II.: "Of those that eat my bread, is there none +that will rid me of this pestilent journalist?" The appeal was responded +to by his wife's brother, Monsieur Jean Baptiste Rosemond de Beauvallon, a +Creole from Guadeloupe, then in his twenty-fifth year. He was dramatic +critic to the _Globe_, and in this capacity his acquaintance was sought by +Lola. Dujarier naturally objected to this, and his interference was not +forgiven by his journalist rival. The two men seemed doomed to cross each +other's path. There was a certain Madame Albert, with whom Dujarier had +been on terms of intimacy for some years. In December 1844 he ceased to +visit her, probably for no other reason than that he had transferred his +affections to Lola. As it happened, however, De Beauvallon made the lady's +acquaintance at this moment, and she spitefully suggested that Dujarier +had discontinued relations with her in order not to meet him. The Creole's +score against the literary editor of _La Presse_ was now a high one, and +he embraced his brother-in-law's quarrel with enthusiasm. + + + + +XII + +THE SUPPER AT THE FRERES PROVENCAUX + + +At the beginning of March (1845), Lola, despite her failure at the Opera, +obtained an engagement at the Porte-St.-Martin Theatre for the musical +comedy _La Biche au Bois_. While she was rehearsing, she and her lover +received an invitation to supper at the Freres Provencaux, a fashionable +restaurant in the Palais Royal. The party was to be composed of some of +the liveliest men and women in Paris, and none of those invited were over +thirty-five years of age. Lola was keen to accept, but Dujarier would not +hear of her being seen in such a company. In spite of her protests he +decided, however, to go himself. It was the evening of 11th March. + +He found himself the only guest, for all the others paid their shares in +the cost of the entertainment. The nominal hostess was Mademoiselle +Lievenne: "a splendid person, with abundant black hair, black eyes like a +Moorish woman or Arlesienne, dazzling skin, and opulent figure." There +were also at the table Mademoiselle Atila Beauchene, Mademoiselle Alice +Ozy, Mademoiselle Virginie Capon, and other charming ladies, all styling +themselves actresses, and spending a thousand francs a week out of a +salary of twenty-five. In attendance on this bevy of beauty were some of +the jolliest fellows in Paris. The oldest and most distinguished was Roger +de Beauvoir, whose curly black hair, wonderful waistcoats, and pearl-grey +pantaloons made him the delight of the fair sex, and the envy of his +fellow-boulevardiers. De Beauvallon was also present, but he and Dujarier +were not openly on bad terms, and nothing seemed likely to cloud the +general gaiety. + +The fun waxed fast and furious. Champagne corks popped in all directions, +toasts were drunk to everybody and everything. Dujarier proposed "Monsieur +de Beauvoir's waistcoat," followed by "Monsieur de Beauvoir's raven +locks." The jovial Roger responded with the toast "Friend Dujarier's bald +head," and evoked roars of laughter by drinking to the Memoirs of Count +Montholon, with which _La Presse_ had promised to entertain its readers +for the last five years. Dujarier laughed as loudly as the others; the +champagne had risen to his head. He began to fondle the girls, and became +a little too bold even for their taste. "Anais," he murmured in an audible +whisper to Mademoiselle Lievenne, "je coucherai avec toi en six mois." The +next moment he realised he had gone too far. Recollecting himself, he +apologised, was forgiven, and the incident seemed to be forgotten by all. + +The remains of the supper were removed, curtains drawn back, and one side +of the room left free for dancing, while a card-table occupied the other. +More people dropped in. De Beauvoir, finding the literary editor in such a +good humour, thought the moment opportune to remind him of one of his +romances which _La Presse_ had accepted but seemed in no hurry to publish. +To worry an editor about such a matter at such a moment is to court a +rebuff. Dujarier replied sharply that Dumas's novel would be running for +some time, adding that it was likely to prove more profitable to the paper +than De Beauvoir's serial would be. Roger, the best-humoured of men, was +nettled at this reply, and said so. "Good! do you seek an affair with me?" +retorted the editor. "No, I don't look for affairs, but I sometimes find +them," answered the author. + +It is clear that Dujarier, like his mistress, seldom had his temper under +perfect control. He took a hand at _lansquenet_, and complained of the low +limit imposed by the banker, Monsieur de St. Aignan. He and De Beauvallon +offered to share the bank's risks and winnings. This being agreed to, +Dujarier threw down twenty-five louis, De Beauvallon five and a half. The +bank won twice, and Dujarier was entitled to a hundred louis. But St. +Aignan had made the mistake of understating the amount in the bank before +the cards were dealt, and now, therefore, found that the winnings were not +sufficient to satisfy him and his partners. He was about to make good the +deficit at his own expense, when De Beauvallon generously suggested to +Dujarier that they should share the loss in proportion to their stakes. +The literary editor preferred to stand upon his rights, and seems to have +been backed up by the bystanders. De Beauvallon said nothing more at the +time, but as the candles were flickering low and the party was preparing +to break up, he reminded his rival that he owed him (on some other score) +eighty-four louis. Dujarier replied tartly, but handed him the +seventy-five louis he had won, borrowed the odd nine louis from Collot, +the restaurant-keeper, and thus discharged the debt. He had lost on the +whole evening two thousand five hundred francs. In the grey March dawn +his head became clearer. He vaguely realised he had given deep offence to +two, at least, of his fellow revellers. He returned, anxious and haggard +to his lodgings in the Rue Laffitte, where Lola was eagerly awaiting him. +She guessed at once that something was amiss, and endeavoured in vain to +extract from him the cause of his evident agitation. Returning evasive +answers, the journalist hurried off to the office of _La Presse_. + + + + +XIII + +THE CHALLENGE + + +Whether or not Dujarier had used offensive expressions to De Beauvallon on +this particular occasion, the opportunity for bringing to a head the +long-standing feud between the two newspapers was too good to be missed. + +That afternoon the literary editor was waited upon at his office by two +gentlemen--the Vicomte d'Ecquevillez, a French officer in the Spanish +service, and the Comte de Flers. They informed him that they came upon +behalf of Monsieur de Beauvallon, who considered himself insulted by the +tone of his remarks the previous evening, and required an apology or +satisfaction. Dujarier affected contempt for his rival, making a point of +mispronouncing his name. He had no apology to offer, and referred his +visitors to Monsieur Arthur Berrand, and Monsieur de Boigne. As the +seconds withdrew D'Ecquevillez mentioned that Monsieur de Beauvoir also +considered himself entitled to satisfaction. + +The rest of that day Lola could not but remark the intense pre-occupation +of her lover--that concentration of mind that all men experience at the +near menace of death. On the battle-field it may last for a minute or an +hour; in other circumstances it may last for days together. Dujarier felt +himself already a dead man. He had hardly handled a pistol in his life. He +envied his mistress, who had often given him an exhibition of her powers +as a shot. De Beauvallon, on the other hand, was known to be skilled in +all the arts of attack and defence. Nor could Dujarier doubt that he +wished to see him dead. In the evening Bertrand and De Boigne arrived. +Lola was with difficulty persuaded to leave them to attend her rehearsal. +Dujarier, pale and nervous, discussed the matter with his friends. "C'est +une querelle de boutique!" he exclaimed bitterly, but expressed his +determination to proceed with the affair if it cost him his life. +Bertrand, fully alive to the gravity of the situation, sought De +Beauvallon's seconds, and argued that nothing said by his principal could +be considered ground for an encounter. His efforts at a reconciliation +were useless. De Boigne tried to give precedence to De Beauvoir, who was +accounted an indifferent shot; but that easily placable author had just +lost his mother, and displayed no anxiety to defraud De Beauvallon of his +vengeance. Seeing the encounter was inevitable, Bertrand and De Boigne +exacted from the other side this written statement:-- + + "We, the undersigned, declare that in consequence of a disagreement, + Monsieur Dujarier has been challenged by Monsieur de Beauvallon in + terms which render it impossible for him to decline the encounter. We + have done everything possible to conciliate these gentlemen, and it is + only upon Monsieur de Beauvallon insisting that we have consented to + assist them." + +This statement was signed by all four seconds. It left Dujarier, as the +injured party, the choice of arms. He chose the pistol, thinking, it is +to be presumed, that as his adversary was equally experienced in the use +of the rapier and firearms, chance might possibly favour him with the +latter. + +Lola, while these negotiations were proceeding, was a prey to the most +painful apprehensions. Pressed by her, Dujarier admitted that he was about +to engage in an affair of honour, but gave her to understand that his +opponent would be Roger de Beauvoir. Her alarm at once subsided. No one +feared Roger. "You know I am a woman of courage," she said; "if the duel +is just, I will not prevent it." + +"Oh, what after all is a duel!" said her lover lightly, but she noticed +that his smile was forced. + +She drove to the Porte-St.-Martin; Dujarier, at three in the afternoon, +paid a visit to Alexandre Dumas. He picked up a sword that stood in a +corner of the room, and made a few passes. "You don't know how to wield +the sword, I can see," observed the novelist. "Can you use any other +weapon?" + +"Well, I _must_ use the pistol," replied the journalist significantly. + +"You mean you are going to fight?" + +"Yes, to-morrow, with De Beauvallon." + +Dumas looked grave. "Your adversary is a very good swordsman," he said. +"You had better choose swords. When De Beauvallon sees how you handle the +weapon, the duel will be at an end." + +He told Dujarier that Alexandre, junior, practised at the same +fencing-class as De Beauvallon, and he strongly urged him to reconsider +the choice of weapons. But the journalist was obstinate. He had no +confidence in his opponent's clemency, and he feared his skill with the +rapier. With the pistol there was always a chance; with cold steel he was +bound to be killed. In vain Dumas argued that the sword could spare, while +the pistol could slay, even if the trigger were pulled by the least +experienced hand. Dujarier dined with father and son. The friends parted +at nine in the evening. The journalist, in company with Bertrand, went to +a shooting gallery, where he tried his hand at the pistol. He hit a figure +as large as a man only twice in twenty shots! Dumas strolled into the +Varietes. He was ill at ease. Finally he took a cab and drove to the Rue +Laffitte. He found Dujarier seated at his bureau, writing his will, as it +afterwards proved. + +Dumas returned to the question of weapons. Dujarier showed a disposition +to avoid the whole subject. "You are only losing your time," he said, "and +that is valuable. I don't want you to arrange this affair, mind. It is my +first duel. It is astonishing that I have not had one before. It's a sort +of baptism that I must undergo." + +His friend questioned him as to the cause of the proposed encounter. "Lord +knows!" was the reply, "I can recollect no particular reason. I don't know +what I am fighting about. It's a duel between the _Globe_ and _La +Presse_," he added, "not between Monsieur Dujarier and Monsieur de +Beauvallon." + +Seeing him determined both to fight and to choose fire-arms, Dumas +recommended him at least not to use the hair-trigger pistol. To the +novelist's astonishment, Dujarier admitted he did not know the difference +between one kind of pistol and another. Alexandre said he would show him, +and drove off to his house for the purpose. As he descended the stairs, he +passed Lola, who noticed his agitation. Dujarier was again writing when +she entered his room. He was very pale. Dissimulating his preoccupation, +he invited his mistress to read a flattering notice on her performance +from the pen of Monsieur de Boigne. But Lola was not to be thus diverted +from her purpose. She implored her lover to tell her more about the +proposed encounter, to reveal the cause of his evident anxiety. He merely +replied that he was extremely busy, that there was nothing to worry about. +He insisted on her returning to her own apartments. "I'll come and see you +to-morrow," he promised, "and, Lola!--if--if I should leave Paris for any +reason, I don't want you to lose sight of my friends. Promise that. They +are good sorts." + +He almost forced Lola out of the house, only to admit Dumas a few minutes +later. The novelist had brought a brand-new pair of pistols. "Use these," +he said; "I'll give you a written statement that they have not been used +before. That ought to satisfy the seconds." Dujarier shook his head. "Look +here," said Dumas solemnly, "your luck has endured a long time. Take care +that it does not fail you now." + +His friend's well-meant pertinacity irritated the journalist. He replied +brusquely: "What would you? Do you want me to pass for a coward? If I +don't accept this challenge, I shall have others. De Beauvallon is +determined to fasten a quarrel on me. One of his seconds told me so. He +said my face displeased him. However, this affair over, I shall be left in +peace." + +It was one o'clock in the morning. Dumas, having exhausted all the +resources of argument and persuasion, rose to depart. "At least," he +counselled his friend, "don't fight till two in the afternoon. It is no +use getting up early for so unpleasant an affair. Besides, I know you. +You are always at your worst--nervous and fidgety--between ten and +eleven." + +"You know that," said Dujarier eagerly, "you won't think it fear? And, +Dumas," ... he went to his desk, and wrote a cheque on Laffitte's for a +thousand crowns. "I owe you this. Now this is drawn on my private account, +and as the duel takes place at eleven, go there before eleven, for you +don't know what may happen. Go there _before eleven_, for after that my +credit may be dead. I beg of you, go before eleven." + +The two friends wrung each other's hand, and Dumas, heavy at heart, went +downstairs. Dujarier was left to his thoughts. The reflections of a man +who is practically sure that he will be dead next day are quite peculiar. +The sensation is not fear in the ordinary acceptation of the term. It is +an effort to realise what no man ever can properly realise--that the world +around you, which in one (and a very true) sense has no existence except +as it is perceived by you, will, notwithstanding, be existing to-morrow +evening, while you will not exist. Intellectually you know this, but you +cannot realise it. + +At such moments men turn with relief to the pen. With ink and paper you +can project yourself beyond your own grave. Dujarier signed his will, +which began with these words:-- + + "On the eve of fighting for the most absurd reasons, on the most + frivolous of pretexts, and without its being possible for my friends, + Arthur Bertrand and Charles de Boigne, to avoid an encounter, which + was provoked in terms that forced me on my honour to accept, I set + forth hereafter my last wishes...." + +Then he wrote to his mother. + + "MY GOOD MOTHER,--If this letter reaches you, it will be because I am + dead or dangerously wounded. I shall exchange shots to-morrow with + pistols. It is a necessity of my position, and I accept it as a man of + courage. If anything could have induced me to decline the challenge, + it would have been the grief which the blow would cause you, were I + struck. But the law of honour is imperative, and if you must weep, + dear mother, I would rather it be for a son worthy of you than for a + coward. Let this thought assuage your grief: my last thought will have + been of you. I shall go to the encounter to-morrow calm and sure of + myself. Right is on my side. I embrace you, dear mother, with all the + warmth of my heart. + + "DUJARIER." + +There was nothing more to be done or to be said. Only a few hours of the +night remained. The experienced duellist would have steadied his nerves by +as long a sleep as possible. But Dujarier regarded himself as doomed. He +mentally contrasted his miserable performances at the shooting gallery +with the wonderful things De Beauvallon was reported to have done with the +pistol in Cuba. The stories might be inventions. He tried to snatch a few +hours' sleep.[9] + + + + +XIV + +THE DUEL + + +The morning of the 11th March dawned. The ground was white with snow. +Dujarier was taking his light French breakfast when Lola's maid brought +him a message. She wished to see him. He promised to come at once, and the +servant took her leave. Dujarier hastily scribbled these lines:-- + + "MY DEAR LOLA,--I am going out to fight a duel with pistols. This will + explain why I wished to pass the night alone, and why I have not gone + to see you this morning. I need all the composure at my command and + you would have excited in me too much emotion. I will be with you at + two o'clock, unless----Good-bye, my dear little Lola, the dear little + girl I love. + + D." + +It was seven o'clock. He told his servant to deliver the letter about +nine. He then rose and walked to De Boigne's house in the Rue Pinon. There +he found the four seconds in consultation. He saluted them, and thanked De +Boigne for his notice of Lola. The conditions of the encounter were then +signed and read. The combatants were to be placed at thirty paces +distance, and could make five forward before firing, but each was to step +after the other had fired. One was to fire immediately after the other. A +coin was spun to determine who should provide the pistols; but it was +understood that the weapons were not to have been used before by the +combatants. The coin decided in favour of De Beauvallon. D'Ecquevillez +then produced a pair of pistols, which he gave the other seconds to +understand were his personal property. He and De Flers then went in search +of their principal. Dujarier and his friends returned to the Rue Laffitte, +where they picked up the doctor, Monsieur de Guise, and drove off, all +four, to the Bois de Boulogne. + +The rendezvous was a secluded spot near the Restaurant de Madrid. There +is, and probably was then, a _tir aux pigeons_ close by. The morning was +intensely cold, and no one was about. A few snowflakes were falling as the +party arrived. There was no sign of De Beauvallon and his seconds, though +it was now ten o'clock. The four men impatiently paced up and down, +Bertrand and De Boigne conversing in low tones as to the probable result +of the encounter, while Dujarier talked with the doctor on matters in +general. De Guise, however, could not refrain from questioning him as to +the cause of the affair. The journalist related the episodes at the Freres +Provencaux, from his own point of view, and said that D'Ecquevillez had +told him that De Beauvallon intended to fight him "because he did not like +him." "I naturally replied," continued Dujarier, "that many people might +not like me, and I could not be supposed on that account to fight them. +D'Ecquevillez retorted that his principal would force me to fight by a +blow and an insult. This threat was in itself an insult. I accepted the +challenge." + +The doctor observed the journalist closely. He was shivering with the +cold, and the nervous excitement, which Dumas had remarked in him always +at this hour, was manifesting itself. The seconds drew near, and De Guise +gave it as his professional opinion that Dujarier was not in a condition +to fight. Bertrand and De Boigne joined their entreaties to his, and +argued that having waited an hour for the other party, they could in all +honour retire from the field. Dujarier refused to do any such thing. +Before all things, like most nervous men, he dreaded the imputation of +cowardice. The cold and the excitement made him tremble. His friends would +suspect him of fear; therefore, at all hazards, he must give them proof of +his courage. + +Finding his persuasions futile, De Guise resigned himself to listen to a +long and minute account of the quarrel with De Beauvoir. The recital was +finished when the sound of carriage wheels was heard. Dujarier's heart +must have given a big leap! A shabby cab drove up and out of it jumped De +Beauvallon and his seconds. De Boigne accosted the Creole with some +asperity. He remarked that it was confoundedly cold, and that he and his +principal had been kept waiting for an hour and a half. D'Ecquevillez, who +seems to have done most of the talking throughout the whole affair, turned +to Bertrand, and explained that they had been delayed by the necessity of +purchasing ammunition and by the slowness of the cab horse. + +De Boigne now addressed himself to De Beauvallon, and made a final effort +to arrange the dispute. "I speak to you," he said, "as one who has had +experience of these affairs. There is nothing to fight about. Your friends +have put it into your head that an insult was intended." + +"Sir," replied De Beauvallon coldly, "you say there is no motive for this +duel. I think differently, since I am here with my seconds. You don't +suggest any other course. The position is the same as yesterday, when it +was settled that we should fight. Besides, an affair of this sort is not +to be arranged on the field." + +De Boigne shrugged his shoulders. He had done his utmost for his friend. +He and De Flers selected the ground, and with the consent of the other, he +measured forty-three paces, diminishing the distance originally agreed to. +D'Ecquevillez, meanwhile, had produced his pistols, recognisable by their +blue barrels. Bertrand was about to charge one, when he introduced his +finger into the muzzle, and withdrew it, black to the depth of the +finger-nail. He looked at the other. "These pistols have been tried," he +said. + +"On my honour," declared D'Ecquevillez, "we have only tried them with +powder. Monsieur de Beauvallon has never handled them before." + +With this positive assurance Bertrand had to be content. The pistols were +again tried with caps. With grave misgivings, he and De Boigne placed +their man. De Beauvallon also took up position. Dujarier took his pistol +from his second so clumsily that he moved the trigger and nearly blew De +Boigne's head off. + +The signal was given. Dujarier fired instantly. His ball flew wide of the +mark. He let drop his pistol, and faced his adversary. + +De Beauvallon very deliberately raised his arms and covered his opponent. +The spectators held their breath. "Fire, damn you! fire!" cried De Boigne, +exasperated by his slowness. The Creole pulled the trigger. For an instant +Dujarier stood erect. The next, he fell, huddled up on to the ground. The +doctor rushed towards him. His practised eye told him that the wound was +mortal. The bullet had entered near the bridge of the nose, and broken the +occipital bone, so as to produce a concussion of the spine. De Guise +assured Dujarier the wound was not serious and told him to spit. He tried +in vain to do so. Bertrand summoned the carriage to approach. De Boigne +leant over his friend, and asked him if he suffered much pain. Dujarier, +already inarticulate, nodded; his eyelids dropped, and he fell back in the +physician's arms. He was dead. + +D'Ecquevillez, seeing Dujarier fall, offered Bertrand his assistance. He +was rebuffed, told to gather up his pistols, and to go. He hurried off +with the other second and his principal, who murmured: "Mon Dieu! Mon +Dieu!" as he passed his late adversary. "How have I conducted myself?" he +asked his second. + +"I hope I shall always act in similar circumstances as you did," was the +reassuring reply. + +Meanwhile, Dumas had gone, full of anxiety, to the Rue Laffitte, to find +that his friend had left the house, with what object he guessed. He +noticed as a sinister omen that there was blood on the banister. He went +away, sad at heart, to await the result of the combat. + +Lola, on the receipt of her lover's note, hurried at once to his house. +She burst into his bedroom and saw two pistols--Alexandre's, no +doubt--lying upon the quilt. Gabriel, Dujarier's servant, who had followed +her, shook his head sadly, and said, "My master knows very well he will +not return." In an instant Lola was again outside the house, driving to +her good friend, Dumas's. The novelist told her that it was with De +Beauvallon, not with De Beauvoir, that their friend had gone to exchange +shots. "My God!" she cried, "then he is a dead man!" + +She rushed back to the Rue Laffitte. She spent half an hour in agony of +mind, when the sound of a carriage stopping fell upon her ears. She flew +into the street, and opened the carriage door. A heavy body lurched +against her bosom. It was her dead lover. + + + + +XV + +THE RECKONING + + +It was not in fair fight that Dujarier had fallen. Before even he had been +carried to his grave, with Balzac, Mery, Dumas, and De Girardin as his +pall-bearers, the suspicions of all his friends had been aroused. At Dr. +Verons, the morning of his death, Bertrand showed Dumas his finger-tip +still blackened by the barrel of De Beauvallon's pistol. Would a pistol +which had not been charged with ball leave such a stain? Experts present +said no. The suspicion that De Beauvallon had made doubly sure of killing +his adversary by trying his weapon beforehand ripened in the minds of many +into conviction. How, too, had the Creole spent the early part of the +morning? Why did he not come with his seconds to the Rue Pinon. What was +he doing while Dujarier was awaiting him in the Bois? The affair began to +wear a very sinister complexion. Representations were made to the police. +Enquiries were set on foot, and De Beauvallon and D'Ecquevillez promptly +retired across the Spanish frontier. + +Lola had sustained a staggering blow. She was sincerely attached to +Dujarier, who had been more to her than any other man had been. The memory +of her husband was hateful. Liszt had flashed suddenly across her path, +to disappear a few weeks later. Besides, he had given her up of his own +accord. But this man had shared her life for months, had loved her to the +last, had cared for her both as a lover and a husband. In his will he left +her eighteen shares in the Palais Royal Theatre, representing twenty +thousand francs. She referred, years after, and no doubt sincerely, to his +death as a loss that could never be made up to her. + +The luxury of grief is allowed in scant measure to those who minister to +the public's amusement. They must dry their tears quickly. Three weeks +after the fatal duel, Lola made her appearance at the Porte-St.-Martin +Theatre, in _La Biche au Bois_. The audience was no less critical than at +the Opera. She was hissed, and with her usual audacity, she exasperated +the public still more by expressing her contempt for them upon the stage. +So ended her career as a _danseuse_ in the French capital. + +She lingered on in Paris, notwithstanding, frequenting the society of her +dead lover's friends in accordance with his last wishes. The legacy had +relieved her for the moment of the necessity of earning her living. She +longed to see retribution overtake the man who had robbed her of all that +life held dear. Justice seemed for a time to pursue the slayer with leaden +feet. In July the Royal Court of Paris practically exonerated the seconds, +and De Beauvallon thought it safe to surrender voluntarily. The +explanations he gave as to his movements on the 10th and 11th March did +not, as he had hoped they would, satisfy the authorities. The Court of +Cassation quashed the decision of the lower court, and sent the accused +for trial, on the charge of murder, before the Assize Court of Rouen. + +The case is one of the most celebrated in the annals of French justice. It +all turned on the article in the code of honour that forbids a duellist to +make use of arms which he has already tried, and with which he is +proficient. All the witnesses--among whom were professed experts--agreed +that this rule was absolute. The case, which raised many other nice points +of law, was heard before the President of the Tribunal, Monsieur Letendre +de Tourville. The prosecution was conducted by the King's Procurator +(General Salveton), the Advocate-General, and two very able counsel, +Maitres Leon Duval and Romiguiere. But the defence had a tower of strength +in the great advocate Berryer, the defender of Ney, Lamennais, +Chateaubriand, and Louis Napoleon--the greatest pleader and, after +Mirabeau, the greatest orator his country has produced. + +A trial whereat Alexandre Dumas and Lola Montez, to say nothing of the +lesser lights of the literary and theatrical world, appeared as witnesses, +excited immense interest. Dumas produced a sensation which must have +rejoiced his heart on entering the witness-box. He was asked his name and +profession. "Alexandre Dumas, Marquis Davy de la Pailleterie," he replied +with evident complacency; "and I should call myself a dramatist if I were +not in the country of Corneille." + +"There are degrees in everything," replied the learned President. + +Claudin, who heard these oft-quoted words, gives it as his opinion that +Dumas expressed himself thus from a genuine sense of modesty, and that the +judge did not succeed in being funny. + +The great Alexandre was in very good form throughout the whole trial, +which lasted from the 26th to the 30th March 1846, inclusive. He +expounded the laws and principles of the duel, with copious commentaries. +He quoted an authoritative work on the subject, drawn up by a body of +noblemen and gentlemen--a work which the judge dryly observed he did not +intend to add to his library. At the conclusion of the first part of his +evidence (the gist of which we know) he solicited leave to return to +Paris, to assist at the representation of one of his dramas in five acts. +Dumas never lost an opportunity of advertising himself. He managed also to +drag his son into the box, though the latter had really nothing to say. + +The frail, fair ladies of the supper-party also had to run the gauntlet of +examination and cross-examination. The virtuous ladies of Rouen, anxious +to hear the most scandalous details of the case, filled the space reserved +for the public, and having feasted their eyes on the _demi-mondaines_, +obstinately refused to let these find seats among them. Mademoiselle +Lievenne appeared in a charming toilette of blue velvet, with a red +Cashmere shawl, and a pearl-grey satin hood. Lola, as befitted the +melancholy occasion, wore the garb of mourning, and never, perhaps, showed +to more advantage than in her close-fitting black satin costume and +flowing shawl. She was the cynosure of all eyes. Though a year had passed +since the event now being discussed, her utterance was choked with sobs, +and the reading of Dujarier's last note caused her to shed floods of +tears. She declared that had she known it was De Beauvallon with whom her +lover intended to fight, she would have communicated with the police and +prevented the duel. "I would have gone to the rendezvous myself," she +cried with characteristic spirit. In her Memoirs, she adds that she would +have fought De Beauvallon herself, and her life-story testifies that this +was no empty gasconade. + +That Dujarier's death had been premeditated by his antagonist was +abundantly proved at the trial. The pistols which the dead man's seconds +had been led to believe belonged to D'Ecquevillez were now admitted to be +the property of the accused's brother-in-law, Monsieur Granier de +Cassagnac. They had been in the possession of De Beauvallon since the eve +of the encounter. Circumstantial evidence went to show that he was +familiar with the weapons, and had practised with them on the fatal +morning. But the testimony of the witnesses, the facts themselves, the +skilful pleading of Duval, prevailed not against the eloquence of Berryer. +His magical powers of oratory brought the jury round to his point of view, +and De Beauvallon was acquitted of the charge of murder, though cast in +damages of twenty thousand francs towards the mother and the sister of his +victim. + +The affair did not end there. The friends of Dujarier refused to be +diverted from the trail of vengeance. Fresh and conclusive evidence came +to light, and De Beauvallon and D'Ecquevillez were placed on their trial +for perjury during the first hearing. As regarded D'Ecquevillez, it was +established that he was no viscount, but a _bourgeois_ of doubtful +antecedents named Vincent, that his rank in the Spanish service was merely +that of a militia captain, and that his evidence, in general, was +worthless. It was proved that De Beauvallon had tried the pistols the very +morning of the duel in a garden at Chaillot, taking aim with them not +once, but a dozen times. Dujarier had been the victim of a deliberate +conspiracy. Both the accused were found guilty and condemned (9th October +1847) to eight years' imprisonment. Both escaped from prison during the +Revolution of the following year. The principal criminal returned to his +native isle, where his liberation was judicially sanctioned. His +subsequent appeal to obtain a reversal of his sentence was rejected by the +Court of Cassation in 1855. + +Lola had left France long before the assassin of her lover was finally +brought to justice. + + "In another six months," writes "the Englishman in Paris," "her name + was almost forgotten by all of us, except by Alexandre Dumas, who now + and then alluded to her. Though far from superstitious, Dumas, who had + been as much smitten with her as most of her admirers, avowed that he + was glad that she had disappeared. 'She has the evil eye,' he said, + 'and is sure to bring bad luck to any one who closely links his + destiny with hers, for however short a time. You see what has occurred + to Dujarier? If ever she is heard of again, it will be in connection + with some terrible calamity that has befallen a lover of hers.' We all + laughed at him, except Dr. Veron, who could have given odds to Solomon + Eagle himself at prophesying. For once in a way, however, Alexandre + Dumas proved correct. When we did hear again of Lola Montes, it was in + connection with the disturbances at Munich, and the abdication of her + Royal lover, Louis I. of Bavaria." + + + + +XVI + +IN QUEST OF A PRINCE + + +"The moment I get a nice, round, lump sum of money, I am going to try to +hook a prince." In these words Lola is said to have announced her ambition +to "the Englishman in Paris." That gossipy exile, whoever he was in this +particular instance, was no friend of hers, and took care, no doubt, to +render her expressions as brutally as possible. I do not doubt that he has +interpreted her meaning truthfully enough. It is clear that Lola was an +inordinately ambitious woman, eager to play a leading part in great +affairs. Her association with Dujarier and other active politicians, the +glimpses she had so often obtained of courts and thrones, stimulated this +longing for power. She felt within her the capacity to rule men, and the +ability to surmount great obstacles. A personal courage was hers, such as +would have earned its possessor, if a man, the cross of honour. She feared +not the bright face of danger, dreading only that circumstance might put +the things she coveted beyond her reach. Valour alone, she knew, is seldom +rewarded in a woman. It is considered by the women, and more particularly +the men, who do not possess it, unwomanly. Intellect, again, she had; but +its development had been checked, its faculties neglected, under the +Early Victorian system of women's education. Besides, the most superficial +observer could not have failed to see, that while learning in a man was +accounted a qualification for responsibilities and honours, in a woman it +was regarded as a not altogether enviable peculiarity--like an aquiline +nose, or the gift of sword-swallowing. In the five years Lola had passed +in the various capitals of Europe, it had become very plain to her that +what men supremely prize in women is physical beauty. The governing sex +attached no rewards (or, at any rate, the meagrest) to courage and wisdom. +They asked woman only to be beautiful. Some insisted that she should also +be virtuous, by which they meant she should bestow herself upon one of +them exclusively. In other words, they allowed women to influence them +only through the senses; and by the means they had themselves selected, +the ambitious woman had no choice but to attack them. + +Over the grave of Dujarier Lola may well have exclaimed, "Farewell, love!" +Every one of her attachments had ended unhappily--the first ingloriously, +the last tragically. Under such blows, her nature hardened. Ambition +revived as sentiment waned. There was something worth living for still. At +Rouen she heard the murderer of her lover acquitted. Bitter and +disillusioned, she turned her steps towards Germany. Thanks to Dujarier, +she had now "the round, lump sum of money" necessary to the execution of +her project; and in Germany, with its thirty-six sovereigns, she could +hardly fail to encounter a prince. She travelled about from watering-place +to watering-place, from Wiesbaden to Homburg, from Homburg to +Baden-Baden, "punting in a small way, not settling down anywhere, and +almost deliberately avoiding both Frenchmen and Englishmen." At Baden it +was rumoured that the Prince of Orange (probably an old friend of her +Simla days) was among her admirers. There also she met that puissant +prince, Henry LXXII. of Reuss, who straightway fell in love with her. He +invited her to pay a visit to his exiguous dominions, and she went, +probably feeling that she was playing the part of sparrow-hawk. At the +Court of Reuss she suffered agonies of boredom. The etiquette was as +strict as in the palace of the Most Catholic King, and the deference +exacted by Henry LXXII. as profound as though he had been Czar of all the +Russias. True, in his territory, only half as large again as the county of +Middlesex, he wielded a power as absolute as that autocrat's. Of this +pettiness the beautiful stranger soon showed her impatience. Her infirmity +of temper betrayed itself. She infringed His Highness's prerogative by +chastising his subjects--still, this could be overlooked by an indulgent +prince. But when Henry one morning beheld Lola walking straight across his +flower-beds, he felt that it was time to vindicate the outraged majesty of +the throne. With his own august hands he wrote and signed an order, +expelling Mademoiselle Montez from the principality. To this decree effect +was only given when His Highness had satisfied to the last pfennig a +tremendously long bill for expenses, presented to him by the audacious +offender. + +As it is hardly possible to take a long walk without overstepping the +limits of the principality, not many hours elapsed before Lola was beyond +the reach of Henry's wrath. She had the choice of various retreats. The +neighbouring duchy of Saxe-Altenburg she, no doubt, contemptuously +dismissed. To the north lay Prussia; but she could expect no welcome +there. Frederick William, after her memorable adventure at the review, had +given her to understand that his police could be better employed than in +teaching her manners. She avoided Weimar, where her old lover, Liszt, had +established himself in company with the Princess Zu Sayn-Wittgenstein. She +may have lingered awhile in these pretty, petty Thuringian states, with +their charming capitals set in the forest glades; and perhaps have made a +pilgrimage to the Venusberg, near Eisenach, where her prototype ensnared +Tannhaeuser. The spirit of that old _minnesaenger_ was not altogether dead. +Something of it glowed in the heart of the grey-haired man who reigned +over Bavaria. Deliberately or aimlessly, Lola Montez, the Venus of her +generation, journeyed south towards Munich. + + + + +XVII + +THE KING OF BAVARIA + + +At that time Louis I., who wore the Bavarian crown, was a man sixty-one +years old. He, "the most German of the Germans," as he had been styled, +was by an odd freak of fortune born in France. His father, Max Joseph, +though brother of the Duke of Pfalz-Zweibruecken, commanded a regiment in +the French service, and it was at Strasbourg that the child was born in +1786. His father's grenadiers shaved off their moustaches to stuff his +pillow with. The name bestowed on him in baptism was that of his +godfather, the ill-fated King of France. But the Revolution soon drove him +with his family across the Rhine, to Mannheim and to Rohrbach. Death +quickly cleared the boy a path to the throne. His father presently +succeeded his brother as Duke, and a few years later upon the extinction +of the elder line of the Wittelsbachs, became Elector of Bavaria. + +Even in the stormy first decade of the nineteenth century princes had to +be educated, and in the year 1803 we find Louis at Goettingen, sitting at +the feet of Johannes Mueller, who infused him with a lively sense of +nationality and a reverence for all things German. This was to stand the +Prince in good stead in the dark days that followed. Those were years of +profound humiliation for Germany, of poignant suffering for her people. +Even in the 'forties few Germans took pride in the name, some of them +settled in London and Paris, deeming it almost a reproach. In his +country's blackest night the Bavarian prince loudly proclaimed his faith +in a glorious dawn. He exulted in the name of German. He was "teutsch" (as +he always wrote the word) to the very core. + +He was German not least in his passion for the South. Italy was his first, +last, and best-beloved mistress. In her bosom he was inspired with that +love for the arts which was stronger even than his patriotism. Returning +to Germany, he saw with disgust his father embrace the alliance of +Napoleon and turn his arms against Austria--German fighting German. At +Strasbourg, on hearing the news of the capitulation at Ulm, he dared to +say to the Empress Josephine: "The greatest victory for me will be when +this, my native city, is united to Germany." He accompanied Max Joseph to +the Emperor's headquarters at Linz in 1805, when Bavaria was erected by +the conqueror's decree into a kingdom. The new Crown Prince made no secret +of his antipathies. Anxious to win him over, Napoleon carried him off to +Paris, and only succeeded in disgusting him by his irreverence during +divine worship. Louis was a devout and sincere Catholic. From the +Tuileries he intrigued for the overthrow of his host and gaoler with Czar +Alexander. His father got wind of these negotiations and recalled him to +Munich. Thence he was sent to join the Bavarian army in Prussia. With +unspeakable bitterness he heard that the victory of Jena was celebrated at +his father's capital with a _Te Deum_ and public rejoicings. In January +1807, in the train of the conquering army, he reached Berlin. There his +first act was to unveil a bust of Frederick the Great! + + +[Illustration: LOUIS OF BAVARIA. WHEN ELECTORAL PRINCE.] + + +At the beginning of the campaign against Russia, at Napoleon's request, +which was practically a command, Louis took the head of the Bavarian army. +Years after, he refused to sanction the publication of a work on his +military achievements at this time. With the war-weary veteran of De +Vigny's tale, he might have said: "J'ai appris a detester la guerre, en la +faisant avec energie." For he was no carpet knight. Though compelled to +draw the sword against men of his own race and their allies, he wielded it +well. Under a hot fire he led his troops across the Narew, and at Pultusk +won the Grand Cross of the Order of Max Joseph. Such services could not +blind Napoleon to his lieutenant's real sympathies. In his indignation +against what he considered the ingratitude and treachery of his ally's +son, he is reported to have exclaimed: "Quoi m'empeche de fusilier ce +prince?" He dared not go to such desperate lengths. Instead, he superseded +Louis in the command of the Bavarian army, at the beginning of the +campaign of 1809, by one of his own marshals, Lefebvre, Duke of Danzig. To +the Prince was assigned simply the command of a division. He fought well +at Abensberg, where the _mot d'ordre_ was _Bravoure et Baviere_. "It is to +Germans that the Emperor owes this victory over Germans," he boasted +bitterly. + +In the revolt of the Tyrolese against the Bavarian yoke imposed on them by +the French, his heart went out to the gallant insurgents. He pensioned a +son of the patriot Speckbacher, and condoled with Hofer's wife on the +execution of her husband. Napoleon's indignation knew no bounds. "This +prince," he declared, "shall never reign in Bavaria!" He destined the +crown for Eugene Beauharnais, or one of his children. + +But it was Louis's policy that triumphed in 1813. With delight he beheld +his father desert the sinking ship of France, and from Salzburg (then +belonging to Bavaria) he issued a proclamation, urging all the German +people to rise against the common oppressor. Wrede, with a Bavarian army, +threw himself across the path of the retreating French at Hanau, to find +that the wounded eagle's talons could still snatch a bloody victory. In +the campaigns of 1814 and 1815, Louis took no active part. His father +dreaded that he might fall into the hands of Napoleon, who regarded him +with intense hatred. The Prince had to be content with the part of +Tyrtaeus, and in odes, not deficient in merit, stirred the patriotic +feelings of his countrymen. + +After Waterloo he sheathed the sword that he had wielded reluctantly, but +not ingloriously. "I was never a general," he said, "but a soldier, +yes--with all my heart." He was now free to devote himself to matters +which more strongly, perhaps, appealed to him. At Vienna and London he +watched over the interests of the arts. He pleaded (and not +unsuccessfully) for the restitution of the artistic treasures Napoleon had +carried off, and wrote on the subject of the Elgin marbles with judgment +and critical acumen. He sought the acquaintance of the brilliant and the +learned, presiding over a _coterie_ of painters, sculptors, and +_literati_. The winters of 1817-8 and 1820-1 he spent in the Eternal City, +residing at the Bavarian Embassy or at the Villa Malta on the Pincio. He +knew Canova and Thorwaldsen, and laid the foundations of his firm and +life-long intimacy with the sculptor, Wagner. On the Neue Pinakothek at +Munich is a picture by Catel, representing one of those joyous and +scholarly _reunions_ in which Louis delighted. He is shown seated at a +table in a humble _osteria_ on the Ripa Grande, in the company of +Thorwaldsen, Wagner, the artists Veit, Von Schnorr, and Catel himself, the +architect Von Klenze, Professor Ringseis, Count Seinsheim, and Colonel von +Gumppenberg. It was in such company, and beneath the blue sky of Italy, +that "the most German of the Germans" was happiest. His aesthetic faculties +were altogether exotic. His style of literary composition is compared by +an English writer to a dislocation of all the limbs of a human body. + + "Nothing can be more un-German, more opposed to the genius of the + language, than this extraordinary style, the like of which is not to + be found in the whole range of German literature.[10] It is an + aberration of which we have an English example in 'Carlylese.'" + +Louis succeeded his father as King of Bavaria in October 1825. He was then +in his fortieth year. A shrewd connoisseur, he had devoted nearly all his +income as Prince to the acquisition of objects of art. It was his ambition +to make his capital a new Florence, and to carry out this design the +strictest economy was introduced into all departments of the state. The +Munich we know was mainly his creation. To him we owe the Glyptothek, of +which he had conceived the idea at least as far back as 1805; the +beautiful Au Church, the Royal Chapel, the Ludwigskirche, the Church of +St. Boniface, the splendid throne-room, the bronze monument to the +Bavarian soldiers who fell in the Russian campaigns. The quaint old German +city was completely transformed. Unfortunately, the royal Maecenas failed +to recognise the worth of native models, such as were to be found in +Nuremberg. All his buildings were duplicates, or close imitations, of +others on the south side of the Alps. The Triumphal Arch in Ludwigstrasse, +with its bronze car drawn by lions, was obviously suggested by the +well-known models of Paris and Rome. To Louis's zeal we are indebted also +for the Pinakothek and the colossal statue of Bavaria. Finally, in 1830, +on the anniversary of the battle of Leipzig, the King laid the +foundation-stone of the Walhalla, the temple of German greatness, thus +accomplishing a design he had formed twenty-five years before. Lofty as +was the execution, the conception was loftier. It took place + + "just after the Emperor Francis II. had uncrowned himself, declaring + that the Holy Roman Empire--the empire of a thousand years--was at an + end. It was at such a time, when the fabric that had stood for ten + centuries had crumbled into dust; when the tramp of the conqueror + threatened to efface all ancient institutions; when every existing + dynasty of the continent of Europe was trembling for its existence; + when principalities were being moulded into kingdoms, kingdoms + dismembered or destroyed, God's very barriers trampled down and + passed; when works of art, the heirlooms of a nation, were torn from + the land that had produced them to deck the capital of the conqueror; + when victory followed victory--Marengo, Hohenlinden, Ulm, Austerlitz, + Jena, Friedland; when king's crowns and mitres, like withered leaves, + lay strewn upon the ground, and when it might well be feared that in + that ancient land soon nothing would be left of its former self to + recognise its identity--at such a moment was it, when devastation + threatened to put out the lights which had been shining for ages, that + the Prince Royal of Bavaria, then twenty-three years of age, resolved + to build a monument to the glory of his country."[11] + +There were the elements of greatness in Louis of Bavaria. In magnanimity +of soul he was very far the superior of those sovereigns to whom +historians have accorded the title of "the great." Nor was he lacking, as +we have seen, in the will and capacity to give to his loftiest conceptions +practical shape. + + "Throughout life," says the writer just quoted, "King Louis ordered + his expenses with the exactness of a debtor and creditor account in a + banker's ledger. The necessary monies for certain undertakings were + assigned beforehand for each coming year. Every separate expenditure + was provided for from specified sources, and each rubric had a + corresponding one belonging to it, whence its expenses were to be + defrayed." + +No Bond Street dealer could be a shrewder judge of the value of a work of +art than the Bavarian prince; he was no wasteful _dilettante_, but brought +to bear on the embellishment of his capital the keenest business +instincts. He watched with unflagging attention the fluctuations in the +prices of the treasures he coveted. We find him comparing Thorwaldsen's +and Canova's estimates of the value of the Barberini Faun, and refusing to +pay an extra scudo for the carriage of a statue. Yet he was not a +niggard. Those he honoured with his friendship he never left to want. A +sick or indigent artist had only to bring his need to the King's notice, +to receive liberal relief. He was a warm-hearted and constant friend. His +last letter to Wagner is as affectionate in tone as the first he addressed +to him forty-eight years before. The permanency of his friendships was in +a great degree due to his good sense in making them. His associates were +men, not only of genius and learning, but of sterling worth and character. +They were not the kind of men to flatter his vanity, or to humour his +foibles. Returning to Rome after his accession, Louis announced his +intention of continuing the course of life he had pursued as Prince, but +thought he ought to assume some little outward state. Wagner replied: "The +King of Spain certainly used to drive about in a coach and six, with +footmen in grand liveries; but, notwithstanding, I never heard that any +one had the least respect for him. Simplicity is most consistent with +dignity: and the course you formerly pursued, sire, will be the best to +pursue in the future." + +To this artist-king Germany owes its first railway. A short but very +important line was constructed by his command from Nuremberg to Fuerth in +1835, and was followed up by lines connecting Munich with Augsburg and +Nuremberg with Bamberg. In these projects may be traced the inception of +the whole German railway system. Thanks also to Louis, the steamboat first +ploughed German waters, a service being inaugurated under his auspices on +the Bodensee. The important canal connecting the Danube with the Main, and +affording thereby direct water communication between the North Sea and +the Black Sea, bears the King's name, and was executed at his order. The +idealist, the man whom some writers in their ignorance dismiss as +half-_minnesaenger_, half-_virtuoso_, was keenly alive to the material +needs of his subjects. The commercial treaties concluded with Wuertemberg +in 1827 and with Prussia in 1833 laid the foundations of the Zollverein, +itself the basis of the political unity of all Germany. The empire owes +much to Louis I. Had he been the monarch of a more powerful state, the +imperial crown might have been his. "Were such a dignity offered to him," +his brother-in-law, Frederick William, is reported to have said, "the King +of Bavaria would accept it for the sake of the picturesque costume!" The +sneer evinced a knowledge of the weaker side of a noble character, but it +is still open to question whether a Wittelsbach would not have more +worthily filled the imperial throne than a Hohenzollern. Humanity and the +arts would surely have been gainers. + + + + +XVIII + +REACTION IN BAVARIA + + +All generous ideals took root and blossomed in the heart of the Bavarian +prince. He loved his country, he loved the arts, he venerated the Catholic +faith, and (oddest of all in a German prince) he loved liberty. The +beginning of his reign was marked by the most liberal administration. +Extensive reforms were carried out in every department of state. Many old +feudal institutions and privileges which had survived the Napoleonic +deluge were swept away, including a multitude of archaic courts and +jurisdictions. The powers of the censorship of the Press were considerably +curtailed and recognition extended to the Protestants in the departments +of public worship and instruction. Retrenchment and economy were enforced +upon Louis by his great expenditure on public works. A million florins +were saved in the army estimates, and official salaries were seriously cut +down. An economy, not so commendable, was also effected by reducing the +pensions to retired civil servants and their widows, whose complaints were +distinctly heard above the chorus of approbation that greeted the +administration of the Liberal King. Looking, perhaps, too, to the rapid +development of the railway system, he suffered the roads of Bavaria to +fall into a deplorable state of neglect. + +Louis was not a Liberal of the Manchester School. His sympathy with +freedom and progress was genuine, and he loyally observed the provisions +of a not very democratic constitution. But there can be no doubt that he +believed rather in government for the people than by the people. In the +particular instance he was abundantly justified, for in general +enlightenment he was several centuries ahead of his subjects. Five years +after his succession to the throne, his good resolutions were rudely +shattered by the Revolution of July. Why that event should have arrested +him in the path of progress it is not easy to divine, for Charles X. lost +his crown through obstinately opposing, not by stimulating, Liberal +tendencies. In the Revolution the reactionary or Ultramontane party of +Bavaria saw their chance, however, and gained the King's ear. They dwelt +on the natural alliance of throne and altar, and the identity of +liberalism in religion with liberalism in politics. Only in a religious +people, they argued, could a king place his trust. Secure of royal +protection and encouragement, friars, nuns, and ecclesiastics of all kinds +came flocking into Bavaria. Monasteries, convents, and church schools +threatened to become as numerous as they are now in England. Some made +light of this black-robed invasion, and attributed it to the King's +well-known fondness for the mediaeval and the picturesque. But a real +change had come over Louis. Germany was seething with discontent, and +revolution was in the air. The King remembered the fate of his godfather, +and decided to take the side of reaction. The censorship of the Press was +again enforced. Those who were found guilty of _lese-majeste_ were +condemned to make a public apology to the King's portrait or statue--an +almost Gilbertian penalty. Soldiers, Protestants and Catholic, were alike +ordered to kneel when the Host was carried past. Repressive laws were +enacted against the Lutherans and Calvinists, and Germany seemed on the +point of passing once more under the sway of Rome. Louis had lost his +head. A few clod-hoppers brawling over their beer appeared to him an +attempt at revolution. It justified him in closing the university and +calling out the reserves. He established a star-chamber at Landshut, where +anonymous accusations were entertained and every accusation entailed +conviction. The Jesuits were supposed to have inspired this policy. The +rumour was probably true in substance. The children of Loyala are not +allowed to do evil that good may come, or to indulge in verbal +equivocations, as their enemies allege; but it is their aim to bring the +whole world into real and sincere submission to the Roman Church, and to +achieve that end they have certainly not hesitated to sacrifice political +and social ideals dear to all the rest of mankind. The Jesuit is a +Christian produced to his utmost logical extremity. Naturally, the order +is very unpopular with people who like to profess Christianity without any +intention of bringing their views and conduct into line with it. + +A true son of the Church was Carl Abel, a politician of some repute, to +whom Louis handed the portfolio of the Interior in April 1858. He was, it +is interesting to note, one of those Bavarian ministers who had +accompanied the King's son, Otho, to Greece in the 'twenties, and assisted +in schooling the renascent nation in its new political status. He it was +who enacted the "knee-bending" order to which allusion has been made; he +again who substituted the word "subjects" for "citizens" in the royal +decrees and proclamations. His policy was frankly Ultramontane. The +publication of Strauss's "Life of Jesus," three years before, had given a +powerful stimulus to rationalistic tendencies, and these the Bavarian +Government determined at all costs to eradicate. It was in the world of +thought and education that they saw the struggle must be waged, and they +wisely strove to bring the schools entirely within their control. To +prevent the spread of dangerous opinions it was decreed that all the books +used in the universities and schools, even in those of the lowest grade, +must be purchased from the official Government depot. A bad time followed +for the booksellers and for every one suspected of liberal opinions. The +editor of the Bernstorff papers speaks of Abel's administration as a +scandal to all Europe. It was not considered such by the majority of the +Bavarian people, who were probably more in sympathy with their ruler's +present mood than with his earlier aspirations towards a Grecian polity +and culture. The Jesuits reigned supreme, but it was not without certain +faint misgivings that their chiefs heard the news of Lola's arrival in +Munich. The dauntless adventuress was a factor that had to be reckoned +with. + + + + +XIX + +THE ENTHRALMENT OF THE KING + + +The Court Theatre of Munich, thanks to the King's critical faculty and +liberal patronage, had a very high reputation throughout Europe, and +seemed to Lola a very proper place for the display of her charms and +accomplishments. She applied accordingly to the Director, who upon an +exhibition of her powers, announced that they did not come up to his +standard. This was probably true; but had Lola danced like Taglioni, she +would no doubt have been rejected all the same by an official of this +strictly clerical Government. Full of wit and resource, she saw in her +rebuff the very opportunity she sought of bringing herself to the notice +of a sovereign. She had made a few friends among the _jeunesse doree_ of +the Bavarian capital, and through one of these, Count Rechberg, a royal +aide-de-camp, she craved an audience of His Majesty. Louis was indisposed +to grant it, despite his usually gracious bearing towards foreign +_artistes_. "Am I expected to see every strolling dancer?" he asked +pettishly. "Your pardon, sire," said Rechberg, "but this one is well worth +seeing." The King hesitated. While he did so Lola Montez stood before him. +Tired of waiting in the antechamber, and anticipating a refusal, she had +coolly followed an aide-de-camp into the royal presence. Now she stood +before the astonished King, dazzlingly beautiful, with downcast eyes, a +suppliant mien, and a smile of triumph at the corners of her mouth. + +To a passionate admirer of beauty like Louis her loveliness was an +all-sufficient excuse for her amazing audacity. His aide-de-camp was +right. The woman was well worth seeing. As he gazed upon her youth glowed +anew in his sixty-year-old frame, the blood coursed as fiercely as in the +time long gone by. Those who saw Lola knew a second spring. Collecting his +faculties, the King granted the dancer's prayer--she received his command +to appear at the Court Theatre; but he was in no haste to dismiss the +suppliant. Lola, says one writer, came, saw, and conquered. The King +yielded to her at the first shot. Lola's detractors relate that, glancing +at her magnificent bust, he asked in wonder if such charms could be of +nature's making, whereupon the lady, there and then ripping up her +corsage, dispelled his doubts. They can believe the story who like to; it +sounds in the highest degree improbable. But from this first interview +dated the enthralment of the King. + +Not only grey-headed rulers but tiny school-girls felt the power of the +enchantress. Louise von Kobell tells us how, when a child, she saw Lola +Montez.[12] + + "On the 9th October, 1846, as I was going down Briennerstrasse, near + the Bayersdorf Palace, I saw coming my way a lady, gowned in black, + with a veil thrown over her head, and a fan in her hand. Suddenly + something seemed to flash across my vision, and I stood stock still, + gazing into the eyes that had dazzled me. They shone upon me from a + pale countenance, which assumed a laughing expression before my + bewildered stare. Then she went, or rather swept on, past me. I forgot + all my governess's injunctions against looking round, and stood + staring after her, till she disappeared from view. Like her, I told + myself, must have been the fairies in the nursery tales. I returned + home breathless, and told them of my adventure. 'That,' said my + father, grimly, 'must have been the Spanish dancer, Lola Montez.' + + "I went to the Court Theatre on Saturday, the 10th October; I came + much too early to my seat, and read full of eagerness the + announcement: '_Der verwunschene Prinz_, a play in three acts, by J. + von Ploetz. During the two _entr'actes_, Mademoiselle Lola Montez of + Madrid will appear in her Spanish national dances.' Full of impatience + I saw the curtain rise, sat through the first act, and saw the curtain + fall again. Now it rose once more, and I saw my fairy of + yesterday--Lola Montez. + + "In the pit they clapped and hissed; the last, explained my neighbour, + because of the rumours abroad that Lola was an emissary of the English + Freemasons, an enemy of the Jesuits--a coquette, too, who had had + amorous adventures in all parts of the world, according to the + newspapers. + + "Lola Montez took the centre of the stage, clothed not in the usual + tights and short skirts of the ballet girl, but in a Spanish costume + of silk and lace, with here and there a glittering diamond. Fire + seemed to shoot from her wonderful blue eyes, and she bowed like one + of the Graces before the King, who occupied the royal box. Then she + danced after the fashion of her country, swaying on her hips, and + changing from one posture to another, each excelling the former in + beauty. + + "While she danced she riveted the attention of all the spectators, + their gaze followed the sinuous swayings of her body, in their + expression now of glowing passion, now of lightsome playfulness. Not + till she ceased her rhythmic movements was the spell broken.... + + "On 14th October, 1846, Lola Montez appeared for the second and last + time at the Court Theatre. She danced the 'Cachucha' in the comedy, + _Der Weiberfeind von Benedix_, and danced the 'Fandango' with Herr + Opfermann in the _entr'acte_ of the play _Mueller und Miller_. In order + to drown any manifestations of displeasure, the pit was occupied by an + organised _claque_ of policemen in plain clothes and theatre + attendants. The precaution was unnecessary, as Lola Montez exercised a + universal charm. The King had received her in audience, as he was + accustomed to receive foreign _artistes_; her beauty and her + stimulating conversation captivated Louis I." + +"I know not how--I am bewitched," His Majesty said frankly to one of his +ministers two days after his first interview with Lola. He had worshipped +at the altar of Venus all his life, and might reasonably have believed +himself immune against passion, now he had entered his seventh decade. The +vision of the radiant stranger haunted him. He sought for some excuse to +have her about his person. He had long meditated and spoken of a journey +to Spain. He would learn Spanish, and Lola should be his teacher. He +discussed the idea with some of his more intimate advisers, who said +nothing to dissuade him. Other hearts than his beat more rapidly at the +dancer's approach. Dr. Curtius, the royal physician, was of opinion that +Senora Montez would be an admirable person to teach the King the Castilian +tongue; the aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Nuessbaum, was eager to convey the +royal summons to the lady. Lola did not refuse the office of instructress, +though the situation was not without its irony, seeing that her knowledge +of Spanish was but slight. The reading of Calderon and Cervantes was +enlivened and interrupted by her humorous sallies, her unexpected _jeux +d'esprit_, by the thousand and one delightful turns and mannerisms by +which as much as by her beauty Lola intoxicated men. She was full of the +elusive quality that her pseudo-countrymen call _sal_. Her intense +vitality effervesced, fizzed, and sparkled like champagne, and every +bubble that reached the surface caught a different tint. Taking lessons +from a charming woman is one of the shortest ways I know to falling in +love with her. Louis's was a very bad case. His emotional capacity by an +unusual coincidence, had developed in proportion to his intellect. "His +soul is always fresh and young," Lola declared, no doubt quite sincerely. +He had not retained a very large measure of the good looks that +distinguished him when a young man, but his bearing was dignified, +courtly, gracious--in a word, kingly--and his frank, grey-blue +all-embracing eyes had in them something appealing. His personality, in +short, is summed up by Frau von Kobell as "interesting." His manner was as +animated as Lola's, and corresponded to every movement of his mind. I do +not see why such a man, even if he be sixty-one years old, should not win +a woman's love. Moreover, the staunchest Republican must admit that if +there is no divinity, there is a glamour or fascination about a king. He +is, at least, uncommon--even in Germany; he holds aloof, his inner life is +to some extent veiled in mystery; his setting is spectacular, and he +rarely appears at a disadvantage. He is never seen rolling in the mire in +the football field, affording sport to counsel and reporters in the +witness-box, or in any of those undignified situations in which we so +often meet our fellows. Above all, he represents power, a faculty more +attractive even to women than to men. Ambition prompted Lola to hook a +prince, but she found it quite easy to like one for his own sake. + +The exact nature of the relations between individual men and women is not +in general a legitimate matter for curiosity or speculation. It is a +question which concerns the parties only. In this instance, however, it +may be in the interests of Louis and Lola to observe that their relations +were in all probability what is called platonic. The King's nature was +aesthetic, poetical, sentimental; he was eminently capable of that +unsensual affection that seems to have animated Dante and Michelangelo. It +must not be forgotten, too, that he was sixty years of age. "The sins of +youth," he said "are the virtues of age." He affirmed publicly and +solemnly that Lola had been his friend, never his mistress; and the word +of Louis of Bavaria is not to be lightly disregarded. Lola repeatedly said +the same thing. Nothing to the contrary was ever alleged by the King's +immediate _entourage_; and--most significant fact of all--the Queen, +Therese of Sachsen-Hildburghausen, never manifested the slightest jealousy +of her husband's friend, but, on the contrary, more than once expressed +her sympathy with her policy and actions. + +It was not, of course, to be expected that the public would take this view +of Louis's relations with the famous adventuress. Least of all would it +find acceptance with the Roman Catholic clergy, whose tendency it has ever +been to exaggerate the sensual instincts in man's nature and to ignore the +subtler, finer phases of passion. Puritan and prurient are generally +synonymous terms. Nor were the King's ministers and clerical advisers at +all anxious to place a favourable construction on Lola's presence at the +court. + +The Jesuits' agents in different capitals reported unfavourably on the +dancer. They professed to believe, as we have seen--perhaps, they did +believe--that she was an emissary of the Freemasons, a body which in +England is regarded as a gigantic goose club, but by the Catholic world as +the most dangerous of secret anti-clerical societies. Now from what Frau +von Kobell tells us, it is plain that the Jesuits looked on Lola as a foe +from the moment she set foot in Munich. We must seek for some antecedent +cause. The lady's own explanation is improbable, but worth repeating. She +alleges that while in Paris she was approached by the agents of the +Society, and invited to assist in the conversion of Count Medem, a Russian +nobleman. This proposal, possibly because of her inherited dislike of the +Roman Church, she declined; and communicated the matter to Monsieur +Guizot, then Prime Minister, who had long been puzzled by the +ever-increasing numbers in which the Russian nobility in Paris were going +over to Rome. Their conversion is attributed by Catholics to the apostolic +zeal of Madame Swetchine, a Russian lady of some literary attainments, +whose _salon_ was the rendezvous of the clerical party in Paris. Vandam's +informant (if he ever existed in the flesh) and one or two writers with an +Ultramontane bias suggest that the feud between Lola and the Jesuits arose +simply because it was impossible for the latter to give any countenance to +a King's mistress. But we know that they recognised her as their enemy +before she became the royal favourite; moreover, German writers say that +the clericals had never made any remonstrances or raised any difficulties +respecting her predecessors in His Majesty's affections. I see no reason +to doubt that Lola's anti-clerical or anti-Catholic sentiments were +genuine and frankly expressed; we find similar instances of the _odium +theologicum_ in Nell Gwynne and Louis de Keroual. Intercourse with Liszt +and Dujarier would have strengthened such a prejudice. In Lola's haughty +disregard, too, of the etiquette of courts and fearlessness in the +presence of the great, we may detect the temperament, which would find its +political expression in advanced Liberalism. + +The rumour that she was an agent of "the English Freemasons," if by that +term we may understand the English Liberals, is not to be dismissed as +altogether preposterous. Our Government at that time was more or less +actively hostile to the ultra-legitimist and clerical tendencies paramount +in Central Europe: we backed the Swiss Confederation against the +Sonderbund; we sympathised with the Italians in their struggles for +freedom; English volunteers fought for the Liberal Christinos against the +Ultramontane Carlists. Lola's well-known sympathies, her knowledge of +continental courts, above all, her personality, would have recommended her +as a most valuable agent to our Foreign Office. We shall see presently +that she became the honoured guest of an English ambassador, and how legal +proceedings afterwards instituted against her in this country were +mysteriously suffered to collapse, as if in obedience to orders from +above. Lola never describes herself, it is true, as a secret agent of our +Government, but she would naturally have preferred to appear as the +independent, irresponsible dictatrix of a nation's policy. + +Whatever the cause may have been, antagonism manifested itself between +Lola Montez and the King's advisers, official and clerical, within a very +few days of her arrival at his court. Louis is said to have introduced her +to his ministers as his best friend. The Jesuits immediately circulated +the report that she was his mistress, and endeavoured to inflame the +Bavarian people against her. In obedience to their principle of the Church +first and political consistency a long way after, they instigated a +general attack upon King and favourite through the clerical press of +Germany. It was truly remarked in one of the independent organs of opinion +that the most extreme radical could not have shown less regard for the +person of the sovereign than these champions of legitimacy. Caricature, +that pitiable prostitution of a divine art, was assiduously employed. +Louis was represented as a crowned satyr, a pug-dog, an ass with a crown +tied to his tail; Lola was treated with even less regard for decency. The +ape that lurks in every man gibbered in every clerical rag. The curious +may inspect some choice examples of this simian humour in Herr Fuchs's +interesting work.[13] + +Ridicule, so far from killing, as is so often said, can be proved by +history to be the least potent instrument of attack and persecution +wielded by man. Skits break neither bones nor thrones. Ridicule is +generally on the side of authority and reaction, and as such, in the long +run, on the losing side. Puritanism survived the raillery of +seventeenth-century wags; the North triumphed, despite the loathsome +scurrilities of _Punch_; "Napoleon the Little," succumbed to German +strategy, not to Victor Hugo's satiric force; Teetotalism, Socialism, and +the Cause of Woman wax stronger daily, in spite of the humorists of the +music halls and the racing rags. The King of Bavaria was not to be shamed +or affrighted by all the gutter journalists of Germany. But his smile +became a little grim. Archbishop Diepenbrock remonstrated with him as to +his assumed relations with the dancer. "Stick to your _stola_, bishop," +was the Plantagenet-like answer, "and leave me my Lola." He claimed for +his domestic affairs the privacy enjoyed by the meanest of his subjects. +His regard for Lola and respect for her opinion grew stronger daily. +Dismay spread through the clerical camp. As vilification failed to produce +any sensible effect, bribery was attempted. At the instance, no doubt, of +Metternich, Louis's sister, the Dowager Empress Karoline Augusta, offered +the favourite two thousand pounds if she would quit Bavaria. The offer was +rejected, in what terms our knowledge of Lola's character enables us to +imagine. She did not lack money, nor did she crave for it. She loved power +for its own sake, and power she now possessed. Under her influence Louis +recovered his sanity. The liberal instincts of his youth and prime +revived. He became once more the Grecian, and the mediaeval fever left him. +His impatience of clerical control grew more evident daily. + + "And lo, a blade for a knight's emprise + Filled the fine empty sheath of a man.-- + The Duke grew straightway brave and wise." + + + + +XX + +THE ABEL MEMORANDUM + + +The King's change of policy first found official expression in the Royal +Decree of 15th December 1846, transferring the control of the Departments +of Education and Public Worship from Abel, the Minister of the Interior, +to Baron von Schrenk. The effect of this measure was practically to remove +the schools from the power of the Jesuits. Abel saw in it a blow aimed at +him by the detested _Andalusierin_. He addressed a letter to the King, +reminding him of his zeal and devotion to the Crown, of his attachment to +his person, of the unpopularity he had willingly incurred in order to +subject the people more thoroughly to royal control. Louis was not greatly +affected by this letter; we seldom earn the gratitude of others by +reminding them that we have taken upon ourselves blame which ought rightly +to be theirs. He was ungrateful enough to say that he had no sympathy with +Abel's policy, but that he found him a convenient man to work with. The +minister hoped that the King, like Henri Quatre, would prefer his servant +to his favourite, but he was disappointed. He next put his trust in +Louis's disinclination to take an active part in the Government; but here +again he was deceived. The King, stimulated by Lola, began to exhibit the +vigour and activity of youth, and showed a disposition to rule as well as +to reign. Baron von Pechmann, the Chief of the Munich Police, was less +patient than Abel, and ventured to protest against the consideration shown +to "a mere adventuress." The King's blue eyes kindled. "Begone!" he +exclaimed angrily; "you will find the air of Landshut purer!" It was a +sentence of banishment which the minister had no choice but to obey. + +This opposition on the part of the clericals determined Louis to +regularise his new favourite and counsellor's position in his kingdom, and +to establish her social rank. He proposed to raise her to the peerage, and +as a preliminary measure he signed letters patent, conferring upon her the +status and rights of a Bavarian citizen. According to the constitution +this decree had to be countersigned by a minister. The document was placed +before Abel for his signature. The crisis had come. The King must now +finally decide between minister and favourite, in other words, between +reaction and progress. Abel summoned his colleagues to a council and the +following remarkable memorandum to His Majesty was the result of their +deliberations.[14] + + "SIRE,--There are circumstances in which men invested with the + inappreciable confidence of their sovereign, and charged with the + direction of affairs, are called upon either to renounce their most + sacred duties or to expose themselves, at the bidding of their + consciences, to the risk of incurring the displeasure of their beloved + monarch. This is the sad necessity to which your ministers find + themselves reduced by the royal determination to grant to Senora Lola + Montez letters of naturalisation. We are incapable of forgetting the + oaths we took to your Majesty, and our resolution has never been for a + moment doubtful. The proposed naturalisation of Senora Montez was + openly characterised by Councillor von Maurer as the greatest calamity + with which Bavaria could be afflicted. This was the conviction of the + whole Council, and the opinion of all your Majesty's faithful + subjects. Since December last the eyes of the nation have been fixed + on Munich. The respect for the sovereign becomes weaker and weaker in + all minds, because on all sides nothing is heard but the bitterest + blame and disapprobation. National feeling is wounded: Bavaria + believes itself to be governed by a foreign woman, whose reputation is + branded in public opinion. Men like the Bishop of Augsburg [Dr. + Richarz], whose devotion to your Majesty cannot be disputed, daily + shed bitter tears for what is passing before their eyes; the ministers + of the Interior and of Finance have witnessed his profound affliction. + The Prince Bishop of Breslau [Dr. Diepenbrock], hearing of a rumour + that he had countenanced the actual state of things, has written to + persons in Munich formally and most emphatically expressing his + disapprobation. His letter is no longer a secret, and will soon be + known to the whole country. Foreign journals every day relate the most + scandalous anecdotes, and make the most degrading attacks on your + Majesty. The copy of the _Ulner Chronik_, which we subjoin, is a proof + of our assertions. In vain do the police attempt to stop the + circulation of these journals, which are everywhere read with avidity. + The impression which they leave on men's minds is by no means + doubtful. It is the same from Berchtesgaden and Passau to + Aschaffenburg and Zweibruecken. It is the same throughout Europe, in + the cabin of the poor and the palace of the rich. It is not alone the + glory and well-being of your Majesty's Government that is compromised, + but the very existence of royalty itself. It is this which explains + the joy of the enemies of the throne, and the profound grief and + despair of all who are faithfully attached to your Majesty, and who + are alive to the dangers greater than any to which it has been + exposed. In this state of things, it is inevitable that what is + passing will influence the army, and if this bulwark should give way, + where would be our resource? The statement, which the undersigned, + whose hearts are torn with anguish, venture to place before your + Majesty, is not the product of a terrified imagination, but of + observations which each has made within the circle of his + attributions, during several months. The effect of these circumstances + in the ensuing parliamentary session may easily be foreseen. Each of + the undersigned is ready to sacrifice for your Majesty his fortune and + his life. Your ministers believe that they have given you proofs of + their fidelity and attachment, but it is for them a doubly sacred duty + to point out to your Majesty the ever-increasing danger of this + situation. We beg you to listen to our humble prayer and not to + suppose that it is dictated by any desire to thwart your royal will. + It is directed only against a state of things which threatens to + destroy the fair fame, power, and future happiness of a beloved King. + Your ministers are convinced, after earnest deliberation, that if your + Majesty should not deign to give ear to their supplications, they are + bound to resign the positions to which the kindness and confidence of + their sovereign has called them, and to pray your Majesty to remove + the portfolios with which they are entrusted, + + (Signed) VON ABEL. VON SEINSHEIM. + VON GUMPPENBERG. VON SCHRENK. + + MUNICH, _11th February 1847_." + +This extraordinary address exhibits the courage, if not the tact and sense +of humour of the signatories; but none of them cared to present it. Abel +sent it by messenger to the King, who perused it with mingled amusement +and indignation, and then locked it in his desk. He asked Abel if this +was the only copy existing, and was answered in the affirmative. But a day +or two later the memorandum appeared in print in the columns of the +_Augsburger Zeitung_. A preliminary draft had been sent by Abel to a fifth +minister, Herr Von Giese, who had left it carelessly upon his bureau. Here +it was scanned with interest and curiosity by his elderly sister, and was +carried off by her, to be proudly exhibited at a tea-party. Handed round +among the guests for examination, it was not long in finding its way into +the Press. It was reproduced in the French and English papers. The _Times_ +devoted an editorial to its contents, and compared the excessive +sensibility of the Bishop of Augsburg with the hardened indifference of +the English hierarchy to the transgressions of the fourth George and +William. The lachrymose prelate contributed hugely to the gaiety of +nations. Bernstorff, the Prussian Ambassador, considered the address +wanting in respect to the sovereign; by another statesman it was qualified +as unbecoming, injudicious, and crude. More heads than one, it was +remarked, had been lost over Lola. No one could have been more amused than +the lady herself by this astonishing memorandum. + +She had indeed good cause for mirth. The indiscretion of the Cabinet +brought about the complete triumph of her policy. The King allowed Abel +twenty-four hours to reconsider his attitude, and as the minister stood to +his guns, he was formally dismissed from office on 16th February. His fall +involved his colleagues. Louis's return to his earlier ideas, consequent +upon his relations with Lola, was made evident in his choice of new +ministers. The portfolio of the Interior was entrusted to Baron Zu Rhein, +with the intimation that His Majesty wished to be served by men sincerely +attached to their religion, but determined to resist any encroachment by +the Church upon the rights of the State. Councillor Maurer became Minister +of Justice, having presumably recanted the views attributed to him by his +late colleagues in the memorandum. He was a man of learning and Liberal +tendencies, and was the first Protestant to hold Cabinet rank in Bavaria. +The portfolios of finance and war were given respectively to Councillor +Zenetti and Major-General von Hohenhausen. The whole Cabinet was frankly +Liberal. Lola had coaxed the King back to sanity, and inflicted a signal +defeat upon the clericals. All over Germany she was acclaimed as the +heroine of Liberalism. Metternich groaned over the deplorable state of +things at Munich, and wrote that this woman had become an instrument of +the Radical party. Bernstorff received the news of the fall of Abel's +Ministry with satisfaction, accompanied, as it was, by Maurer's assurance +that the reign of the Jesuits in Bavaria was at an end. + +It was at her evening reception at her house in Theresienstrasse that +Louis came to announce to Lola the dismissal of his old ministers, and his +unalterable attachment to her and to her policy. "I will not give Lola +up," he declared; "I will never give up that noble princely being. My +kingdom for Lola!" Maurer was obliged to consent to the naturalisation +that he had described as a national calamity. Lola was soon after raised +to the peerage with the titles of Countess of Landsfeld[15] and Baroness +Rosenthal. She is described in the register of Bavarian nobility as Maria +Dolores Porris y Montez, the daughter of a Carlist officer and Cuban lady. +(That the daughter of a follower of Don Carlos should be a deadly foe of +all that was Ultramontane must have struck her friends and opponents as +odd.) Her titles conveyed with them an estate of importance, and certain +feudal rights--the middle and the low justice, perhaps--over two thousand +souls. She was made a canoness of the aristocratic order of St. Theresa, +of which the Queen was the head. To enable her to support this dignity the +King endowed her with an annuity of twenty thousand florins. With this and +the money bequeathed her by Dujarier she was now rich. A palace befitting +her position was ordered to be built for her in Baererstrasse after the +design of the architect, Metzger, who was one of her most impassioned +admirers. Her portrait was painted by royal command, and placed in the +Gallery of Beauties, where Louis, it is said, was accustomed to spend +hours in rapturous contemplation. + + + + +XXI + +THE INDISCRETIONS OF A MONARCH + + +Louis, being a lover of the old school, resorted to verse as an expression +of his sentiments towards his new favourite. The editor of the _Times_, +years after, described His Majesty as something of a poet, in a small way. +How very small that way was the following effusions will show. They were +translated by Mr. Francis, afterwards editor of the _Morning Post_ and +other journals. Unfortunately, or fortunately, they convey no idea of the +odd contortions of language characteristic of the original. + + "TO THE ABSENT LOLITA + + "The world hates and persecutes + That heart which gave itself to me: + But however much they may try to estrange us, + My heart will cling the more fondly to thine. + + "The more they hate, the more thou art beloved; + And more and more is given to thee. + I shall never be torn from thee. + + "Against others they have no hate; + It is against thee alone they are enraged; + In thee everything is a crime; + Thy words alone, as deeds, they would punish. + + "But the heart's goodness shows itself-- + Thou hast a highly elevated mind; + Yet the little who deem themselves great + Would cast thee off as a pariah. + + "For evermore I belong to thee; + For evermore thou belongest to me: + What delight! that like the wave + Renews itself out of its eternal spring. + + "By thee my life becomes ennobled, + Which without thee was solitary and empty; + Thy love is the nutriment of my heart, + If it had it not, it would die. + + "And though thou mightest by all be forsaken, + I will never abandon thee; + For ever will I preserve for thee + Constancy and true German faith." + +The next verses relate to the Countess of Landsfeld, in her character as a +Liberal martyr. + + "From thee, beloved one, time and distance separate me, + But however distant thou might'st be, + I should ever call thee my own, + Thou eternally bright star of my life. + + "The wild steed, if you try to daunt him. + Prances, the bolder only, on and on: + The ties of love will tie us so much closer, + If the world attempt to tear thee from me. + + "And every persecution thou endurest + Becomes a new link in the chain + Which, because thou art struggling for truth, + Thou hast, for the rest of my life, cast around me. + + "Whether near or far off, thou art mine, + And the love which with its lustre glorifies + Is ever renewed and will last for ever. + For evermore our faith will prove itself true." + + +[Illustration: LOUIS I. KING OF BAVARIA.] + + +The following lines are a sonnet in the original, addressed to:-- + + "LOLITA AND LOUIS + + "Men strive with restless zeal to separate us; + Constantly and gloomily they plan thy destruction; + In vain, however, are always their endeavours, + Because they know themselves alone, not us. + Our love will bloom but the brighter for it all-- + What gives us bliss cannot be divorced from us-- + Those endless flames which burn with sparkling light, + And pervade our existence with enrapturing fire. + Two rocks are we, against which constantly are breaking + The adversaries' craft, the enemies' open rage; + But, scorpion-like, themselves, they pierce with deadly sting-- + The sanctuary is guarded by trust and faith; + Thy enemies' cruelty will be revenged on themselves-- + Love will compensate for all that we have suffered. + +"In the following sonnet," comments the translator, "the royal poet does +not clearly intimate whether he has renounced the political or the +personal rivals of the fair Lolita:-- + + "'If, for my sake, thou hast renounced all ties, + I, too, for thee have broken with them all; + Life of my life, I am thine--I am thy thrall-- + I hold no compact with thine enemies. + Their blandishments are powerless on me, + No arts will serve to seduce me from thee; + The power of love raises me above them. + With thee my earthly pilgrimage will end. + As is the union between the body and the soul, + So, until death, with thine my being is blended. + In thee I have found what I ne'er yet found in any-- + The sight of thee gave new life to my being. + All feeling for any other has died away, + For my eyes read in thine--love!'" + +The final example of the King's lyrical genius might be inscribed to +"Lolita in Dejection." It is dated the evening of 6th July 1847. + + "A glance of the sun of former days, + A ray of light in gloomy night! + Have sounded long-forgotten strings, + And life once more as erst was bright. + + "Thus felt I on that night of gladness, + When all was joy through thee alone; + Thy spirit chased from mine its sadness, + No joy was greater than mine own. + + "Then was I happy for feeling more deeply + What I possessed and what I lost; + It seemed that thy joy then went for ever, + And that it could never more return. + + "Thou hast lost thy cheerfulness, + Persecution has robbed thee of it; + It has deprived thee of thy health, + The happiness of thy life is already departed. + + "But the firmer only, and more firmly + Thou hast tied me to thee; + Thou canst never draw me from thee-- + Thou sufferest because thou lovest me." + +The King of Bavaria was not a poet; but, as a critic said of Emile Auger, +in some remote corner of his being, something was singing. + + + + +XXII + +THE MINISTRY OF GOOD HOPE + + +The Ultramontanes had no intention of taking their defeat lying down. The +Jesuits were fighting for their very existence just over the frontier in +Switzerland; the Sonderbund or Catholic League was threatened with an +attack at any moment by the forces of the Confederation. Austria and +France could do nothing for the League through fear of Palmerston, but it +is very probable that help was expected from Bavaria, on which England +could not have brought any direct pressure to bear. Munich was the asylum +of Ultramontane exiles from all parts of Europe--of French Legitimists, +Polish Catholics, and Swiss Jesuits. In Lola's action they detected the +hand of the arch-enemy, Palmerston. Liberally supplied with gold from +Austria (as Bernstorff did not hesitate to allege), these champions of +legitimacy sedulously strove to inflame the people with hatred of the +favourite. Lola's unfortunate temper aided their exertions. The citizens +of Munich disliked being boxed on the ears even by the most beautiful of +her sex, and Baron Pechmann, who had endeavoured to avenge them, had been +banished. Lola, like all people of a rich, generous nature, was fond of +dogs. In London she had bought a bull-dog from a man who told Mark Lemon, +with a very proper professional reservation, that the lady was the most +beautiful thing he had ever seen--_on two legs_. The animal, being +indisposed, was sent by his devoted mistress to the Veterinary Hospital at +Munich. The patient did not progress very rapidly towards recovery, and +Lola remonstrated with the medical man in attendance. His reply was too +brusque for her taste. Her ears having been offended, she promptly boxed +his. She then carried off her darling, who was soon restored to health and +vigour. So complete was his recovery that a week or two later, while +accompanying his mistress in the streets of Munich, he prepared himself to +attack a carrier who was walking beside his cart. The man anticipated the +onslaught by flicking the bull-dog with his whip. The enraged Lola at once +smote the man on the ear. The assault was witnessed by several passers-by, +whose threatening attitude compelled her to take refuge in a neighbouring +shop. From this dangerous situation she was delivered only by the police. +Lola and the King laughed good-humouredly over these incidents; the people +of Munich were disposed to look upon them as deadly outrages. + +The new favourite, then, was not likely to become popular with the masses; +and her enemies could turn with some confidence to the educated classes, +as far as they were represented at the University. Students in France, +Russia, Italy, and indeed most civilised countries, are admittedly +hot-blooded, enthusiastic champions of freedom and progress; in some +states they are the very backbone of the revolutionary party. In Bavaria +at this time, on the contrary, the students, like those of our English +universities, displayed fervent devotion to the ideals of their +grandmothers, and held tenaciously by the standards of the nurseries they +had so lately quitted. Munich rivalled Oxford and Cambridge in its zeal +for Conservatism and obsolete canons. Professor Lassaulx, therefore, was +only voicing the sentiments of the University generally when he presented +an address to Councillor von Abel, deploring that minister's retirement, +and congratulating him upon his adherence to Ultramontane principles. This +was tantamount to a vote of censure on the sovereign. Lassaulx was at once +deprived of his chair, despite (it is said by Dr. Erdmann) Lola's earnest +entreaties with the King. The professor received a tremendous ovation from +the students. On the 1st March 1847 they collected in the morning outside +his house in Theresienstrasse, cheering him vociferously. Lola, unluckily, +was then living in the same street, and having expressed their sympathy +with the professor, it occurred to the students that they might as well +express their disapprobation of the woman to whom they attributed his +downfall. Lola was at lunch when howls and hoots and cries of "Pereat +Lola!" brought her to the window. She was received with yells from the +throats of two hundred stout, beer-drinking, Bavarian _burschen_. Amused +at the sight, and undismayed, as she ever was, she derisively toasted the +mob in a glass of champagne and ate chocolates while she watched their +gyrations. Her coolness would have disarmed the enmity of an English +crowd, and sent it away cheering. But the sportsman-like qualities are not +specially inculcated by the disciples of Loyola, nor were perhaps highly +esteemed in the Germany of that date. Presently the King himself came +along the street, and, unmolested and unnoticed, quietly elbowed his way +through the mob. He stood at Lola's door composedly contemplating his +excited subjects. He turned to Councillor Hoermann, whom the noise of the +disturbance had also brought to the spot. "If she were called Loyola +Montez," remarked His Majesty, "I suppose they would cheer her." Then he +quietly entered the house. The street was cleared by the mounted police. +Louis remained all the afternoon at his favourite's house, and when night +fell, attempted to return to the palace on foot, and unattended, as he had +come. He was compelled to abandon the attempt. He was received with howls +and threats, and could only reach his residence by the aid of a military +escort. The streets were filled with the most dangerous elements in the +city. A crowd collected before the palace, and cheered the Queen, who, +poor lady! must have been embarrassed by this demonstration of sympathy +with the emotions of wifely jealousy and injured dignity to which she was +a stranger! Before day broke order had been restored by the sabres of the +cuirassiers. + +Lola, knowing the temper of her countrymen, saw in this attack on a woman +a sure means of enlisting their sympathies. She wrote a letter to the +_Times_ in which she gave her own version of affairs in Bavaria in the +following terms:-- + + "I had not been here a week before I discovered that there was a plot + existing in the town to get me out of it, and that the party was the + Jesuit party. Of course, you are aware that Bavaria has long been + their stronghold, and Munich their headquarters. This, naturally, to a + person brought up and instructed from her earliest youth to detest + this party (I think you will say naturally) irritated me not a + little. + + "When they saw that I was not likely to leave them, they commenced on + another tack, and tried what bribery would do, and actually offered me + 50,000 francs yearly if I would quit Bavaria and promise never to + return. This, as you may imagine, opened my eyes, and as I indignantly + refused their offer, they have not since then left a stone unturned to + get rid of me, and have never for an instant ceased persecuting me. I + may mention, as one instance, that within the last week a Jesuit + professor of philosophy at the University here, by the name of + Lassaulx, was removed from his professorship, upon which the party + paid and hired a mob to insult me and break the windows of my palace, + and also to attack the palace; but, thanks to the better feeling of + the other party, and the devotedness of the soldiers to His Majesty + and his authority, this plot likewise failed." + +It was, in fact, as disastrous to its instigators as the famous +memorandum. The King perceived the University to be a hot-bed of +clericalism, and promptly invited the majority of the professors to +transfer their services to other seats of learning, or to abandon this +particular sphere of usefulness altogether. Their chairs were filled by +men of moderate views. At the same time the University was freed from the +oppressive surveillance of the Ministry; the obnoxious decrees affecting +the sale of books were withdrawn; and even the undergraduates felt +constrained to testify their gratitude to the liberal King by means of a +torchlight procession. + +Louis and his new ministers were not wanting in firmness. Several officers +and civil servants were transferred to distant stations, and otherwise +made to feel the weight of the royal displeasure for having taken part in +an Ultramontane gathering at Adelholz, in the Bavarian Highlands, where a +protest was raised against Lola's elevation to the peerage. With the bulk +of the people, notwithstanding, the King's popularity knew no diminution. +He received an enthusiastic greeting at Bruckenau, Kissingen, and +Aschaffenburg, where he passed the summer. He wrote to his secretary in +Munich, on 27th June 1847: "I am very satisfied with my reception +throughout my whole progress;" and on 31st August: "I was surprised, +agreeably surprised, by my evidently joyful reception in the Palatinate." +In Franconia, inhabited largely by Protestants, the King's change of +policy was naturally welcome. Lola's popularity likewise increased by +leaps and bounds, though her uncontrollable temper continued to lead her +into mischief. A furious quarrel with the commandant of the Wuerzburg +garrison interrupted her journey north to join the Court at Aschaffenburg. +The Queen, meanwhile, was the object of a demonstration of sympathy at +Bamberg, really directed against the favourite. Certain sections of the +aristocracy held aloof from the Countess, with that steadfast devotion to +virtue that has always characterised their order. Lola complained of their +attitude to His Majesty. Questioned by him they alluded to the lady's +doubtful antecedents as sufficient justification for their refusal to +present her to their wives. The King's answer was that of a chivalrous man +of the world: "What other woman of so-called high standing would have +conducted herself better, had she been abandoned to the world, young, +beautiful, and helpless? Bah! I know them all, and I tell you I don't rate +too highly the much-belauded virtue of the inexperienced and untried." +Louis was a gentleman as well as a prince, and had the courage to protect +the woman he loved. "Mark well," he wrote to a person of rank, "if you +are invited to the house the King frequents, and you do not come, the King +will see in this an offence against his dignity, and his displeasure will +follow." Louis's rule for his courtiers was, in short: "Love me, love +Lola." + +Social distinction and wealth were not enough to satisfy the Countess of +Landsfeld. She was not content to pull the wires; she wanted the +appearance of power, as well as its substance. She longed to display +openly her talents as a ruler. She was galled by the affected indifference +of statesmen, who could not in reality put a single measure into execution +without her sanction. While all Germany acclaimed her as the Liberal +heroine, Zu Rhein was able afterwards to affirm publicly in the Chamber +that the favourite had at no time come between the Cabinet and the +sovereign, nor had in any way governed its policy. This statement may be +accepted as far as it goes, but the ministers could have done nothing +without the King's co-operation, and the King never denied that he was +accustomed to consult the Countess on all affairs of state. The credit of +the Zu Rhein-Maurer administration rightly, therefore, belongs in great +measure to her. She was always by the King to keep him in the straight way +of reform, to safeguard him against a relapse into Ultramontanism. She not +unnaturally chafed at what must have seemed the ingratitude of the +ministers. She had not yet forgiven Maurer for his reference to her +proposed naturalisation as a calamity. Now she regarded him as a puppet +which had the impudence to ignore its maker. He got the credit of reforms, +she told herself, that she had initiated. Meantime, the clerical Press +bombarded her with low abuse. She demanded the enforcement of the +censorship and the suppression of the offending journals. Such steps as +these, a professedly Liberal Government was loth to take. A collision took +place between the favourite and "the Ministry of Good Hope," as it was +derisively called. Lola found an instrument ready to her hand in +Councillor von Berks, whose devotion to her was warmer than a merely +political allegiance. In December, the King decided to reconstitute the +Ministry. He appointed Berks to the Department of the Interior, and to +Prince Wallerstein, lately Bavarian representative at Paris, he gave the +portfolio of foreign affairs. The new Cabinet was composed entirely of men +wholly in sympathy with the views of both sovereign and favourite. By its +opponents it was derisively dubbed the Lola Ministry. The _Muenchner +Zeitung_ welcomed its frank and whole-hearted Liberalism as a guarantee of +the solution of all the problems of Bavaria's internal and foreign policy. +Wallerstein was even more anti-clerical than his predecessors. The +Sonderbund was crushed in November by the strategy of Dufour, and the +Jesuits came flying from Switzerland into Bavaria. They were forbidden to +remain in the country more than a few days. The Press was not gagged, but +conciliated. Lola was acclaimed as the good genius of Bavaria. The German +Liberals hailed her as a valued ally. To her influence was attributed the +tardy addition of Luther's bust to the collection of German worthies in +the Walhalla. _Punch_, as a suggestion for a colossal statue of Bavaria, +represents Lola upholding a banner inscribed "Freedom and the Cachuca." +The "good little thing" of Simla wielded the sceptre, and wielded it +well. + + + + +XXIII + +THE UNCROWNED QUEEN OF BAVARIA + + +George Henry Francis, an English journalist, a resident of Munich at that +time, and afterwards editor of the _Morning Post_, contributed the +following account of Lola's manner of life at this period to _Fraser's +Magazine_ for January 1848:-- + + "The house of Lola Montez at Munich presents an elegant contrast to + the large, cold, lumbering mansions, which are the greatest defect in + the general architecture of the city. It is a _bijou_, built under her + own eye, by her own architect,[16] and it is quite unique in its + simplicity and lightness. It is of two storeys, and, allowing for its + plainness, is in the Italian style. Elegant bronze balconies from the + upper windows, designed by herself, relieve the plainness of the + exterior; and long, muslin curtains, slightly tinted, and drawn close, + so as to cover the windows, add a transparent, shell-like lightness to + the effect. Any English gentleman (Lola has a great respect for + England and the English) can, on presenting his card, see the + interior; but it is not a 'show place.' The interior surpasses + everything, even in Munich, where decorative painting and internal + fitting has been carried almost to perfection. We are not going to + write an upholsterer's catalogue, but as everything was done by the + immediate choice and under the direction of the fair Lola, the general + characteristics of the place will serve to illustrate her character. + Such a tigress, one would think, would scarcely choose so beautiful a + den. The smallness of the house precludes much splendour. Its place is + supplied by French elegance, Munich art, and English comfort. The + walls of the chief room are exquisitely painted by the first artists + from the designs found in Herculaneum and Pompeii, but selected with + great taste by Lola Montez. The furniture is not gaudily rich, but + elegant enough to harmonise with the decorations. A small winter room, + adjoining the larger one, is fitted up, quite in the English style, + with papered walls, sofas, easy-chairs, all of elegant shape. A + chimney, with a first-rate grate of English manufacture, and rich, + thick carpets and rugs, complete the illusion; the walls are hung with + pictures, among them a Raphael. There are also some of the best works + of modern German painters; a good portrait of the King; and a very bad + one of the mistress of the mansion. The rest of the establishment + bespeaks equally the exquisite taste of the fair owner. The + drawing-rooms and her boudoir are perfect gems. Books, not of a + frivolous kind, borrowed from the royal library, lie about, and help + to show what are the habits of this modern Amazon. Add to these a + piano and a guitar, on both of which she accompanies herself with + considerable taste and some skill, and an embroidery frame, at which + she produces works that put to shame the best of those exhibited for + sale in England; so that you see she is positively compelled at times + to resort to some amusement becoming her sex, as a relief from those + more masculine or unworthy occupations in which, according to her + reverend enemies, she emulates alternately the example of Peter the + Great and Catharine II. The rest of the appointments of the place are + in keeping: the coach-house and stabling (her equipages are extremely + modest and her household no more numerous or ostentatious than those + of a gentlewoman of means), the culinary offices, and an exquisite + bath-room, into which the light comes tinted with rose-colour. At the + back of the house is a large flower-garden, in which, during the + summer, most of the political consultations between the fair Countess + and her sovereign are held. + + "For her habits of life, they are simple. She eats little, and of + plain food, cooked in the English fashion; drinks little, keeps good + hours, rises early, and labours much. The morning, before and after + breakfast, is devoted to what we must call semi-public business. The + innumerable letters she receives and affairs she has to arrange, keep + herself and her secretary constantly employed during some hours. At + breakfast she holds a sort of _levee_ of persons of all + sorts--ministers _in esse_ or _in posse_, professors, artists, English + strangers, and foreigners from all parts of the world. As is usual + with women of an active mind, she is a great talker; but although an + egotist, and with her full share of the vanity of her sex, she + understands the art of conversation sufficiently never to be + wearisome. Indeed, although capable of violent but evanescent + passions--of deep but not revengeful animosities, and occasionally of + trivialities and weaknesses very often found in persons suddenly + raised to great power--she can be, and almost always is, a very + charming person and a delightful companion. Her manners are + distinguished, she is a graceful and hospitable hostess, and she + understands the art of dressing to perfection. + + "The fair despot is passionately fond of homage. She is merciless in + her man-killing propensities, and those gentlemen attending her + _levees_ or her _soirees_, who are perhaps too much absorbed in + politics or art to be enamoured of her personal charms, willingly pay + respect to her mental attractions and conversational powers. + + "On the other hand, Lola Montez has many of the faults recorded of + others in like situations. She loves power for its own sake; she is + too hasty and too steadfast in her dislikes; she has not sufficiently + learned to curb the passion which seems natural to her Spanish blood; + she is capricious, and quite capable, when her temper is inflamed, of + rudeness, which, however, she is the first to regret and to apologise + for. One absorbing idea she has which poisons her peace. She has + devoted her life to the extirpation of the Jesuits, root and branch, + from Bavaria. She is too ready to believe in their active influence, + and too early overlooks their passive influence. Every one whom she + does not like, her prejudice transforms into a Jesuit. Jesuits stare + at her in the streets, and peep out from the corners of her rooms. All + the world, adverse to herself, are puppets moved to mock and annoy her + by these dark and invisible agents. At the same time she has, + doubtless, had good cause for this animosity; but these restless + suspicions are a weakness quite incompatible with the strength of + mind, the force of character, and determination of purpose she + exhibits in other respects. + + "As a political character, she holds an important position in Bavaria, + besides having agents and correspondents in various Courts of Europe. + The King generally visits her in the morning from eleven till twelve, + or one o'clock; sometimes she is summoned to the palace to consult + with him, or with the ministers, on state affairs. It is probable that + during her habits of intimacy with some of the principal political + writers of Paris, she acquired that knowledge of politics and insight + into the manoeuvres of diplomatists and statesmen which she now + turns to advantage in her new sphere of action. On foreign politics + she seems to have very clear ideas; and her novel and powerful method + of expressing them has a great charm for the King, who has himself a + comprehensive mind. On the internal politics of Bavaria she has the + good sense not to rely upon her own judgment, but to consult these + whose studies and occupations qualify them to afford information. For + the rest, she is treated by the political men of the country as a + substantive power; and, however much they may secretly rebel against + her influence, they, at least, find it good policy to acknowledge it. + Whatever indiscretions she may, in other respects, commit, she always + keeps state secrets, and can, therefore, be consulted with perfect + safety, in cases where her original habits of thought render her of + invaluable service. Acting under advice, which entirely accords with + the King's own general principles, His Majesty has pledged himself to + a course of steady but gradual improvement, which is calculated to + increase the political freedom and material prosperity of his kingdom, + without risking that unity of power, which, in the present state of + European affairs, is essential to its protection and advancement. One + thing in her praise is, that although she really wields so much power, + she never uses it either for the promotion of unworthy persons or, as + other favourites have done, for corrupt purposes. Her creation as + Countess of Landsfeld, which has alienated from her some of her most + honest Liberal supporters, who wished her still to continue in rank, + as well as in purposes, one of the people, while it has exasperated + against her the powerless, because impoverished, nobility, was the + unsolicited act of the King, legally effected with the consent of the + Crown Prince. Without entrenching too far upon a delicate subject, it + may be added, that she is not regarded with contempt or detestation by + either the male or the female members of the Royal family. She is + regarded by them rather as a political personage than as the King's + favourite. Her income, including a recent addition from the King, is + seventy thousand florins, or little more than five thousand pounds. + While upon this subject of her position, it may be added, that it is + reported, on good authority, that the Queen of Bavaria (to whom, by + the way, the King has always paid the most scrupulous attentions due + to her as his wife) very recently made a voluntary communication to + her husband, apparently with the knowledge of the princes and other + member of the Royal family, that should the King desire, at any + future time, that the Countess should, as a matter of right, be + presented at Court, she (the Queen) would offer no obstacle. + + "The relation subsisting between the King of Bavaria and the Countess + of Landsfeld is not of a coarse or vulgar character. The King has a + highly poetical mind, and sees his favourite through his imagination. + Knowing perfectly well what her antecedents have been, he takes her as + she is, and finding in her an agreeable and intellectual companion, + and an honest, plainspoken councillor, he fuses the reality with the + ideal in one deep sentiment of affectionate respect." + + + + +XXIV + +THE DOWNFALL + + +This view of the King's sentiments towards his favourite was not +acceptable to that lady's political enemies. It is to be observed, also, +that the champions of orthodox morality are the hardest to persuade of the +actual existence or possibility of virtue in the individual. It would seem +at times that they doubt the efficacy of baptismal waters to wash out +original sin. Morality finds strange champions in all lands. The House of +Lords, the racing papers, the transpontine stage, and the Irish +moon-lighters have all been found at one time or another on the side of +the angels. In Bavaria in 1848 the University students, still for the +greater part leavened by Ultramontane doctrines, posed as the vindicators +of Christian morality, and spoke of Lola as the Scarlet Woman. With +singular inconsistency they continued to profess their devotion to the +King, who must have obviously been in their eyes, a partner in the woman's +guilt. The Catholic Church does not discriminate between the sexes as +regards this particular offence; moreover, evil example in a prince is +held by all moralists to be more serious than in a private person. Lola, +also, was believed to be single; Louis was living with his wife. The man's +offence, then, would seem from every point of view to have been graver; +nor could it have been excused on the ground of weakness of will or +understanding, for this in a king would itself have aggravated his guilt. +The undergraduates of Munich, however, being pupils of the Jesuits and +presumably skilled in casuistry, would no doubt have been able to explain +an attitude which appears inconsistent to the non-academic mind. + +All the members of the University were not under the thumb of the +clericals. Two or three students of the corps Palatia (Pfalz)--probably +Protestants--did not hesitate to appear at the Countess of Landsfeld's +_salon_, which was the resort of the most brilliant people in Munich. +Lola's fancy was taken by the colours of the corps, and she playfully +stuck one of the young fellows' caps on her pretty head. The students +were, in consequence, expelled from their association. A large number of +Liberal students thereupon seceded from their respective corps and formed +a new one, appropriately called Alemannia. The new body was at once +recognised by the King, and endowed with all the privileges of an ancient +corps. Lola insisted upon providing every member with an exceedingly smart +uniform, at her own expense, and with delight saw them establish their +head-quarters in a house backing upon her own. The Alemannia became her +devoted bodyguard. They watched her house, they escorted her in the +street. She graced their festivals, dressed in the close-fitting uniform +of the corps. Berks entertained them to a banquet at the palace of +Nymphenburg, and in a stirring speech publicly commended their zeal for +the cause of enlightenment, humanity and progress. + +Conflicts between the Alemannen and the other corps were frequent. The +University was split into two bitterly, venomously hostile camps, and +Lola's partisans, being the fewer, seemed likely to have the worst of it. +The Rector, Thiersch, intervened, and publicly took the new corps under +his protection. For this act he was thanked by the King. But the mutual +hatred of the factions knew no abatement. Now the wires began to feel the +touch of other operators than the Jesuits. The revolutionary party was +gathering strength in the winter of 1847-8. Any rod was good enough to +beat a King with, and no means or agents were to be despised which would +weaken his authority, and the respect in which he was held by his +subjects. As to the Countess of Landsfeld, she had played her part: she +had struck a mortal blow at the Jesuits, she had kept Bavaria in leash +while Switzerland throttled the Sonderbund. Now, the Liberals could do +without her. Her downfall would involve the King's. The situation was +promising. The Radicals determined to let the Clericals pull the chestnuts +out of the fire. + +The death of Goerres, a former revolutionary who had turned mystic and +Ultramontane in his latter years, was the signal for a formidable +explosion. The police forbade any speech-making at his funeral, which took +place on 31st January 1848, but were unable to prevent a pilgrimage to his +grave, organised by the Ultramontane students, a week later. The corps +Franconia, Bavaria, Isar, and Suabia, turned out in force. The procession +soon resolved itself into a demonstration against the King's favourite. +The fierce hostile murmur of the mob reached the ears of Lola in her +palace in Barerstrasse. She could, without loss of honour or dignity, have +ignored the demonstration: an angry mob is a foe which a brave man +hesitates to meet single-handed. But Lola Montez knew not the meaning of +fear. With incredible rashness and magnificent courage she deliberately +went out into the street to meet her enemies face to face. She was +received with groans and insult. "Very well," she cried, "I will have the +University closed!" This haughty threat maddened the crowd. A rush was +made for her. A gallant band of Alemannen closed round to defend her. +Their leader, Count Hirschberg, attempted to use a dagger in his own +defence, but it was wrested from him, and he was severely injured. Lola, +forced at last to yield before superior numbers, retreated into the Church +of the Theatines. The Catholic rowdies, not daring to violate the right of +sanctuary, laid siege to the building, and were dispersed with difficulty +by the military. The Ultramontanes reckoned it a glorious day; it was +such, indeed, for the Countess of Landsfeld, who displayed a courage on +this occasion of which no king or prince has ever given proof in any +revolutionary crisis. The picture of this woman, attended only by two or +three students, deliberately going out to meet a band of her infuriated +enemies, is one which deserves a place in the gallery of heroic deeds. + +The King immediately gave effect to Lola's threat. On 9th February he +signed a decree closing the University, and ordered all students not +natives of the city to leave it within twenty-four hours. The edict threw +all Munich into consternation. The departure of upwards of a thousand +young men, many of them wealthy and well-connected, meant a serious blow +to trade and a rending of innumerable social ties. The students marched, +singing songs of adieu, to present a valedictory address to the Rector. +The citizens bestirred themselves, and to the number of two thousand +signed a petition, imploring His Majesty to reconsider the decision. Louis +inclined a favourable ear to their prayers, and announced on 10th February +that the University would remain closed only for the summer term. + +This act of weakness cost Louis I. his mistress and his crown. + +The revolutionary party perceived that this was the moment to strike. The +King had yielded; the students were exultant and conscious of their +strength; the townsfolk were weary of this ceaseless conflict between the +Countess and her foes. Your good, old-fashioned burgher cares nothing for +the rights and wrongs of a public dispute; he wishes to be left in peace +to turn a penny into three half-pence, and to achieve that end is as ready +to sacrifice the innocent as the guilty. Jacob Vennedey, a publicist and +Radical famous in his day, writing from Frankfort, did his utmost to fan +the flame of revolution. + + "The King of Bavaria," so ran an article, "wastes the sweat of the + poor country on mistresses and their followers. Everybody knows that + the jewellery which Lola wore lately at the theatre cost 60,000 + guldens; that her house in the Barerstrasse is a fairy palace; that + the Cabinet, the Council of State, and the whole civil service are at + her beck and call; that the _gendarmerie_ and military are her + particular escort; that the best Catholic professors at the University + have been dismissed at her caprice. For the people nothing is done." + +The last statement was untrue. If, too, the sixty thousand guldens had +come out of the people's pockets, Lola had well earned them by her +services in emancipating the country from its clerical oppressors. + +Louis's concession came too late--if it should have been made at all. On +the morning of 11th February, Munich was in insurrection. Students and +citizens flew to arms, and mustered in dense masses before the palace, and +in the squares, loudly demanding the expulsion of the Countess of +Landsfeld and the immediate reopening of the University. The situation, +ministers thought, was critical. The King summoned a Cabinet Council, and +was prevailed upon to accede to the demands of his insurgent subjects. He +who had sworn before all the world that he would never give up Lola, now +signed a decree for her banishment from Munich. To save his crown he broke +all the solemn pledges he had given her. It was a base capitulation. But +Louis of Bavaria was an old man, sixty-two years of age. His vows had been +those of a young lover; but he wanted the youthful strength of will and +hand that should have defended his mistress against an armed nation. +Peace--peace--is ever the craving, the last and strongest passion of age. + +The King's surrender to their demands was made known at midday to the +angry crowds before the Rathaus. The silly mob hailed with delight the +downfall of the woman who had set them free to keep their own consciences, +and speak their minds. The King's decision was communicated to Lola by an +aide-de-camp. She was commanded to withdraw at once from the capital. The +intrepid woman could with difficulty be persuaded to credit the officer's +words. Such pusillanimity was incomprehensible to her. She could not +believe that the King would abandon her without drawing the sword. +Lieutenant Nuessbaum, at the outbreak of the disturbance, had been locked +by a friend in an upper storey room to keep him out of danger, but at the +risk of breaking his neck, the young officer had jumped from the window +and hastened to offer his sword to the defenceless woman; but the King of +Bavaria had surrendered without striking a blow. His own signature at last +satisfied Lola of this. She looked up and down the street. No--there was +not a single soldier or _gendarme_ to protect her. Not for an instant did +her nerve forsake her. With a smiling face she quitted the house where she +had for nearly a year directed the fortunes of a kingdom. She took the +Augsburg train, as if _en route_ for Lindau; but alighted at a wayside +station and drove to Blutenburg, a few miles from Munich, three of her +faithful Alemannen--Peisner, Hertheim, and Laibinger--escorting her. + +The rabble, who feared her manlike valour, did not attempt to molest her +in her retreat, but having made sure that she was gone, they broke into +her house, pillaging and wrecking. A curious, unaccountable impulse drew +the King to the spot, where he must have passed many of the happiest hours +of his life. With strange emotions he must have watched the human swine +routing in this bower of Venus. He stood there, a pathetic figure--an old +man surveying the wreckage of his last and supreme passion. Unheeded and +seemingly unrecognised, he was suddenly dealt a violent blow on the head, +probably by a revolutionary agent, and tottered back to his palace, +bruised and dazed. + +The next night, disguised in man's clothes, Lola the intrepid slipped back +into Munich, and took refuge in the house of her loyal partisan, Berks. +She sent a secret message to the King, confident that if she could see +him, she could regain her power. Those must have been anxious moments, +while she was awaiting the reply. It came at last, in the form of a letter +brought by two police commissaries, Weber and Dichtl. The King refused to +see her, and wished that he had come to that decision before. She turned +to the officials. They read an order for her expulsion from Bavaria. Lola +tore the document to pieces and threw them in their faces. Not till they +presented their pistols at her bosom did she consent to accompany them. It +was reported that she had been sent to Lindau on the Bodensee, thence to +be conducted into Switzerland. In reality, Louis had selected for her the +oddest and most fantastic place of seclusion. The mental crisis through +which he had passed seems to have weakened his understanding, and he +actually was persuaded by his new clerical friends that Lola's power over +him was due to witchcraft. These enlightened Ultramontanes repeated some +ridiculous yarn about a great black bird that visited her room by night. +At a place called Weinsberg lived a man named Justinus Kerner, who +exercised the profession of an exorcist or expeller of devils. To this +person's custody was Lola confided on 17th February, as was first learnt +from the charlatan's letters, published some ten or fifteen years ago.[17] +In one of these he says:-- + + "Lola Montez arrived here the day before yesterday, accompanied by + three Alemannen. It is vexatious that the King should have sent her to + me, but they have told him that she is possessed. Before treating her + with magic and magnetism, I am trying the hunger cure. I allow her + only thirteen drops of raspberry water, and the quarter of a wafer. + Tell no one about this--burn this letter." + +To another correspondent Kerner writes:-- + + "Lola has grown astonishingly thin. My son, Theobald, has mesmerised + her, and I let her drink asses' milk." + +That the fiery, man-compelling Countess should have submitted to this +disagreeable tomfoolery, certainly seems to suggest hypnotic influence. It +is not unlikely that from the strain of the preceding few days a nervous +breakdown had resulted. Or, again, she may have lingered on at Kerner's, +in the hope that the King's love for her would revive. But before the +month of February was over she had shaken off for ever the dust of +Bavaria, and was safe in free Switzerland. Peisner, Hertheim, and +Laibinger followed her into exile. Lieutenant Nuessbaum, dismissed from the +Bavarian army because of his devotion to her, found a soldier's grave +before the redoubts of Dueppel. + + + + +XXV + +THE RISING OF THE PEOPLES + + +Louis of Bavaria had sacrificed his self-respect and the woman he loved to +wear the crown a few years longer. The sacrifice proved futile. The +expulsion of the strongest personality in Bavaria was merely the first act +in the programme of the revolutionary party. On 24th February the King of +the French was hurled from his throne, and every sovereign in Europe +trembled. The spirit of the Revolution spread from state to state with +amazing rapidity. Encouraged by the King's late compliance, the citizens +of Munich once more gathered in their strength and demanded that the +Chambers should be convoked forthwith. Louis refused to summon a +Parliament before the end of May. Nor would he consent to the dismissal of +Berks. On the 2nd March barricades were erected in the principal streets, +and two days later the arsenal was attacked by the people, and carried +after a short struggle. Again Louis yielded to his fears, and dismissed +the unpopular minister; again the surrender came too late. The spark of +insurrection in Munich had now become absorbed in the mighty flame of a +great European revolution. Everywhere the people were feeling their +strength. The Middle Ages, even in Germany, had at last come to an end. +Six thousand men, armed with muskets, swords, hatchets, and pikes, surged +round the royal palace. In the market-place, the troops were ordered to +fire on the insurgents. They remained motionless, leaning on their +muskets. Some one called for cheers for the Republic; the crowd responded +heartily. Then up rode Prince Charles of Bavaria, the King's brother, and +announced that His Majesty had conceded all the demands of his people and +pledged his royal word to summon the Chambers on the 16th of the month. +With this assurance the excited people feigned to be content, and returned +to their homes. + +But the opening of the Parliamentary session was attended by a renewal of +the disturbances. A report circulated that the Countess of Landsfeld had +returned to the city. The silly people again flew to arms, and demolished +the ministry of police. To calm the tumult the King published a decree, +withdrawing the rights of citizenship from his exiled favourite, and +forbidding her to re-enter his dominions. With this disgraceful act of +violence to his personal feelings, Louis lost all taste for kingship. +Rumours of his impending abdication spread through the capital, and now +the democratic party stood in fear of an Ultramontane conspiracy to defeat +their own policy. More rioting ensued. The Landwehr were eager to rescue +the King from the hands of his supposed enemies in the palace. But the old +man was weary of the whole comedy, and craved only peace. On 21st March +1848 he took leave of his people in the following proclamation:-- + + "BAVARIANS,--A new state of feeling has begun--a state which differs + essentially from that embodied in the Constitution according to which + I have governed the country twenty-three years. I abdicate my crown in + favour of my beloved son, the Crown Prince Maximilian. My government + has been in strict accordance with the Constitution; my life has been + dedicated to the welfare of my people. I have administered the public + money and property as if I had been a republican officer, and I can + boldly encounter the severest scrutiny. I offer my heartfelt thanks to + all who have adhered to me faithfully, and though I descend from the + throne, my heart still glows with affection for Bavaria and for + Germany. + + LOUIS." + +Less than six weeks thus elapsed between the downfall of Lola Montez and +the dethronement of the king who had not been man enough to uphold her. +Had the positions been reversed--had the woman been able to command one +tithe of the forces of which Louis could dispose--not the most powerful +coalition of parties would have driven her from the throne without the +bloodiest of struggles. In her, as was said of the Duchesse de Berry, +there was mind and heart enough for a dozen kings. The country that so +angrily threw off the unofficial yoke of its one strong-minded ruler, has +since acknowledged the sway of two raving madmen. The Bavarians prefer +King Log to King Stork. + +Louis soon recovered his popularity with his late subjects. The cares and +ambitions of kingship put aside, the tempestuous emotions of manhood at +last exhausted, the old man was now free to devote himself wholly to his +first and last love, Art. Though now a private person, his interest in the +embellishment of Munich and the enrichment of the city's collections never +waned. He maintained more than one residence in Bavaria, and was indeed a +familiar and well-liked figure in the streets of his old capital; but +most of his remaining years he spent wandering in Italy and the south of +France. He lived to witness the expulsion of his son, Otto, from the +throne of Greece; the death of his other son and successor, Maximilian +II.; and the humiliation of his country by the arms of ever-broadening +Prussia. But he could always find consolation in the contemplation of the +beautiful, and in the society of men of wit and genius. The last twenty +years of his life were, perhaps, the happiest he had known. He died at +Nice on 29th February 1868, in the eighty-third year of his age. You may +see his equestrian statue at Munich, but the whole city is virtually his +monument. A great man he was not, but he was the greatest king Bavaria has +yet known. So he passed from the stage of history:-- + + "A courteous prince, and sociable, sympathetic gentleman; a poet, too, + in a small way, taking off his diamond collar at Weimar, and putting + it round Goethe's neck; he had a gracious, winning, kingly way of his + own, and many as were his faults and his foibles, neither his son nor + his grandson supplanted him in the affections of the Bavarian + people."[18] + + + + +XXVI + +LOLA IN SEARCH OF A HOME + + + "Her last hope for Bavaria being broken," Lola (to use her own words) + "turned her attention towards Switzerland, as the nearest shelter from + the storm that was beating above her head. She had influenced the King + of Bavaria to withhold his consent from a proposition by Austria, + which had for its object the destruction of that little republic of + Switzerland. If republics are ungrateful, Switzerland certainly was + not so to Lola Montez; for it received her with open arms, made her + its guest, and generously offered to bestow an establishment upon her + for life." + +At Bern, the quaint, beautiful old city of fountains and arcades, the +deposed dictatrix of Bavaria found a pleasant asylum. She was greeted with +especial cordiality by the English Charge d'Affaires, Mr. Robert Peel (son +of the more celebrated statesman of the same name), whose fine presence, +gaiety of manner, and brilliant conversational powers rendered him a +universal favourite. Peel was a warm supporter of the anti-clerical policy +of the Government to which he was accredited, and on political grounds +alone, must have felt the strongest sympathy for the Countess of +Landsfeld. Peisner, Hertheim, and Laibinger seem to have at last parted +company with Lola at Bern, for a letter in her handwriting is preserved, +dated from that city, 2nd March 1848, alluding to their probable +departure, and directing that a packet be forwarded to Peisner. + +From the terraces of Bern, Lola looked forth over Europe and beheld the +utter discomfiture of her enemies. If she craved revenge, here was enough +and a surfeit. Metternich, the mighty minister, whose gold had contributed +to her undoing, was dismissed and driven into exile after forty years of +unquestioned sway. Everywhere Liberal principles were in the ascendant. +Louis of Bavaria, who had not dared to save her, had now shown himself +unable to defend his own throne. Lola must have been more than human if +she experienced no inward exultation at the downfall of those who had +basely abandoned her. The reign of her clerical foes and conquerors had +indeed been short-lived. Too late did they realise that they had been +merely the instruments of their natural antagonists, the extreme +revolutionary party. + +But if the situation of Europe in the spring of 1848 afforded satisfaction +to Lola's vindictive instincts, it offered little incentive to her +ambition. The men who were shaping the nation's destinies were cast in the +stern, republican mould, and disdained to use the charms and wiles of a +woman in the furtherance of their ends. Issues were being fought out on +the battlefield, not in the boudoir. Nor did any state, from the Baltic to +the Mediterranean, present even such slight evidences of stability as a +high-flying adventuress might found her plans upon. To re-enter the +political arena at such a moment was to plunge headlong into a whirlpool. +The old order had changed. The world, hardly tolerant of kings, would no +longer brook the domination of their favourites, wise or unwise. The +princes pulled long faces, and swore that the Constitution and the +Catechism should be henceforward their only rule of life. They vowed to +live like respectable citizens, indulging their amiable weaknesses only in +privacy. Pericles must no longer converse on affairs of state with Aspasia +in the market place. Beauty must exert what power it could in the boudoir +and on the back stairs. For half a century woman as a political factor +almost ceased to be. Only in our own day has her voice again been heard, +demanding in stern, menacing tones her right to a larger, nobler part in +the councils of the nations than the Pompadours and Maintenons ever +dreamed of. + +Weary, it may be conceived, of affairs of state, of strife and intrigue, +conscious that she had played in her greatest _role_, the Countess of +Landsfeld quitted Switzerland, once more to try her fortunes in England. +She had stepped down from the throne for ever. She embarked for London at +Rotterdam on 8th April 1848. By the irony of fate, it was ordered that the +bitterest, and once the most powerful, of her foes, the fallen minister, +Metternich, should be waiting at the same port seeking the same +destination. The news of the Chartist demonstration alone prevented him +sailing by the same vessel. "I thank God," he piously remarks, "for having +preserved me from contact with her." Assuredly, the meeting would have +been a painful and ignominious one for the fallen minister, at any rate. + +Lola's arrival in the troubled state of England passed almost unnoticed. +She determined to try her fortunes once more upon the stage, and found, of +course, as a celebrity, that she was _persona grata_ to the managers and +agents. The directors of Covent Garden conceived the ingenious idea of +presenting her as herself in a dramatic representation of the recent +events at Munich. The play was written and entitled, "Lola Montez, ou la +Comtesse d'une Heure," but the Lord Chamberlain declined to license a +performance in which living royal personages were introduced.[19] The +scheme fell through, and Lola, having a private income to fall back upon, +retired into lodgings at 27 Halfmoon Street, Mayfair. There "she invited a +few men, including myself," writes the Hon. F. Leveson Gower, "to visit +her in the evening. She had lost much of her good looks, but her animated +conversation was entertaining."[20] The journalist, George Augustus Sala, +then a very young man, describes Lola on the contrary, as a very handsome +lady, "originally the wife of a solicitor," whom he met at a little +cigar-shop, under the pillars, in Norreys Street, Regent Street. She +proposed that he should write her life, "starting with the assumption that +she was a daughter of the famous matador, Montes."[21] Lola's imaginative +powers, especially when directed to inventing romantic origins for +herself, rivalled those of the heroine of "The Dynamiter." Lord Brougham, +that learned but relatively susceptible Chancellor, she also claimed +acquaintance with; he lived not far from her, in Grafton Street. It is +probable that a woman of Lola's beauty, wit, and remarkable attainments +would have numbered the most brilliant and distinguished men in London +among her associates, whatever attitude may have been assumed towards her +by the little clique of prigs and prudes that arrogated to itself the +title of Society. + + + + +XXVII + +A SECOND EXPERIMENT IN MATRIMONY + + +The company of any number of agreeable men about town and the amenities of +life in a Mayfair lodging-house were not, however, likely to content a +woman who had lately ruled a kingdom. Experience, it is true, had taught +Lola to set limits to her ambition. She had succeeded in her design of +hooking a prince, but the catch had been torn off the hook with +considerable violence to the angler. It was of no use again to cast her +line into royal waters. The fish were now too wary. After the ordeal +through which she had passed, Lola sighed for some enduring ties and an +established position. She yearned as the most fiery and erratic do at one +time or another, for a home. Some think that they who have loved most, +love best; but I imagine Lola was a trifle weary of love just then, and +longed for some felicity more stable and material. She inclined, in fact, +towards the sweet yoke of domesticity, which was quite a fashionable +institution in England at that time. Among her visitors was a Mr. George +Trafford Heald, son of a rich Chancery barrister, and a cornet in the +Second Life Guards. This gallant officer is described as a tall young man, +of juvenile figure and aspect, with straight hair and small light brown +downy mustachios and whiskers; his turned-up nose gave him an air of great +simplicity. As, however, he had, on his coming of age in January 1849, +inherited a fortune of between six and seven thousand pounds per annum, he +was considered, especially by unattached ladies, in and out of society, a +very interesting person. He was very much in love with the Countess of +Landsfeld who, no doubt, easily persuaded herself that she entertained a +strong affection for so eligible a suitor. In this respect Lola was, it is +safe to say, no more mercenary than half the good and well-brought-up +young ladies who were looking out for a good match that season. Heald +seems to have been what women call a nice boy; in many ways he probably +contrasted favourably with Lola's bolder, more experienced wooers. So when +(with many blushes, and in shy stammering words, I doubt not) he offered +the adventuress his hand and heart and fortune, she was able without any +natural repugnance to consent to be his wife. + +That she ever doubted that she was free to wed again is not to be +supposed. In all likelihood, she had been made acquainted with her divorce +from Captain James only through the medium of the newspapers, and these +would lead any one to believe that the divorce had been made absolute. It +was, therefore, without any apprehension that she married Cornet Heald at +St. George's, Hanover Square, on 19th July 1849. As she left the church on +the arm of her youthful husband, she must have thought half-regretfully of +the career of adventure that was ended, and yet looked forward with +complacency to the life of respectability and affluence that seemed to +stretch before her. + +Vain hope! By the common domestic women of her time Lola was regarded with +bitter hatred. It is unnecessary to analyse this species of animosity. It +is compounded, apparently, of jealousy, of some vague religious sentiment +of inherited prejudice, and of the trade-unionist's dislike for the +blackleg. This attitude, though instinctive, is not unreasonable on the +part of the vast numbers of women who consider marriage a profession, but +it is more difficult to understand in the case of an aged lady, long since +resigned to celibacy. Such a spinster was Miss Susanna Heald, of +Headington Grove, Horncastle, the aunt of Cornet George. This lady +manifested great displeasure at her nephew's marriage; and, certain facts +having been communicated to her by Lola's numerous enemies, she forthwith +set in motion that efficient engine of man's injustice, the English law. + +The honeymoon of the newly-wed pair, if they had one at all, was brief, +for it was on 6th August, at nine o'clock in the morning, as the Countess +of Landsfeld was stepping into her carriage, at 27 Halfmoon Street, that +Police Sergeant Gray and Inspector Whall quietly requested a word or two +with her. They explained that they held a warrant for her arrest on a +charge of bigamy, she having intermarried with Cornet Heald while her +lawful husband, Captain James, was still alive. Lola replied that she had +been divorced from the captain by an act of Parliament. She added with +characteristic petulence: "I don't know whether Captain James is alive or +not, and I don't care. I was married in a wrong name, and it wasn't a +legal marriage. Lord Brougham was present when the divorce was granted, +and Captain Osborne can prove it. What will the King say?" she murmured, +as an after-thought, and referring no doubt to her late royal protector. + +They drove to the police-station, and thence to Marlborough Street Police +Court. The rumour of the arrest had spread abroad, and the approaches to +the court were thronged with people, eager to get a glimpse of the famous +Countess of Landsfeld. The "respectable married women" in the crowd no +doubt exulted at the anticipated downfall of the woman who could bind +men's hearts without the chains of law or Church. + + "About half-past one o'clock," says the reporter, "the Countess of + Landsfeld, leaning on the arm of Mr. Heald, her present husband, came + into court, and was accommodated with a seat in front of the bar. Mr. + Heald was also allowed to have a chair beside her. The lady appeared + quite unembarrassed, and smiled several times as she made remarks to + her husband. She was stated to be 24 years of age on the police-sheet, + but has the look of a woman of at least 30. [She was, in fact, 31.] + She was dressed in black silk, with close fitting black velvet jacket, + a plain white straw bonnet trimmed with blue, and blue veil. In figure + she is rather plump, and of middle height, of pale dark complexion, + the lower part of the features symmetrical, the upper part not so + good, owing to rather prominent cheek bones, but set off by a pair of + unusually large blue eyes with long black lashes. Her reputed husband, + Mr. Heald, during the whole of the proceedings, sat with the + countess's hand clasped in both of his own, occasionally giving it a + fervent squeeze, and at particular parts of the evidence whispering to + her with the fondest air, and pressing her hand to his lips with + juvenile warmth."[22] + +The magistrate, Mr. Peregrine Bingham, having taken his seat, Mr. +Clarkson opened the case for the prosecution. "Sir," he began, "however +painful the circumstances under which the lady who sits at my left (Miss +Heald) is placed, she has felt it to be a duty to her deceased brother, +the father of the young gentleman now in court, to lay before you the +evidence of this young gentleman's marriage with the lady at the bar, and +also other evidence which has led her to impute the offence of bigamy to +that lady." The learned counsel then went on to state that Lola had been +married to Thomas James in Ireland, in July 1837, that a divorce only a +_toro et mensa_ (_i.e._, a judicial separation) had been pronounced by the +Consistory Court in 1842, and that Captain James was alive in India +thirty-six days before the celebration of the second marriage with Heald. +He deprecated any sort of allusion to the defendant's distinction or +notoriety, concluding: "I am further bound to state that this proceeding +is on the part of the aunt, Miss Heald, without the consent of Mr. Heald, +her nephew, who would, no doubt, if he could, prevent these proceedings +from being carried on. No one, I think, will venture to impugn the motives +or the purity of the intentions of Miss Heald in taking this step. My +application is for the lady at the bar to be remanded till we can get the +proper witnesses from India to come forward." + +Miss Heald, who went into the witness-box, explained her relationship to +the accused's second husband, said she had been his guardian, and stated +she considered it was her duty to prosecute this enquiry. When old ladies +do any one a bad turn or make themselves a nuisance, they always explain +that they are prompted by a sense of duty. For my part, I take up the +challenge thrown down sixty years ago by Mr. Clarkson, and I impugn the +purity of his client's motives. If it had been her object to prevent any +family complications in the future, such as might have arisen from the +birth of children to Lola and her nephew, she could have laid the facts +before them in private; and if they had refused to separate, she should +have remained for ever silent. I entertain no doubt whatever that Miss +Susanna Heald wished to ruin the Countess of Landsfeld, and that this was +at any rate one of her motives in instituting police court proceedings. + +The rest of the evidence was purely formal, and included the testimony of +Captain Ingram, in whose ship Lola had come to England seven years before. + +Mr. Bodkin appeared on behalf of the lady, who had been dragged that +morning to a station-house, to answer a charge which, in all his +professional experience, was perfectly unparalleled. He never recollected +a case of bigamy in which neither the first nor the second husband came +forward in the character of a complaining party. The matter, would, +however, undergo investigation, and if anything illegal had been done, +those who had done the illegality would be held responsible for their +conduct. As far as the proof had gone he was willing to admit enough had +been laid before the court to justify further enquiry. At the proper time +he should be prepared to show that the marriage with Mr. Heald was a +lawful act. It would seem that the lady had been married when about +fifteen or sixteen years old, and that a divorce had taken place. It was +evident that the lady had a strong impression that a divorce bill had been +obtained in the House of Lords. This, however, might be a mistake, into +which the lady would be likely to fall from her ignorance of our laws. +Enough had been stated to show that even had the imputed offence been +committed, it had been committed in circumstances that appeared to justify +the act. He asked the court to admit the lady to bail, to appear upon such +a day as might be agreed upon. It was in the highest degree improbable +that the parties most interested would attempt to evade an enquiry of this +sort. He made no reflection on the motives of the prosecution, but it must +be clear that a private and not a public object originated the +proceedings. + +Mr. Bodkin had not detected the flaw in his adversary's case, and he had +conceded too much to the prosecution. The magistrate's decision must have +mortified his professional feelings as much as it chagrined the amiable +Miss Heald. + + "Mr. Bingham, after a short consultation with Mr. Hardwick, said: 'It + is observable in the present case that the person most immediately + interested (a person of full age and holding a commission in Her + Majesty's army) is not the person to institute or to countenance the + prosecution. It is quite compatible with the evidence now produced + that the accused may have received by the same mail from India a few + hours later than the official return, a letter communicating the death + of Captain James from cholera or some other casualty. The law presumes + she is innocent till the usual proof of guilt is brought forward. Here + that proof is wanting, and the magistrate is requested to act on a + presumption of guilt. I feel great reluctance in doing so, even to the + extent of a remand without an assurance on the part of the prosecutor + that the evidence necessary to ensure a conviction will certainly be + producible on a future occasion. No such assurance can be given in + this case, because between the 13th June and the last marriage, a + period of nearly six weeks, Captain James may have been snatched from + life by any of those numerous casualties by which life is beset in a + military profession and a tropical climate. However, upon the express + admission of the advocate that in his judgment sufficient ground has + been laid for further enquiry, and upon his offer to find security, I + shall venture to order a remand, and to liberate the prisoner, upon + finding two sureties in L500 each, and herself L1,000, for her + reappearance here on a future day.' + + "Bail was immediately tendered and accepted. The Countess of Landsfeld + and her husband were allowed to remain some time in court in order to + elude the gaze of the crowd." + +Her counsel's blunder had cost Lola and her husband two thousand pounds. + +The prosecution succeeded in ruining the beautiful woman against whom it +was directed. A spiteful old lady had taken advantage of a bad law. The +whole proceedings were cruel and vindictive. A law framed by bigots and +administered by idiots condemned a woman to lose her conjugal rights; and +when she attempted to contract new ties and create for herself a home, it +threatened her with the punishment of a felon. Decrees like that of Dr. +Lushington impose on women the alternatives of celibacy and prostitution. +Lola, who was too human for the one, and too highly organised for the +other, was accordingly bludgeoned, defamed, and driven out of society. +Somewhere between this world and Nirvana there should be a flaming hell +for the makers of our ancient English law; though, perhaps, we should seek +them in the limbo of unbaptized innocents and idiots. + +Lola did not share the magistrate's belief in the probability of Captain +James having been carried off by accident or fever. On the contrary, she +thought it likely that Miss Heald would succeed in producing him in court. +To defeat the malice of her enemies, she and Heald took their departure +for the continent, _via_ Folkestone and Boulogne, the day after her +appearance at Marlborough Street, as an announcement in the _Morning +Herald_ testifies. For the next two years we have no reliable information +as to the movements or the doings of the pair. Certain particulars are +supplied by Eugene de Mirecourt, a wholly untrustworthy writer, who speaks +ill of everybody, especially of Lola, and is again and again to be +convicted of palpable and serious errors. According to his version,[23] +the newly married couple proceeded in the first instance to Spain, where +two children were born to them. Here Monsieur de Mirecourt makes the first +heavy draft on our credulity, for we can find elsewhere no trace of or +allusion to the existence of any children of Lola Montez, who could have +had no possible interest in abandoning or repudiating them, since they +would have constituted a powerful claim on her wealthy young husband and +his affluent relatives. Despite these pledges of affection, we are told, +the domestic life of the Healds was troubled by violent quarrels. At +Barcelona, in an access of fury, Lola stabbed her husband with a stiletto. +The wounded man took to flight, but, unable to stifle his love for his +wife, returned to her with assurances of renewed affection. However, he +soon found reason to regret this step, and at Madrid again deserted the +conjugal roof. Lola advertised for him as for a lost dog, and rewarded +the person who found and restored him to her. Here Monsieur de Mirecourt's +effervescent Gallic humour seems to have betrayed him into what is at +least unplausible. + + "Paris," he goes on to say, "had next the honour of sheltering this + extraordinary couple. Madame sate for her portrait to Claudius + Jacquand, but was obliged to interrupt the sitting every day on word + being brought that her husband was about to take to flight. On one + occasion she was obliged to pursue him as far as Boulogne. Claudius + Jacquand painted them both together [this rather conflicts with the + sense of the foregoing sentences], the husband presenting his wife + with a rich _parure_ of diamonds. When a definite rupture of their + relations was decided upon, Heald wished the canvas to be cut in two, + as he objected to appearing beside Lola. She, however, obtained + possession of the picture in its entirety, and kept it in her room, + with its face turned to the wall. 'My husband,' she explained, 'ought + not to see everything I do. It wouldn't be decent.' + + "The husband, upon his return to London, obtained a decree of nullity + of marriage, and the year following was drowned at Lisbon, the swell + of a passing steamer swamping the skiff in which he was taking his + pleasure." + +Our delightfully unreliable informant adds that Captain James died in +1852, whereas he lived to witness the Franco-German war. De Mirecourt +aimed rather at being funny than accurate, and succeeded in being neither +one nor the other. In substance his carefully-seasoned story is true. Lola +herself refers to her marriage with Heald as another unfortunate +experience in matrimony. There was, no doubt, a fundamental difference in +their temperaments, and the vagrant life in France and Spain must have +brought out only too well the wife's capacity for adventure, as much as it +must have bored and irritated the well-connected young Englishman. In +London they might have pulled together very well. He would have had his +club and his race-meetings; she would have had her well-appointed +household, her _salon_, and her box at the Opera. Miss Susanna Heald's +interference destroyed Lola's dream of an established position, and +wrecked two lives. + + + + +XXVIII + +WESTWARD HO! + + +In the year 1851, the Countess of Landsfeld might well have reflected, +with Byron-- + + "Through Life's dull road, so dim and dirty, + I have dragged to three-and-thirty. + What have these years left to me? + Nothing--except thirty-three." + +She had practically exhausted the possibilities of the old world. In Paris +she met with an American agent, named Edward Willis, who made her an offer +(in theatrical parlance) for New York. Such a proposal appealed at once to +this restless woman, in whom no series of misfortunes could extinguish the +thirst for novelty and adventure. Other and more distinguished exiles who +had been worsted in the fight with Europe's archaic traditions were also +turning their faces westward. The _Humboldt_, in which Lola sailed from +Southampton on 20th November 1851, bore, as its most illustrious +passenger, the patriot Kossuth. Of this great Magyar our adventuress saw +little, for he was confined to his cabin during the greater part of the +voyage with seasickness; what she did see she seems to have liked little. +She thought him (so she told the reporter of the _New York Tribune_) +sinister and distant. She, on an element with which she had been familiar +since childhood, was brilliant and sprightly. + +The _Humboldt_ arrived at New York on Friday, 5th December 1851, and was +received with a salute of thirty-one guns--in honour, it need hardly be +said, of Kossuth, not of the Countess of Landsfeld. She was not altogether +overlooked in the transports of enthusiasm and public rejoicings with +which the American people hailed the exiled hero. She was promptly +interviewed by the newspaper men, who were surprised to find that she was +not a masculine woman, but rather slim in her stature. + + "She has," continues the report, "a face of great beauty, and a pair + of black [_sic_] Spanish eyes, which flash fire when she is speaking, + and make her, with the sparkling wit of her conversation, a great + favourite in company. She has black hair, which curls in ringlets by + the sides of her face, and her nose is of a pure Grecian cast, while + her cheek bones are high, and give a Moorish appearance to her face. + + "She states that many bad things have been said of her by the American + Press, yet she is not the woman she has been represented to be: if she + were, her admirers, she believes, would be still more numerous. She + expresses herself fearful that she will not be properly considered in + New York, but hopes that a discriminating public will judge of her + after having seen her, and not before."[24] + +New York and its people in the middle of the last century have been +portrayed unkindly, but I do not think unfairly, by Charles Dickens. That +great novelist visited the country for the first time only seven years +before Lola landed, and his impressions are largely embodied in "Martin +Chuzzlewit." With the type of American delineated therein, it is evident +that the Countess of Landsfeld knew exactly how to deal. She succeeded at +once in disarming an intensely puritanical people by enthusiastic appeals +to their childlike national vanity, by delighted acquiescence in their +laughable self-righteousness. Colonel Diver and General Choke could with +difficulty have bettered her allusion to their Great Country as "this +stupendous asylum of the world's unfortunates, and last refuge of the +victims of the tyranny and wrongs of the Old World! God grant," devoutly +prays the Countess, "that it may ever stand as it is now, the noblest +column of liberty that was ever reared beneath the arch of heaven!" At the +conclusion of her autobiography the American people are told that the +pilgrim from the effete forms of Europe must look upon their great +Republic with as happy an eye as the storm-tossed and shipwrecked mariner +looks upon the first star that shines beneath the receding tempest. These +words, indeed, are Mr. Chauncy Burr's, but the sentiments beyond doubt are +those that Lola constantly affected. Her mastery over men, as is always +the case, was due not so much to her physical charms as to her skill in +detecting their weakest sides. It says much for her shrewdness that she +who had hitherto found it safest to appeal to men through their passions, +perceived that the cold Yankee was most vulnerable through so artificial +and dispassionate a sentiment as patriotism. Every other woman of her +experience would have assumed that the animal predominated in all men, of +whatever race or country. + + +[Illustration: LOLA MONTEZ. (After Jules Laure).] + + +No amount of judicious flattery could, however, blind the Great and +Critical American Public to the fair stranger's imperfections as an +actress and a dancer. On 27th December she appeared in the title _role_ of +_Betly, the Tyrolean_, a musical comedy written especially for her, at the +Broadway Theatre. It was expected that she would prove a powerful +attraction, and seats for the first performance were put up to public +auction on the preceding Saturday. But the piece was withdrawn on 19th +January 1852, public curiosity having by then been satisfied, and what +taste there was in New York not much gratified. Lola, however, secured an +engagement at the Walnut Street Theatre, at Philadelphia, that dull, +colourless city, which formed the most incongruous of all possible +settings for her personality. In May, when a faint breath of romance seems +to rustle the trees even in Union Square, she went back to New York. On +the 18th she appeared again at the Broadway Theatre in a dramatised +version of her career in Munich, written by C. P. T. Ware. She appeared as +herself, in the characters of the Danseuse, the Politician, the Countess, +the Revolutionist, and the Fugitive. The part of King Louis was sustained +by Mr. Barry, and Abel--the villain of the piece--by F. Conway. The play +ran five nights only. Even during these brief runs, and though the prices +at New York theatres did not exceed a dollar in those days, Lola had +amassed a considerable sum of money; but she was by nature prodigal, and +easily outpaced the swiftest current of Pactolus. She now hit on a +somewhat original scheme, which quickly replenished her exchequer. She +organised receptions, to which any one paying a dollar was admitted for +the space of a quarter of an hour, to shake her by the hand, gaze upon her +in all the splendour of her beauty, and converse with her in English, +French, German, or Spanish. The function was hardly consistent with the +Countess's dignity, but it revealed in a striking manner her knowledge of +the American character. To shake hands with a well-known personage is +esteemed by your average Yankee a greater privilege than visiting the +Acropolis or wading in the Jordan. + +From New York Lola proceeded to New Orleans, that queer old city of +creoles and canals. + + "A Canadian named Jones," relates De Mirecourt, "acted as her agent, + and as there was reason to fear that in this deeply religious state, + her scandalous history might dispose the public against her, the + following plan was devised. + + "It was reported in the Louisiana journals that the Countess of + Landsfeld, who had recently arrived in America, was distributing alms + in abundance to the poor, the sick, and the captive, to make amends + for her misspent life. + + "This announcement having taken some effect, the newspapers went on to + inform the public that the famous Countess was shortly about to enter + religion; the best informed went so far as to name the day on which + she would take the veil. + + "But on the appointed day, behold a third and startling item of news! + + "Senora Lola Montez, yielding to that instinct of inconstancy so + strong in her sex, is announced to have chosen the Opera instead of + the Cloister. + + "That evening the theatre was crowded to suffocation, and the + following days the receipts were enormous." + +De Mirecourt, who pronounced young Heald's desire to marry Lola in due and +proper form, _idee d'Anglais_, must be allowed his sneer. We who know in +what spirit the adventuress ended her career, and to what strange impulses +she was subject, may hesitate to dismiss her momentary attraction to the +cloister as a mere advertising manoeuvre. The woman was disillusioned, +sore at heart, and world-weary; her restlessness bespeaks a mind ill at +ease; her beauty showed signs of fading, she had no home, no ties, no +kindred. It is likely that for a moment her resolve to end her days in the +supposed tranquillity of the convent was genuine enough. It passed; as yet +the joy of living was too strong in her to be crushed down. + + + + +XXIX + +IN THE TRAIL OF THE ARGONAUTS + + +The Creole City at that time swarmed with gold-seekers on their way to or +returning from the newly-found Ophir of the Occident. Though the first +headlong rush to California was over, it still drew its thousands every +month, and Greeley's famous advice to the young man was followed without +having been asked. Lola became infected with the fever. There was much of +the gambler in her nature, and her zest for adventure was keener than of +old. At this time, too, a positive distaste for civilisation appears to +have possessed her. It may have been the vision of a wild, unfettered life +in a virgin land that dispelled the sickly hankerings for the cloister. + +She sailed across the Gulf of Mexico to San Juan del Norte, or Greytown, +as it is now called, the newly opened halfway-house to the gold-fields. +Thence the route lay across the beautiful savannahs of Nicaragua to the +Pacific shore. She passed the white-walled towns of Leon and Rivas, which +Walker and his filibusters two years later harried with fire and sword. +This was an alternative route to that across the isthmus of Panama, which +she was fabled to have followed in a book by Russell, the +war-correspondent, called the "Adventures of Mrs. Seacole." Lola refers +to this mendacious romance in her little autobiography, and quotes the +following passage in order to characterise it at the finish as a base +fabrication from beginning to end:-- + + "Occasionally some distinguished passengers passed on the upward and + downward tides of ruffianism and rascality that swept periodically + through Cruces. Came one day Lola Montez, in the full zenith of her + evil fame, bound for California with a strange suite. A good-looking, + bold woman, with fine, bad eyes and a determined bearing, dressed + ostentatiously in perfect male attire, with shirt collar turned down + over a velvet lapelled coat, richly worked shirt-front, black hat, + French unmentionables, and natty polished boots with spurs. She + carried in her hand a handsome riding-whip, which she could use as + well in the streets of Cruces as in the towns of Europe; for an + impertinent American, presuming, perhaps not unnaturally, upon her + reputation, laid hold jestingly of the tails of her long coat, and, as + a lesson, received a cut across his face that must have marked him for + some days. I did not see the row which followed, and was glad when the + wretched woman rode off on the following morning." + +The incident is a spicy little bit of fiction, such as is so easily +invented by the fertile journalistic brain. The adjectives applied to Lola +also illustrate, in a mildly diverting manner, the strictly orthodox +notions of morality entertained by the newspaper press, and the pontifical +confidence with which journalists pronounce on questions of conduct.[25] + +On the long journey to the golden gate, Lola had as a fellow-passenger a +young man named Patrick Purdy Hull, a native of Ohio, and editor of the +_San Francisco Whig_. The acquaintance thus formed soon ripened into an +attachment. Though, upon her arrival in California, the Countess +immediately went on tour among the mining camps, her new victim did not +lose sight of her. For the third time Lola went through the ceremony of +wedlock. On 1st July 1853 she married Hull at the Church of the Mission +Dolores, "in presence," runs the report, "of a select party, among whom +were Beverly C. Saunders, Esq., Judge Wills, James E. Wainwright, Esq., A. +Bartol, Esq., Louis R. Lull, S. A. Brinsmade, and other prominent +citizens"--all among the most remarkable men in that country, no doubt. +"The bride and groom have since visited Sacramento, and are now in +domestic retirement at San Francisco."[26] + +From the reports of remarkable men and prominent citizens shooting each +other in the public streets, of bandits raiding the suburbs, of fires and +floods, that accompany this announcement, we should imagine that domestic +retirement in San Francisco was at that time subject to frequent and +unpleasant interruption. On this account, perhaps, Mr. and Mrs. Hull spent +much of their time hunting in the valley of the Sacramento. Lola was in +search of new sensations, and for the moment the bear seemed a more +attractive quarry than the man. But before long a German medical man, +named Adler, himself a mighty hunter, came across her path. His prowess +excited her admiration, and he at once fell a victim to the shafts from +her quiver. Hull was discarded and the German reigned in his stead. + +In these American _amours_ we seem to detect the last flickerings of the +flame of passion--the woman's last strenuous efforts to find a real and +lasting interest in life. But Lola had played too much with love. That +mighty force which she had so often exploited and exerted to the +furtherance of her ambitions was no longer at her command. Her capacity +for love was exhausted; by passion she was no more to rule or to be ruled. + +She had hardly time to tire of her German lover, who accidentally shot +himself while following the chase--no bad death for a hunter. It might +have been expected that Lola would now quit California and return to more +congruous surroundings. But a distaste for men and cities, for the +restraints of civilisation, had grown strong within her. Just then she was +sick of love and sick of the world. At her best, a splendid animal, with +fierce elemental passions, she turned almost instinctively, to draw fresh +supplies of vitality from "the green, sweet-hearted earth." She made +herself a home in a cabin at Grass Valley, a lawless mining camp, among +the foot-hills of the Sierra Nevada. All her life she had loved animals, +and these she now made her special friends and companions, finding in +their marvellous stores of affection and devotion ample compensation for +the muddy evanescent emotion that men call love. She did not, of course, +lead the life of a hermit. We catch glimpses of her in a despatch from +Nevada City, dated 20th January 1854:-- + + "The merry ringing of sleigh bells has been heard for several days + past in our city. Several sleighs have been fitted up, and the young + gentlemen have treated the ladies to some dashing turn-outs. On + Tuesday last, Lola Montez paid us a visit by this conveyance and a + span of horses, decorated with impromptu cowbells. She flashed like a + meteor through the snowflakes and wanton snowballs, and after a tour + of the thoroughfares, disappeared in the direction of Grass Valley." + +There she continued to dwell during the rest of that year, her liking for +the simple life unabated. A correspondent of the _San Francisco Herald_, +who visited her on 13th December, describes her as-- + + "living a quiet, and apparently cosy life, surrounded by her pet + birds, dogs, goats, sheep, hens, turkeys, pigs, and her pony. The + latter seems to be a favourite with Lola, and is her companion in all + her mountain rambles. Surely it is a strange metamorphosis to find the + woman who has gained a world-renowned notoriety, and has played a part + upon the stage of life with powerful potentates, and with whose name + Europe and the world is familiar, finally settled down at home in the + mountain wilds of California." + +A strange change, indeed, but no unpleasant life it could have been. What +memories, what scenes, must have supplied food for the lonely woman's +musings, as she galloped over the hills, or, seated with her dogs, gazed +into her great fire of resinous logs! In communion thus with our great +mother, treading these virgin forests, and breathing an air hardly yet +inhaled by man, she might have attained to a higher, truer plane of +existence than that which she finally took to be firm ground. But luck was +against her here, as always. A fire swept away the township of Grass +Valley, and with it Lola's little homestead--the only home that she had +ever known. Her animals were dispersed, she was without funds. But she had +renewed her stock of vitality at Nature's fountains. She went on her +travels again, reinvigorated: a coarser woman, no doubt, thanks to her +contact with miners and hunters, but, perhaps, a better one. She still +loved the new auriferous lands. In the track of the sun she would continue +to journey, and in June sailed from California across the ocean to +Australia. + + + + +XXX + +IN AUSTRALIA + + +Even to the antipodes--in the 'fifties unconnected by the telegraph with +the rest of the world, and distant a three months' journey from +England--the fame of the Countess of Landsfeld had extended. Her name had +travelled completely round the world, and was as familiar to the people of +Sydney as to those of London and Paris. Lola found that her prolonged rest +cure had weakened in no way her hold on public curiosity. The moment for +her arrival in New South Wales was not, however, well chosen. Commerce and +agriculture were alike depressed, and the mind of the Colonists was +preoccupied with the business of constitution-making. The city lay, too, +under the spell of a celebrated Irish singer, Miss Catherine Hayes, "the +sweet swan of Erin." It is, perhaps, worth noting that this vocalist was +born at the same town as Lola, was married at the same church (St. +George's, Hanover Square), and was to die the same year; that she made her +_debut_ under the same manager (Benjamin Lumley), at the same theatre, and +that the two women had for the last year or two trodden undeviatingly in +each other's footsteps. Miss Hayes had been in possession of the Prince of +Wales's Theatre nearly a fortnight, when Lola's arrival startled the +eldest Australian city. The newcomer was engaged by Tonning of the +Victoria Theatre, and was announced to appear, together with Mr. Lambert, +Mr. Falland, and Mr. C. Jones, on 23rd August 1855, in the four-act drama, +_Lola Montez in Bavaria_. The theatre was crowded to excess. + + "The Countess looked charming, and acted very archly. She was cheered + vociferously, and recalled before the curtain, when she delivered a + short address. Mr. Lambert (well known in London) created quite a + sensation in the King of Bavaria (by which name he is now known), and + at the end of the performance the Countess presented him with a + handsome bundle of cigarettes--a very great compliment, as she is an + inveterate smoker, and seldom gives any cigars away. + + "The excitement about her immediately empties the Prince of Wales's + Theatre, and Miss Hayes is then taken suddenly ill. Two nights after + the Countess of Landsfeld is seriously indisposed, and Miss Hayes + recovers. Her recovery restores Lola Montez to perfect health."[27] + +On 27th August she appeared in _Yelva, or the Orphan of Russia_, "a new +and exciting drama" she had herself translated from the French. On +Wednesday, 6th September, she took a benefit, playing in _The Follies of a +Night_, and two farces. Into one of these she introduced her "Spider +Dance," which seems to have outraged colonial opinion. We need not condemn +it on that account as immodest, for in our own day we have seen a +performance interdicted as offensive to public morals in Manchester, and +pronounced (rightly) to be the quintessence of mobile grace and the truest +poetry of motion in the not less considerable city of London. Immodesty +in the minds of many people definitely connotes that which pleases the +eyes and the senses. + +Business continued dull at Sydney, and Lola departed in the second week of +September for Melbourne. A dispute had arisen between her and another +member of her company, Mrs. Fiddes, who issued a writ of attachment +against her. Brown, the sheriff, went aboard the steamer to apprehend +Lola, who retired to her cabin till the vessel was well under weigh. She +then sent word that the officer could arrest her if he would, but she was +obliged to tell him that she was quite naked. The bold expedient was, of +course, successful. "Poor Brown," we are told, "blushed and retired, and +was put on shore at the Heads, about twenty miles from Sydney, and was +greeted on his return to the city with roars of laughter." The sheriff +evidently did not object to repeating a good story, even at his own +expense. + +At Melbourne, Lola must have been vividly reminded of California. The gold +fever was at its height. The population of the Port Philip district had +swollen in five years from 76,000 to 364,000, of which number at least +two-thirds were men. Men, too, they were, of every nationality under the +sun, and of every class, though the more criminal and dangerous elements +were in the ascendant. In '55 life and property were, notwithstanding, +somewhat more secure here than in California, thanks to the firmer, less +corrupt administration of British officials. Prices were, it need not be +said, extravagantly high, though the barest necessities of decent life +were hardly obtainable outside Melbourne and Geelong. A goldfield would +seem to be one of the most brutalising environments to which a human +being can adapt himself. + +For our knowledge of Lola's doings in the Victorian capital, we are +indebted to the _Era's_ local correspondent. He writes:-- + + "Lola Montez made her _debut_ on 21st September, in a short drama + allusive to her own Bavarian transactions, but the piece might well + have borne curtailment. There was a very crowded audience. The + _ci-devant_ Countess of Landsfeld seemed determined to preserve her + notoriety intact by the selection, but entrenched so far upon decorum + in the 'Spider Dance' on a subsequent evening, that she did not face + the clamour raised in consequence till the objectionable portions were + agreed to be omitted. She is certainly a very singular character, but + there is an ever lively and brusque style in her action that seems to + catch general approbation for the time being. + + "After a brief stay, Lola departed for Geelong; but there, I learn, + her performances were freely condemned. Indeed, their laxness was also + much canvassed with us, and the more staid of the visitors openly + enough expressed their censure. Subsequently to the performance, Dr. + Milman demanded of the Mayor at the City Court, in the name of an + outraged community, that a warrant be issued against all repetition of + the performances of Mme. Lola Montez at the Theatre Royal. The Mayor + referred the matter to the private room of the magistrates, + considering that should be the proper place for its discussion. The + bench declared that the law would not sustain them in issuing a + warrant unless the Doctor had actually witnessed the performance, and + had his information properly attested by witnesses. This he declared + he would do." + +The methods of these self-constituted champions of outraged morality are +the same in every age. They condemn first, and collect evidence +afterwards--if at all. + +Opinion in Geelong does not seem to have been as hostile as the _Era's_ +correspondent supposed. In the _Geelong Advertiser_ of 10th October is to +be found the following paragraph:-- + + ILLNESS OF LOLA MONTEZ + + "Owing to severe indisposition, this talented actress is unable to + appear before a Geelong audience. When competent to perform, her + reappearance will be duly notified. Madame is suffering from severe + cold and bronchitis, and is now under the care of Dr. Thompson, of + Melbourne. To previous indisposition was superadded a severe attack + induced by exposure to the thunderstorm on Saturday." + +Lola's illness was of a passing character. That it in no way impaired her +vigour we shall presently see. From Melbourne she proceeded to the +goldfields, moving among the most desperate characters of the two +hemispheres undismayed and unafraid, a woman capable of defending herself +with whip and tongue. A singular character, in truth was hers, thus +equally at home in kings' courts and miners' camps, able to parry and to +counterplot against the schemes and intrigues of Metternich, able to +subdue and to tame the half-savage ex-convicts and desperadoes of the +Australian diggings. + +At Ballaarat occurred the celebrated fracas with Mr. Seekamp. This man was +the editor of the local newspaper (the _Times_), and upon Lola's arrival +in the town, he published an article, putting the worst construction on +the episodes of her past life, and reflecting in uncomplimentary terms on +her character. He was, no doubt, another guardian of public morality, +which in mining camps is, of course, a very delicate growth. A few +evenings afterwards, he was so rash as to call at the United States Hotel, +where the woman he had traduced was staying. Being informed that he was +below, Lola ran downstairs with a riding-whip, and laid it across his back +with right good will. The journalist also held a whip, with which he +defended himself lustily. Before long the combatants had each other +literally by the hair. The bystanders interposed, and the two were +separated, but not before life-preservers and revolvers had been produced. +It seems to us an unedifying performance, though a woman, if insulted, has +undoubtedly the right to chastise her offender physically, if she is able. +Such was the view taken by the miners of Ballaarat. At the theatre that +evening she was the object of an ovation, which she acknowledged at the +conclusion of the performance. + + "I thank you," she said, "most sincerely for your friendship. I regret + to be obliged to refer again to Mr. Seekamp, but it is not my fault, + as he again in this morning's paper repeated his attack upon me. You + have heard of the scene that took place this afternoon. Mr. Seekamp + threatens to continue his charges against my character. I offered, + though a woman, to meet him with pistols; but the coward who could + beat a woman, ran from a woman. He says he will drive me off the + diggings; but I will change the tables, and make Seekamp _de_camp + (applause). My good friends, again I thank you."[28] + +This conduct was "unladylike," no doubt, but courageous; ungracious, but +absolutely necessary. + +Seekamp, bruised and humiliated, thirsted for revenge. We find him +publishing a story of his conqueror's defeat in the _Ballaarat Times_. The +authority can hardly be regarded as unimpeachable, but with amusing +simplicity it has been accepted as such by all who have written about +Lola. According, then, to the ungallant Mr. Seekamp, the Countess of +Landsfeld was engaged by a manager, named Crosby--of what theatre is not +stated. At "treasury" the actress had a misunderstanding with this +gentleman, and flew into a violent rage. At this opportune moment a relief +force appeared in the person of Mrs. Crosby, armed with a whip. With this +she chastised Lola so severely that the weapon broke. The antagonists then +threw themselves upon each other, and the rest (says the delicately-minded +journalist) may be imagined rather than described. Mr. Seekamp's recent +experience should indeed have enabled him to imagine such a scene without +difficulty; in fact, he probably imagined this one. He concludes: "At last +this terrible virago has found, not her master, but her mistress, and for +many a long day will be incapable of performing at any theatre." + +These words were written, possibly, while Lola was on her way to Europe. +She appears to have quitted Australia in March or April 1856. With her +arrival in France in August that year, she completed her trip round the +world. + + + + +XXXI + +LOLA AS A LECTURER + + +We have no knowledge of the business that took Lola once more to France on +this occasion. She probably went there to spend, in the most agreeable way +possible, the considerable sums she had amassed in her Australian tour. It +may be supposed that she spent some time at Paris, renewing the +acquaintance of her old friends. Dumas, Mery, De Beauvoir, were all +living, and death had made few gaps in her circle of friends during the +past ten years. In August, Lola followed the fashionable crowd to the +southern watering-places, and stayed at St. Jean de Luz, within easy reach +of the imperial court at Biarritz. Hence she addressed this extraordinary +letter to the _Estafette_:-- + + "ST. JEAN DE LUZ, HOTEL DU CYGNE, + "_2nd September, 1856_. + + "The Belgian newspapers, and some French ones, have asserted that the + suicide of the actor, Mauclerc, who, it is reported, has thrown + himself from the summits of the Pic du Midi, was caused by domestic + troubles for which I was responsible. This is a calumny which M. + Mauclerc himself will be ready to refute. We separated amicably, it is + true, after eight days of married life, but urged only by our common + and imperious need of personal liberty. It is probable that the + tragedy of the Pic du Midi exists only in the imagination of some + journalist on the look-out for sensational news. Trusting to your + sense of fairness to insert this explanation in your excellent + journal, I remain, yours, etc., + + LOLA MONTEZ." + +This letter was copied by _La Presse_, which De Girardin still edited, and +was presently noticed by the person most interested. His reply was duly +published:-- + + "BAYONNE, _9th September, 1856_. + + "SIR,--I read in your issue of the 7th. inst. a letter from Lola + Montez, wherein there is talk of a suicide of which I have been the + victim, and a marriage in which I have been principal actor. I am a + complete stranger to such catastrophes. I have never had the least + intention of throwing myself from the Pic du Midi, or from any other + peak, and I do not recollect having had the advantage of + marrying--even for eight days--the celebrated Countess of + Landsfeld,--Yours, etc., + + MAUCLERC."[29] + +The simplest and most probable explanation of this affair is to set it +down as a hoax. Bayonne and St. Jean de Luz are neighbouring towns, and it +is possible that the actor had (perhaps unwittingly) incurred the anger of +the Countess, who devised this rather elaborate means of revenge. + +Soon after, Lola returned to the United States, a country for which she +had conceived a strong liking. She considered it her home, says the Rev. +F. L. Hawks, and had a sincere admiration for its institutions. Lola was +by nature a republican, and intimacy with sovereigns had not much awakened +her distaste for them. + + "To Freedom ever true, true, true, + All his long life was Harlequin!" + +On 2nd February 1857 we find her fulfilling a week's engagement at the +Green Street Theatre at Albany, acting in _The Eton Boy_, _The Follies of +a Night_, and _Lola in Bavaria_. She was not unknown at the state capital, +having appeared there, with a _troupe_ of twelve dancers, at the Museum, +in May 1852. On the present occasion she gave another proof of her +dare-devil courage, by crossing the Hudson River in an open skiff among +the floating ice. + + "She got over in safety, but part of her wardrobe was carried down + stream. By going to Troy she could have avoided all danger, but her + love of notoriety led her to offer a hundred dollars to be carried + across here."[30] + +This recklessness may have proceeded from that want of interest in life, +that utter sense of desolation, which assailed her whenever she was not +distracted by travel and adventure. A lonely, disenchanted woman, without +any ties or hold on life, she found herself now on the verge of forty. Her +days for adventure had passed. At times she must have sighed for her home +among the Californian foothills. Surely it was wise and dignified, for one +who had exhausted her strength and vitality in the struggles of an +artificial society, to throw herself on the placid bosom of our common +mother? There, in time, she would have awakened to fuller comprehension of +man's place in the universe, and have learned at once the true value of +all her past actions, and the futility of remorse. But in New York no one +listened for the whisperings of Nature; instead, they fancied they heard +voices from some other world. Women who have lost their hold on life +readily give ear to visionaries: having exhausted the joys of this world, +they wish to test those of another. Lola became a believer in +spiritualism. The imagined touch of some fatuous phantom would thrill her +as no man's had power to do. One day she announced that the spirits had +directed her to abandon the stage, and to become a lecturer. Apparently, +however, she had no confidence in their ability to inspire her on the +platform, for she caused her lectures to be written by the Rev. C. Chauncy +Burr. At the _seances_ she seems to have been brought into touch (in two +senses) with several of the clergy of various Protestant denominations. +Her first lecture was delivered at a place of worship called the Hope +Chapel, 720 Broadway, New York, on 3rd February 1858. + + "Lola Montez at Hope Chapel is good," chuckles a reporter. "It is + plain that the scent of the roses hangs round her still. We have heard + some queer things in that conventicle in our time, and have now and + then assisted at an entertainment there twice as funny, but not half + so intellectual nor half so wholesome, as the lecture our desperado in + dimity gave us last night." + +The New York pressman was more easily pleased than is the modern reader. +Lola's lectures were published that same year in book form, together with +her autobiography, and they may be pronounced very poor stuff. They are +respectively headed, "Beautiful Women," "Gallantry," "Heroines of +History," "The Comic Aspect of Love," "Wits and Women of Paris," and +"Romanism." Here and there their dullness is enlivened by a flash of +Lola's own native wit, or a shrewd observation that only her experience +could have supplied. Sometimes she begins by what is evidently an +exposition of her own views, winding up with some trite moralisings +calculated to appease her audience. Speaking, for instance, of the +heroines of history, she dwells with enthusiasm on the valour of Margaret +of Anjou, the sagacity of Isabel the Catholic, the administrative ability +of Elizabeth, the diplomatic skill of Catharine II., and recollects +herself in time to impress on her hearers that one + + "who is qualified to be a happy wife and a good mother, need never + look with envy upon the woman of genius, whose mental powers, by + fitting her for the stormy arena of politics, may have unfitted her + for the quiet walks of domestic life." + +As might have been expected, Lola spoke somewhat disdainfully of women who +preferred to vote rather than to cajole the men who voted. The lecturer +forgot, perhaps, that all her sisters were not as well equipped as she for +the business of fascination, and that to some of them the personal +exercise of the franchise might seem less unwomanly and objectionable than +the arts of blandishment and intimidation. + +Lola was bold enough to tell her American audience that the palm of beauty +must be awarded to Englishwomen, and that the Yankees were too mercantile +and practical to entertain the old spirit of gallantry. She mollified her +hearers by adding that, after all, in America, "love dived the deepest +and came out dryest"--a dark saying, from which she derived the conclusion +that love in the United States was as brave, honest, and sincere a passion +as elsewhere. The lecture on Romanism will not be regarded as a very +formidable instrument of attack upon the Catholic Church. It concludes: +"America does not yet recognise how much she owes to the Protestant +principle. It has given the world the four greatest facts of modern +times--steam-boats, railroads, telegraphs, and the American Republic!" + +We can imagine with what enthusiasm this sentiment was received in Hope +Chapel, where the lecture was delivered in October 1858, in aid of a fund +for a church which should be open free to the poor and unfortunate (as, by +the way, all Roman Catholic churches are). By this time Lola appears to +have been weaned of her spiritualistic heresies, and had become interested +in Methodism. In her new zeal for her own soul's welfare she did not, +however, forget the corporal needs of her fellows, and with native +generosity, stimulated by religious considerations, she showered the money +earned at her lectures upon the poor and afflicted. To replenish her +store, and encouraged by the success of her new enterprize in New York, +she resolved to try her luck once more on the other side of the Atlantic. + + + + +XXXII + +A LAST VISIT TO ENGLAND + + +Lola landed from the American steam-ship, _Pacific_, at Galway on 23rd +November 1858. She had not set foot in her native land since she left it, +the bride of Thomas James, more than twenty years before. In Dublin she +had last appeared as a _debutante_ at the viceregal court; now, on 10th +December, she appeared there, on the boards of the Round Room, as a public +curiosity, as a woman whose fame not one among her auditors would have +envied. But they flocked to see her in hundreds, and the opening promised +a highly profitable tour. In her regenerate frame of mind the lecturer was +distressed by the publication in the _Freeman_ of a long article referring +to her connection with Dujarier and the King of Bavaria. Being the +daughter of an Anglo-Indian officer, Lola had inherited a tendency to +write to the papers on every possible occasion, and she at once sent a +letter to the journal, defending her character. Her relations with +Dujarier and Louis were, she insisted, absolutely proper and regular: to +the former she was engaged; of the latter she was merely the friend and +the adviser. The aspersions of her fair fame she attributed to the +intrigues of Austria. She was in Ireland, and it was as well not to refer +to the Jesuits. + +At the new year she crossed over to England, beginning her tour at +Manchester. We hear of her at Sheffield, Nottingham, Leicester, +Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Leamington, Worcester, Bristol, and Bath. She +drew crowded houses, though everywhere she went she had to contend with a +strong counter-attraction in the person of Phineas T. Barnum, the +celebrated showman, who was also touring England. Of course, she +disappointed expectation. The public wanted to see the dashing, dazzling +dare-devil of other days, not a rather sad woman, slightly tinged with +Yankee religiosity. She arrived at last in London, where she lectured at +St. James's Hall. Two or three of the writer's friends faintly recollect +having seen her on this occasion. For the impression she produced on her +audience, I prefer, however, to rely on the notice in the _Era_, under +date 10th April 1859. + + "Following closely upon the heels of Mr. Barnum, Madame Lola Montez, + parenthetically putting forth her more aristocratic title of Countess + of Landsfeld, commenced on Thursday evening [7th April 1859] the first + of a series of lectures at the St. James's Hall. Revisiting this + country, she has first felt her footing as a lecturer in the + provinces, and now venturing upon the ordeal of a London audience, she + has boldly added her name to the list of those who have sought, + single-handed, to engage their attention. If any amongst the full and + fashionable auditory that attended her first appearance fancied, with + a lively recollection of certain scandalous chronicles, that they were + about to behold a formidable-looking woman of Amazonian audacity, and + palpably strong-wristed, as well as strong-minded, their + disappointment must have been grievous; greater if they anticipated + the legendary bull-dog at her side and the traditionary pistols in her + girdle and the horsewhip in her hand. The Lola Montez who made a + graceful and impressive obeisance to those who gave her on Thursday + night so cordial and encouraging a reception, appeared simply as a + good-looking lady in the bloom of womanhood, attired in a plain black + dress, with easy, unrestrained manners, and speaking earnestly and + distinctly, with the slightest touch of a foreign accent that might + belong to any language from Irish to Bavarian. The subject selected by + the fair lecturer was the distinction between the English and the + American character, which she proceeded to demonstrate by a discourse + that must be pronounced decidedly didactic rather than diverting. With + most of the characteristics mentioned as illustrative of each country, + we presume the majority of her hearers had, in the course of their + reading or experience, become already acquainted. That America looked + to the future for her greatness, England to the past; that Americans + believed in the spittoon as a valuable institution, and speed as the + great condition of success in all things--it hardly needed a Lola + Montez to come from the West to inform us. The excitable temperament + of our transatlantic brethren, their readiness to raise idols and to + demolish them, the great liberty of opinion that there prevails, and + the little toleration of its expression, were the leading points of a + lecture lasting an hour and a quarter, blended with a compliment to + the American ladies, a tributary acknowledgment of the virtues of our + own, and a digression into American politics as connected with + everything. There was no attempt to weave into the subject a few + threads of personal interest, no mention of any incident that had + happened to her, and no anecdote that might have enlivened the + dissertation in any way. The lecture might have been a newspaper + article, the first chapter of a book of travels, or the speech of a + long-winded American ambassador at a Mansion House dinner. All was + exceedingly decorous and diplomatic, slightly gilded here and there + with those commonplace laudations that stir a British public into the + utterance of patriotic plaudits. A more inoffensive entertainment + could hardly be imagined; and when the six sections into which the + lady had divided her discourse were exhausted, and her final bow + elicited a renewal of the applause that had accompanied her entrance, + the impression on the departing visitors must have been that of having + spent an hour in company with a well-informed lady who had gone to + America, had seen much to admire there, and, coming back, had had over + the tea-table the talk of the evening to herself. Whatever the future + disquisitions of the Countess of Landsfeld may be, there is little + doubt that many will go to hear them for the sake of the peculiar + celebrity of the lecturer." + + + + +XXXIII + +THE MAGDALEN + + +That celebrity was very far from corresponding to the present dispositions +and aspirations of the ex-adventuress. While travelling from town to town +the transmutation of her emotions into religious fervour had gone on +unchecked. The love she had once borne to men found an object in the +unseen God; the wondering disgust excited by the memory of her relations +with men she had learned to dislike became translated into repentance for +sin; latent ambition now leaped up at the thought of a crown to be won +beyond the tomb. Christianity offers us new worlds for old, promises new +joys to those who have lost all zest for the old, proposes an objective +which may be pursued to the brink of the grave, and assures every human +being of the tremendous importance of his own destiny. For these reasons +religion has always appealed with especial force to women in Lola's +situation, who, moreover, being usually deficient in the logical and +critical faculties, are the less able to resist its appeal to their +emotions. + +During her stay in England Lola kept a spiritual diary, some fragments of +which have been preserved to us. It is certainly illustrative of the depth +and earnestness of her religious convictions, and it would be a +cold-blooded act to analyse and to dissect the state of mind it portrays. +The sentiments are often morbid in the extreme, as might be expected from +one whose ideas of religion were derived from teachers of the extreme +evangelical school. She writes:-- + + "Oh, I dare not think of the past! What have I not been? I lived only + for my own passions; and what is there of good even in the best + natural human being? What would I not give to have my terrible and + fearful experiences given as an awful warning to such natures as my + own! And yet when people generally, even my mother, turned their backs + upon me and knew me not, Jesus knocked at my heart's door. What has + the world ever given to me? (And I have known _all_ that the world has + to give--_all_!) Nothing but shadows, leaving a wound on the heart + hard to heal--a dark discontent. + + "Now I can more calmly look back on the stormy passages of my life--an + eventful life indeed--and see onward and upward a haven of rest to the + soul. I used once to think that heaven was a place somewhere beyond + the clouds, and that those who got there were as if they had not been + themselves on the earth. But life has been given to me to know that + heaven begins in the human soul, through the grace of God and His holy + word. Those who cannot feel somewhat of heaven here will never find it + hereafter." + +On another page we find:-- + + "To-morrow (the Lord's day) is the day of peace and happiness. Once it + seemed to me anything but a happy day, but now all is wonderfully + changed in my heart.... What I loved before now I hate. Oh! that in + this coming week, I may, through Thee, overcome all sinful thoughts, + and love every one. + + "Thankful I am that I have been permitted to pray this day. Three + years ago I cried aloud in agony to be taken; and yet the great, + All-Wise Creator has spared me, in His mercy, to repent. All that has + passed in New York has not been mere illusion. I feel it is true. The + Lord heard my feeble cry to Him, and I felt what no human tongue can + describe. The world cast me out, and He, the pure, the loving, took me + in. + + "To-morrow is Sunday, and I shall go to the poor little humble chapel, + and there will I mingle my prayers with the fervent pastor, and with + the good and true. There is no pomp or ceremony among these. All is + simple. No fine dresses, no worldly display, but the honest Methodist + breathes forth a sincere prayer, and I feel much unity of soul. What + would I give to have daily fellowship with these good people! to teach + in the school, to visit the old, the sick, the poor. But that will be + in the Lord's good time, when self is burned out of me completely." + +The following entry is dated Saturday, in London:-- + + "Since last week my existence is entirely changed. When last I wrote I + was calm and peaceful--away from the world. Now, I must again go + forth. It was cruel, indeed, of Mr. E. to have said what he did; but I + am afraid I was too hasty also. Ought I to have resented what was + said? No, I ought to have said not a word. The world would applaud me; + but, oh! my heart tells me that for His sake I ought to bear the + vilest reproaches, even unmerited. + + "Good-bye, all the calm hours of reflection and repose I enjoyed at + Derby! My calm days at the cottage are gone--gone. But I will not look + back. Onward! must be the cry of my heart. + + "Lord, have mercy on the weary wanderer, and grant me all I beseech of + Thee! Oh, give me a meek and lowly heart!" + +It seems from this final extract that some painful circumstance compelled +the writer against her will to go on her travels again. The diary affords +proof that she was in England as late as September 1859; and the following +year, she was again at New York. + + + + +XXXIV + +LAST SCENE OF ALL + + +Lola the saint was no more provident than Lola the sinner. She dissipated +the large sums she had amassed in her English tour in the space of a few +months, and with a mind tormented by remorse and religious scruples, could +turn her thoughts to no system of livelihood. Threatened with poverty, and +in a state of deep dejection, she was one day met in the streets of New +York by a lady and gentleman who stopped and considered her attentively. +Finally, evidently at the man's suggestion, his wife stepped up to Lola, +and recalled herself to her recollection as an old school-fellow and +playmate of her Montrose days. She was now the wife of Mr. Buchanan, a +florist of some standing. Lola was deeply affected by this meeting. This +voice from her childhood supplied the human note in her present state of +spiritual desolation and exaltation. The friendship begun thirty years +before in far-off Scotland was renewed. To the penitent Lola Mrs. +Buchanan's recognition of her seemed an act of amazing kindness and +condescension. But the florist and his wife were not only religious but +good people. They made provision for the ex-adventuress, perhaps by a +judicious investment of the little money that remained to her; and Mrs. +Buchanan sympathising warmly with her old friend's spiritual regeneration, +was able to calm her doubts and scruples, and to divert her piety into +practical channels. + +The wayward, troubled soul of Lola Montez at last tasted peace--thanks, +perhaps, as much to the consolations of true friendship as to those of +religion. She abandoned the Methodist connection, and embraced the +possibly less gloomy tenets of the Episcopal Church of America. She passed +much of her time in deep retirement, reading and studying the Bible. One +who knew her at this time says that her bearing was calm, graceful, and +modest; of her beauty there remained no trace except her deep, lustrous +Spanish eyes. A conviction that she was soon to die of consumption +possessed her, and she spent the rest of the year 1860 in preparation for +her end. + + "So far as outward actions could show," says her spiritual adviser, + Dr. F. L. Hawks, "with her 'old things had passed away, and all things + had become new.' With a heart full of sympathy for the poor outcasts + of her own sex, she devoted the last few months of her life to + visiting them at the Magdalen Asylum, near New York, warning them and + instructing them with a spirit which yearned over them, that they, + too, might be brought into the fold. She strove to impress upon them + not only the awful guilt of breaking the divine law, but the + inevitable earthly sorrow which those who persisted with thoughtless + desperation in sinful courses were treasuring up for themselves. Her + effort was thus to redeem the time as far as she could; and the result + of her labours can only be known on that day when she will meet her + erring sisters at the impartial tribunal of the Eternal Judge." + +Lola's premonition was verified. In December 1860 she was suddenly struck +down--not by consumption, but by partial paralysis. She was conveyed to +the Asteria Sanatorium, where Mrs. Buchanan took charge of her. She +lingered in great pain, patiently borne, for several weeks, and it was +seen that there was no hope of her recovery. Dr. Hawks visited her +frequently. To him, her chosen confidant at this final stage of her +chequered life, and the most fitted to sympathise with the ideas that then +dominated her, may be left the description of her last hours. + + "In the course of a long experience as a Christian minister, I do not + think I ever saw deeper penitence and humility, more real contrition + of soul and more of bitter self-reproach than in this poor woman. + Anxious to probe her heart to the bottom, I questioned her in various + forms; spoke as plainly as I could of the qualities of a genuine + repentance; set forth the necessity of the operations of the Holy + Spirit really to convert from sin to holiness, and presented Christ as + all in all--the only Saviour. For myself I am quite satisfied that God + the Holy Ghost had renewed her sinful soul into holiness. + + "There was no confident boasting, however. I never saw a more humble + penitent. When I prayed with her, nothing could exceed the fervour of + her devotion; and never had I a more watchful and attentive hearer + than when I read the Scriptures. She read the blessed volume for + herself, also, when I was not present. It was always within reach of + her hand; and, on my first visit, when I took up her Bible from the + table, the fact struck me that it opened of its own accord to the + touching story of Christ's forgiveness of the Magdalene in the house + of Simon. + + "If ever a repentant soul loathed past sin, I believe hers did. + + "She was a woman of genius, highly accomplished, of more than usual + attainments, and of great natural eloquence. I listened to her + sometimes with admiration, as with the tears streaming from her eyes, + her right hand uplifted, and her regularly expressive features (her + keen blue eyes especially) speaking almost as plainly as her tongue, + she would dwell upon Christ, and the almost incredible truth that He + could show mercy to such a vile sinner as she felt herself to have + been, until I would feel that she was the preacher and not I. + + "When she was near her end, and could not speak, I asked her to let me + know by a sign whether her soul was at peace, and she still felt that + Christ would save her. She fixed her eyes on mine, and nodded her head + affirmatively." + +Thus, on 17th January 1861, in the odour of sanctity, died Lola Montez, +Countess of Landsfeld, Baroness Rosenthal, Canoness of the Order of St. +Theresa, sometime ruler of the kingdom of Bavaria, in the forty-third year +of her age. She, whose fame had filled three continents, was committed to +the custody of Mother Earth in Greenwood Cemetery, two days later, with +the rites and ceremonial of the Episcopal Church. Her grave was marked by +a tablet, bearing the inscription: "Mrs. Eliza Gilbert, born 1818, died +1861." The men who had risked crowns and fortune for her love would have +hardly recognised her in her last part or under her last homely +description. + + * * * * * + +At the bar of God Lola Montez pleaded guilty. I, as her advocate in the +court of Humanity, may enter another plea. + +For half a century the world has taken this woman at her own last +valuation, and dismissed her as a criminal and a sinner. The orthodox +Christian reproaches her with unchastity, exaggerating, as is his wont, +the gravity of this particular transgression of his code. He would have +had her waste her glorious beauty, made to gladden the hearts of men, and +refuse the _role_ of woman which nature had assigned her--because, +forsooth! a petty English tribunal would not set her free from a tie it +should never have allowed her to contract. The law was made for man; the +claims and instincts of womanhood must override the decrees of any +Consistory Court. Lola Montez was pre-eminently and essentially a +woman--specially fitted and charged, therefore, to bring the great +happiness of love to men. This which was her glory the sexless moralist +makes her reproach. For him the perfect woman is the most unhuman; he +admires the woolless sheep and the scentless flower. + +Hers was a capacity for immense passion, happiness, and power. She longed +not only to charm men but to rule them. By the happiness she procured +them, she enslaved them. She exploited their passions, it will be said; +and since when have we ceased to exploit the weakness of woman? In the +pursuit of power we use the instruments easiest to our hands, we attack +our opponents' most vulnerable points. This Lola did; this did every +strong man of whom history has any record. Her qualities of mind, as +evinced in the administration of Bavaria, were of a high order, and in a +man would have commanded success; but men were dazzled by her beauty, and +cried out to be influenced by that alone. We esteem in our own sex the +faculties by which we are helped, led, and ruled; in the other, we prate +of chastity, and value only that which ministers to our vanity, comfort, +and sensuality. Women must be human in just so far as may conform to our +individual needs. When we prize intellectual worth in women as highly as +physical beauty, it will be time to protest against the methods of Lola +Montez. + +She subdued men by their passions, but she ruled them well. She challenged +history to adduce a case where a woman had wielded so much power so wisely +and so disinterestedly. She was no Pompadour or Du Barry to whom the +scurrile De Mirecourt compared her. Guilty at moments, as we all are, of +derelictions from her principles, she was throughout life a lover of +liberty in thought, word, and deed. When Europe lay under the feet of +Metternich and the Ultramontanes, she, almost single-handed, struck a blow +for freedom. The wiles of the cleverest intriguers in Europe proved +powerless against her bold policy. At scheming she was no adept, trusting, +as the strong will ever trust, to her force and personality to defeat the +manoeuvres of her foes. Had Louis of Bavaria not bowed before the storm, +she and his kingdom would have played a great part in European history. As +it was, to her intervention Switzerland partly owes the freedom of her +institutions from clerical control. The terms in which she speaks of that +country and of the United States, though purposely exaggerated, display +her profound sympathy with the principles of democracy. Setting aside the +qualities of the woman, let us gratefully acknowledge that Lola Montez, on +a small stage and for a brief period, proved herself an able and humane +administratrix and a staunch friend to liberty. In her we have another of +the many instances of capacity for government as the concomitant of an +intensely feminine temperament. + +She was valiant as an antique worthy. She was never at an end of her +resources, never unnerved by catastrophe. Disaster after disaster left +unexhausted her marvellous powers of recuperation. She could adapt herself +to all men and all circumstances. She was at home in the courts of +emperors and kings, in the _salons_ of the learned, in the backwoods of +California, in the mining camps of Australia, in the conventicles of New +York. To the life of a recluse in a primeval wilderness she adapted +herself as readily as to a London drawing-room. She was eloquent in many +tongues, witty and light-hearted, adding to the world's gaiety. She was +kindly and compassionate, cherishing dogs, and all four-footed things, +visiting the sick and the afflicted, saying a kind word for the despised +coolies of India. Her money she showered with reckless generosity on all +who stood in need. Her excellences were her own; her faults lie at the +door of society. + + + + +SOURCES OF INFORMATION + + +_The files of the following newspapers_: Times, Morning Herald, Era, +Illustrated London News; Le Constitutionnel, Le Figaro, Le Journal des +Debats; New York Tribune; Sydney Morning Herald, Melbourne Argus. + +_"Autobiography and Lectures of Lola Montez" (by C. Chauncy Burr); "An +Englishman in Paris" (Vandam); "Letters from Up-Country" (Hon. Emily +Eden); "You have heard of them?" (Q). "History of the 44th Regiment" +(Carter); "Revelations of Russia" (Henningsen); "Life and Adventures" +(George A. Sala); "Bygone Years" (Leveson Gower); "Fraser's Magazine," +1848; "Players of a Century" (Phelps); "New York Stage" (Ireland); "Story +of a Penitent" (Hawks); "Dictionary of National Biography."_ + +_"Les Contemporains" (De Mirecourt); "Mes Souvenirs" (Claudin); +"Souvenirs" (Theodore de Banville); "Histoire de l'Art Dramatique en +France" (Theophile Gautier); "Dictionnaire Larousse."_ + +_"Ein Vormarzliches Tanzidyll" (Fuchs); "Ludwig Augustus" (Sepp); "Ludwig +I." (Heigel); "Unter den vier ersten Koenigen Bayerns" (Kobell); "Lola +Montez und die Jesuiten" (Erdmann); "Bayern's Erhebung"; "Franz Liszt als +Mensch ung Kuenstler" (Ramann); Metternich's Memoirs: Bernstorff Papers; +etc., etc._ + + + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Historical Record of the 44th, or East Essex Regiment (1864), by +Thomas Carter, of the Adjutant-General's Office. + +[2] Dodwell and Miles, Indian Army List, 1760-1834. + +[3] "You have Heard of Them," New York, 1854. + +[4] _Morning Herald_, 8th June 1843. + +[5] "An Englishman in Paris," 1892. The author of this book was A. D. +Vandam, who could not have had this from Lola personally, seeing that he +was born in 1842. + +[6] Vandam, "An Englishman in Paris." + +[7] De Mirecourt (_Contemporains_) fixes the date of this episode in 1843, +and bases it in reports in the _Constitutionnel_, which I have been unable +to trace. + +[8] All the statements made concerning Lola in "An Englishman in Paris" +must be received with caution, as they can only be taken at the best as +hearsay evidence transcribed by Vandam. + +[9] The foregoing section may seem more in the style of a novel than a +biography, but, the dialogue not excepted, it is an exact _resume_ of the +evidence given at the subsequent trial. + +[10] It is imitated by Heine in some ironical verse, condoling with +Frederick William of Prussia on Lola's preference for Louis. + +[11] _Morning Herald_, 3rd March 1868. + +[12] "Unter den vier ersten Koenigen Bayerns," 1894. + +[13] "Ein Vormaerzliches Tanzidyll." Berlin. + +[14] I have used and slightly abridged the translation given in the +_Morning Herald_. + +[15] Frau Von Kobell calls her Countess of Landsberg, a place to be found +on the map, which Landsfeld is not. + +[16] This was the house built by Metzger, now number 19 Barerstrasse. + +[17] Fuchs, "Ein Vormaerzliches Tanzidyll." + +[18] Times, 4th March 1868. + +[19] So says Mr. Boase in the "Dictionary of National Biography," but +quotes no authority. + +[20] "Bygone Years," 1905. + +[21] "Life and Adventures of G. A. Sala," 1896. + +[22] _Times_, 7th August 1849. + +[23] _Les Contemporains_, Paris, 1857. No sources of information are +indicated. De Mirecourt's real name was Jacquot. + +[24] _New York Tribune_, 6th December 1851. + +[25] By way of digression I cannot refrain from instancing the absurd +practice obtaining in some newspapers of printing the title Mrs., when +applied to a woman not legally married, in inverted commas, in spite of +the dictum of English law which says that any one can call themselves by +any description they please. + +[26] _New York Tribune_, 10th August 1853. + +[27] _Era_, 6th January 1856. + +[28] _Morning Herald_, 7th May, 1856. + +[29] De Mirecourt. + +[30] Phelps, "Players of a Century." + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Lola Montez, by Edmund B. d'Auvergne + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOLA MONTEZ *** + +***** This file should be named 38512.txt or 38512.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/5/1/38512/ + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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