Lola Montez

“ Thus, she had queened it in palaces and in camps; danced in opera houses and acted in booths; she had bent monarchs and politicians to her will; she had stood on the steps of a throne, and in the curb of a gutter; she had known pomp and power, riches and poverty, dazzling successes and abject failures; she had conducted amours and liaisons and intrigues by the dozen; she had made history in two hemispheres; a king had given up his crown for her; men had lived for her; and men had died for her.
As with the rest of us, Lola Montez had her faults. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Among the most ardent admirers of Lola Montez was a young Scotsman, a member of the illustrious house of Lennox, who was with difficulty restrained by his family from offering her his hand. In London the deceased led a gay life, being courted by the Earl of Malmesbury and other distinguished noblemen. Wherever she went, she was the observed of all observers, conquering the hearts of men of all countries by her beauty and blandishments, and their admiration by her unflinching independence of character and superior intellectual endowments. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Thérèse, has now been crumbling in the dust of a distant grave, far from her own kith and kindred, for upwards of seventy years. Her name, however, will still be remembered when that of other women who have filled a niche in history will have been forgotten.
Lola Montez was no common adventuress. By her beauty and intelligence and magnetism she weaved a spell on well nigh all who came within her radius. Never any member of her sex quite like this one. Had she been born in the Middle Ages, superstition would have had it that Venus herself was revisiting the haunts of men in fresh guise. ”

“ We will do justice and say what is true, regardless of popularity. We detest hypocrisy; and we have no disposition to make a mountain out of a molehill, or to see a mote in the eye of Lola Montez, and not discover a beam in the eye of Fanny Elssler, or of any of the other great dancers or actresses.
"What is Lola Montez?" enquire the public. A good dancer, says the manager of a theatre. She is also notorious. The public will crowd the theatre to see her and to judge whether she is not also a good actress; and if they get their money's worth, they are satisfied. ”

“ Lola was the talk of the hour. An army of babbling Ranelaghs could not now have dimmed her fame.
Dujarrier, all-powerful editor of "La Presse," laid his somewhat shopworn heart at her feet. Dumas, Balzac, and many another celebrity sued for her favor. Her reign over the hearts of men had recommenced.
But Lola Montez never rode long on prosperity's wave-crest. A French adorer, jealous of Dujarrier's prestige with the lovely dancer, challenged the great editor to a duel. Dujarrier, for love of Lola, accepted the challenge—and was borne off the field of honor with a bullet through his brain. ”

“ Her origin was obscure and uncertain; but the best authorities seem to make her the daughter of an Irish officer and a beautiful Spanish woman of Moorish descent. She was born in Ireland in 1820 and at the age of seventeen married one Lieutenant James, with whom she went to the West Indies. She soon left her husband, however, and returned to England, where she prepared herself to become a dancer. While hardly a regular beauty, Lola Montez seems to have possessed in the highest degree what the French call la beauté du diable. ”

“ But the attraction which proved the biggest success in her repertoire was a drama called Lola in Bavaria. This was said to be written by "a young literary gentleman of New England, the son of a somewhat celebrated poetess." The heroine, who was never off the stage for more than five minutes, was depicted in turns as a dancer, a politician, a countess, a revolutionary, and a fugitive; and among the other characters were Ludwig I, Eugéne Sue, Dujarier, and Cornet Heald, while the setting offered "a correct representation of the Lola Montez palace at Munich." ”

“ With Adrienne Lecouvreur, Lola Montez must often have asked herself, Que faire au monde sans aimer? "Living without loving" had no appeal for her. Hence, she was soon credited (or discredited) with a fresh liaison. This time her choice fell on a German baron, named Kirke, who also happened to be a doctor. There was a special bond between them, for he had come from Munich, and could thus awaken memories and tell her of Ludwig, of Fritz Peissner and the other good comrades of the Alemannia, and of the house in the Barerstrasse where she had once queened it. ”

“ As Dujarier's acknowledged mistress, Lola was accepted without demur as one of themselves by the literary and artistic "set" thronging the cafés and salons they frequented. Gautier and Sue, with Claudin and Méry and Dumas, were those habitués of whom she saw most; and Ferdinand Bac (but nobody else) says that she was on intimate terms with the austere M. Guizot. [72]
Gustave Claudin declared that he met Lola Montez in Paris in the spring of 1841. That she made an impression on him is evident from a passage in his Souvenirs:
Lola Montez was a charmer. ”

“ The death of Lola Montez did not pass without comment in England. The Athenæum necrologist accorded her half a column of obituary, in which she was described as "this pretty, picaroon woman, whose name can never be omitted from any chronicle of Bavaria."
A Grub Street hack, employed by the curiously named Gentleman's Magazine, slung together a column of abuse and lies, founded on tap-room gossip:
"When not yet sixteen, she ran away from a school near Cork with a young officer of the Bengal Army, Lieutenant Gilbert (sic) , who married her and took her to India. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Still, if Lola Montez deceived the public about herself, others have deceived the public about Lola Montez. Thus, in one of his books, George Augustus Sala solemnly announced that she was a sister of Adah Isaacs Menken; and a more modern writer, unable to distinguish between Ludwig I and his grandson Ludwig II, tells us that she was "intimate with the mad King of Bavaria." To anybody (and there still are such people) who accepts the printed word as gospel, slips of this sort destroy faith. ”

“ Thus Lola Montez was born in Limerick in 1818, not, as he says, at Seville in 1823; nor could Claudin have met her in Paris in the spring of 1841, as she had not then left India.
Dujarier, according to Lola, was much impressed by her political acumen, and employed her on "secret service" for the Government, entrusting her as a preliminary with a "mission to St. Petersburg." The story is an obvious concoction, if merely because Dujarier, being little beyond a penny-a-liner hack, had no power to employ anybody on such a [73] task. Still, Lola always stuck to it. ”

“ That a man was the cause of it all!
Ludwig of Bavaria had done better than this. A lot better. Annoyed at the innuendo it contained, Lola flourished her whip afresh and threatened the bard with an action for damages.
The Victoria Theatre, Ballarat (where Lola Montez was to give the diggers a sample of her quality) , was a newly built house, "reflecting," declared an impressed reporter, "every modern elegance. In front of the boxes," he continued, "are panels, chastely adorned with Corinthian festoons, [223] encircling a gilded eagle emblematic of liberty. ”

“ 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 [Pg 160] in her dislikes; she has not sufficiently learned to curb the passion which seems natural to her Spanish blood ”

“ 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 ”

“ The pen, however, being still an unaccustomed weapon, she availed herself of outside help; and practically the whole of the Autobiography of Lola Montez was written for her (on a profit-sharing agreement) by a clerical collaborator, the Rev. Chauncey Burr.
The tale of the Odyssey—as set forth in this joint production—established contact with glittering circles and the breathing of perfumed air. Within its chapters emperors and kings and princes jostle one another; scenes shift continually from capital to capital; and plots follow counter-plots in breathless fashion. ”

“ With the passage of time, Lola's influence at the Palace [120] grew stronger. Before long, it became abundantly clear to the Ministry that she was the real channel of approach to the King and, in fact, his political Egeria. "During that period," says T. Everett Harré, "when she was known throughout the world as the 'Uncrowned Queen of Bavaria,' Lola Montez wielded a power perhaps enjoyed by no woman since the Empress Theodora, the circus mime and courtesan, was raised to imperial estate by the Emperor Justinian." ”

“ The departure from California was duly notified in a paragraph sent round the press:
"We beg to inform our readers and the public generally that on June 6 the celebrated Lola Montez left San Francisco, at the head of a theatrical troupe of exceptional talent, bound for distant Australia. The public in the Antipodes may confidently look forward to a rare treat." ”

“ In a few weeks a popular theatre will be occupied by her, and tens of thousands will throng that theatre. The manager will reap a fortune, and so will Lola Montez; and those short-sighted conductors of the Press will be begging for tickets and quarrelling among themselves as to who [190] can say the most extravagant things in her favour. Public curiosity will be gratified at any price; and if Lola Montez is a capital dancer she will soon dance down all opposition. With what grace can the public talk about virtue in a public actress, when they have followed in the wake of an ELSSLER? ”

“ James's to St. Petersburg, from Paris to India—and yet I am unaware of any quality that can atone for the absence of an unpolished mind and an unlovely heart. A charming activity of soul is the real source of woman's beauty. It is that which gives the sweetest expression to her face and lights up her personnel."
In the matter of publicity Lola had nothing of which to complain; and the next morning descriptive columns were published by the dozen.
The début of Madame Lola Montez (announced the Star) , in the presence of a large and fashionable gathering, was a decided success. ”

“ Perhaps it did. But that of Lola Montez had a similar effect on a monarch. Under the magic of her spell, this one became rejuvenated. The years were stripped from him; he was once more a boy. With his charmer beside him, he would wander through the Nymphenburg Woods and under the elms in the Englischer Garten, telling her of his dreams and fancies. His passion for Greece was forgotten. Pericles was now Romeo.
In dem Suden ist die Liebe,
Da ist Licht und da ist Glut!
that is,
In the south there is love,
There is light and there is heat,
sang Ludwig. ”