Lola Montez - free ebook by Edmund B. (Edmund Basil) D'Auvergne

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Lola Montez

Edmund B. (Edmund Basil) D'Auvergne

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LOLA MONTEZ

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 faithle

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PREFACE

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 lo

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I

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 ol

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II

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. Craigi

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III

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 fi

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IV

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

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V

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 a

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VI

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 typ

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VII

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, sh

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VIII

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 mel

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IX

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-powerfu

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X

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 a

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XI

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 P

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XII

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

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XIII

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

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XIV

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

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XV

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

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XVI

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

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XVII

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

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XVIII

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 ar

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XIX

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 a

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XX

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

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XXI

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 char

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XXII

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

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XXIII

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 arc

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XXIV

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 t

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XXV

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

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XXVI

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, ma

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XXVII

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

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XXVIII

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 se

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XXIX

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 positiv

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XXX

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 c

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XXXI

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 fashion

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XXXII

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 hundr

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XXXIII

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

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XXXIV

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 suggesti

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SOURCES OF INFORMATION

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);

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