Chapter 11

A FALLEN STAR

I

Even with Lola Montez out of the way and the University doors re-opened, it was not a case of all quiet on the Munich front. Far from it. Berks, the new Minister of the Interior, who had always supported her, still remained in office; and Lola herself continued from a distance to pull strings. Some of them were effective.

But Lola Montez, or no Lola Montez, there was in the eyes of his exasperated subjects more than enough to make them thoroughly dissatisfied with the Wittelsbach regime, as carried out by Ludwig. The Cabinet had become very nearly inarticulate; public funds had been squandered on all sorts of grandiose and unnecessary schemes; and the clerical element had long been allowed to ride roughshod over the constitution. Altogether, the "Ministry of Dawn," brought into existence with such a flourish of trumpets after the dismissal of von Abel and his colleagues, had not proved the anticipated success. Instead of getting better, things had got worse; and, although it had not actually been suggested, the idea of substituting the monarchy by a republic was being discussed in many quarters.

The editor of the _Annual Register_, abandoning his customary attitude of an impartial historian, dealt out a sharp rap on the knuckles to the Royal Troubadour:

"The discreditable conduct of the doting old King of Bavaria, in his open _liaison_ with a wandering actress who had assumed the name of Lola Montez (but who was in reality the eloped wife of an Englishman, and whom he had created a Bavarian Countess by the title of Gräfin de Landsfeld), had thoroughly alienated the hearts of his subjects."

As the result of a solemn conclave at the Rathaus, an ultimatum was delivered by the Cabinet; and Ludwig was informed, without any beating about the bush, that unless he wanted to plunge the country into revolution, Lola Montez must leave the kingdom. Ludwig yielded; and forgetful of, or else deliberately ignoring, the fact that he had once written a passionate threnody, in which he declared:

"And though thou be forsaken by all the world, Yet, never wilt thou be abandoned by me!"

he could find it in his heart to issue a decree expelling her from his realms.

To this end, on March 17, he signed two separate Orders in Council.

1

"We, Ludwig, by the Grace of God, King of Bavaria, etc., think it necessary to give notice that the Countess of Landsfeld has ceased to possess the rights of naturalisation."

2

"Since the Countess of Landsfeld does not give up her design of disturbing the peace of the capital and country, all the judicial authorities of the kingdom are hereby ordered to arrest the said Countess wherever she may be discovered. They are to carry her to the nearest fortress, where she is to be kept in custody."

Events moved rapidly. A few days later Lola was arrested by Prince Wallerstein (whom she herself had put into power when his stock had fallen) and deported, as an "undesirable alien," to Switzerland.

Woman-like, she had the last word.

"I am leaving Bavaria," she said, "but, before very long, your King will also leave."

Everybody had something to say about the business. Most people had a lot to say. The wires hummed; and the foreign correspondents in Munich filled columns with long accounts of the recent disturbances in Munich and their origin. No two accounts were similar.

"The people insisted," says Edward Cayley, in his _European Revolutions of_ 1848, "on the dismissal of the King's mistress. She was sent away, but, trusting to the King's dotage, she came back, police or no police.... This was a climax to which the people were unprepared to submit, not that they were any more virtuous than their Sovereign." Another publicist, Edward Maurice, puts it a little differently: "In Bavaria the power exercised by Lola Montez over Ludwig had long been distasteful to the sterner reformers." This was true enough; but the Müncheners disliked the Jesuits still more, asserting that it was with them that Lola shared the conscience of the King. The Liberals were ready for action, and welcomed the opportunity of asserting themselves.

As soon as Lola was really out of the country, her Barerstrasse mansion was searched from attic to cellar by the Munich police. Since, in order to justify the search, they had to discover something compromising, they announced that they had discovered "proofs" that Lord Palmerston and Mazzini were in active correspondence with the King's ex-mistress; and that the go-between for the British Foreign Office was a Jew called Loeb. This individual was an artist who had been employed to decorate the house. Seized with pangs of remorse, he is said to have gone to Ludwig and confessed having intercepted Lola's correspondence with Mazzini and engineered the rioting. He further declared that large sums of money had been sent her from abroad. Historians, however, have no knowledge of this; nor was the nature of the "proofs" ever revealed.

Lola's villa in the Barerstrasse afterwards became the new home of the British Legation. It was demolished in 1914; and not even a wall plaque now marks her one-time occupancy. As for the Residenz Palace where she dallied with Ludwig, this building is now a museum, and as such echoes to the tramp of tourists and the snapping of cameras. _Sic transit_, etc.

II

When Lola, hunted from pillar to post, eventually left Munich for Switzerland, it was in the company of Auguste Papon, who, on the grounds of "moral turpitude," had already been given his marching-orders. He described himself as a "courier." His passport, however, bore the less exalted description of "cook." It was probably the more correct one. The faithful Fritz Peissner, anxious to be of service to the woman he loved, and for whom he had already risked his life, joined her at Constance, together with two other members of the _Alemannia_, Count Hirschberg and Lieutenant Nussbaum. But they only stopped a few days.

Anxious to get into touch with them, Lola wrote to the landlord at their last address:

_2 March, 1848._

SIR,

In case the students of the Alemannia Society have left your hotel, I beg you to inform my servant, the bearer of this letter, where Monsieur Peissner, for whom he has a parcel to deliver, has gone.

Receive in advance my distinguished sentiments.

COUNTESS OF LANDSFELD.

Lola's first halt in Switzerland (a country she described as "that little Republic which, like a majestic eagle, lies in the midst of the vultures and cormorants of Europe") was at Geneva. An error of judgment, for the austere citizens of Calvin's town, setting a somewhat lofty standard among visitors, were impervious to her blandishments. "They were," she complained, "as chilly as their own icicles." At Berne, however, to which she went next, she had better luck. This was because she met there an impressionable young Chargé d'affaires attached to the British Legation, whom she found "somewhat younger than Ludwig, but more than twice as silly." An _entente_ was soon established. "Sometimes riding, and sometimes driving she would appear in public, accompanied by her youthful adorer."

The official was Robert Peel, a son of the distinguished statesman, and was afterwards to become third baronet. In a curious little work, typical of the period, _The Black Book of the British Aristocracy_, there is an acid allusion to the matter: "This bright youth has just taken under his protection the notorious Lola Montez, and was lately to be observed walking with her, in true diplomatic style, in the streets of a Swiss town."

It was about this period that it occurred to a theatrical manager in London, looking for a novelty, that there was material for a stirring drama written round the career of Lola Montez. No sooner said than done; and a hack dramatist, who was kept on the premises, was commissioned to set to work. Locked up in his garret with a bottle of brandy, at the end of a week he delivered the script. This being approved by the management, it was put into rehearsal, and the hoardings plastered with bills:

+---------------------------------------------------------------+ | THEATRE ROYAL, HAYMARKET | | | | (Under the Patronage of Her Gracious Majesty The Queen, | | His Royal Highness Prince Albert, and the Élite of Rank and | | Fashion.) On Wednesday, April 26, 1848, will be produced a | | New and Original and Apropos Sketch entitled: | | | | "LOLA MONTEZ, or THE COUNTESS FOR AN HOUR." | +---------------------------------------------------------------+

"An hour." This was about as long as it lasted, for the reception by the critics was distinctly chilly. "We cannot," announced one of them, "applaud the motives that governed the production of a farce introducing a mock sovereign and his mistress. In our opinion the piece is extremely objectionable."

The Lord Chamberlain apparently shared this view, for he had the play withdrawn after the second performance.

"_Es gibt kein Zurück_" ("There is to be no coming back") had been Ludwig's last words to her. But Lola did not take the injunction seriously. According to a letter in the _Deutsche Zeitung_, she was back in Munich within a week, travelling under the "protection" of Baron Möller, a Russian diplomatist. Entering the Palace surreptitiously, she extracted a cheque for 50,000 florins from Ludwig. As it was drawn on Rothschild's bank at Frankfort, she hurried off there, and returned to Switzerland the same evening, "with a bagful of notes."

To convince his readers that he was well behind the scenes, Papon gives a letter which he asserts was written by Ludwig to a correspondent some months later:

I wish to know from you if my dear Countess would like her annuity assured by having it paid into a private bank, or if she would rather I deposited a million francs with the Bank of England.... I am already being blamed for giving her too much. As the revolutionaries seize upon any pretext to assert themselves, it is important to avoid directing attention to her just now. Still, I want my dearly loved Countess to be satisfied. I repeat that the whole world cannot part me from her.

While he was with her in Switzerland, Papon strung together a pamphlet: _Lola Montez, Mémoires accompagnés de lettres intimes de S.M. le Roi de Bavière et de Lola Montez, ornés des portraits, sur originaux donnés par eux à l'auteur_, purporting to be written by their subject. "I owe my readers," he makes her say smugly, "the exact truth. They must judge between my enemies and myself." But, in his character of a Peeping Tom, very little truth was expended by Papon. Thus, he declares that, during her sojourn in the land of the mountains and William Tell, she had a series of _affaires_ with a "baron," a "muscular artisan," and an "intrepid sailor." He also has a story to the effect that "two pure-blooded English ladies, the bearers of illustrious names," called on her uninvited; and that this circumstance annoyed her so much that she made her pet monkey attack them.

But Auguste Papon cannot be considered a very reliable authority. A decidedly odd fish, he claimed to be an ex-officer and also dubbed himself a marquis. For all his pretensions, however, he was merely a _chevalier d'industrie_, living on his wits; and, masquerading as a priest, he was afterwards convicted of swindling and sent to prison.

III

A doughty, but anonymous, champion jumped into the breach and issued a counterblast to Papon's effort in the shape of a second pamphlet, headed "A Reply." But this was not any more remarkable for its accuracy than the original. Thus, it declares, "She [Lola] lived with the King of Bavaria, a man of eighty-seven. The nature of that intimacy can best be surmised by reading the second and third verses of the First Book of Kings, Chapter i. It is evident to any reflecting mind that it was a sort of King David arrangement." As for the rest of the pamphlet, it was chiefly taken up with an elaborate argument that, all said and done, its subject was no worse than other ladies, and much better than many of them.

Among extracts from this well intentioned effort, the following are the more important:

A certain Marquis Auguste Papon, a quondam panderer to the natural desires and affections which are common to the whole human race, published and circulated throughout Europe a volume which stamps his own infamy (as we shall have occasion to show in the course of this reply) in far more ineffaceable characters than that of those whom, in his vindictiveness, he gloatingly sought to destroy.

But, before we proceed to dissect his book, it may be permitted us to ask the impartial reader what there is so very remarkable in the conduct of the King of Bavaria and Lola Montez as to distinguish them unfavourably from the monarchs and women celebrated for their talent, originality, and beauty who have gone before. Where are Henry IV of France, Henry V, Louis XIV, and Louis XV, with their respective mistresses? Who of their people ever presumed to interfere on the score of morality with the favours and honours conferred on those distinguished women? Nay, to come down to a later period, has the Marquis Auguste Papon ever heard of the loves of Louis XVIII and Madame de Cuyla, and that after the monarch's restoration in 1814? Is he ignorant of those of Napoleon himself and Mademoiselle Georges? Have not almost all the royal family of England--even those of the House of Hanover--been notorious for their connection with celebrated women? Has he never heard of Mrs. Walkinshaw, ostensible mistress of Charles Edward the Pretender, of Lucy Barlow, mistress of Charles II, mother of the Duke of Monmouth? Of Arabella Churchill and Katherine Sedley, mistresses of James II? Of the Countess of Kendal, mistress of George II, who was received everywhere in English society? Or of George IV and the Marchioness of C----? Of the Duke of York and Mary Anne Clark? Of the Duke of Clarence and the amiable and respected Mrs. J----? And last, not least, of the present King of Hanover and late Duke of Cumberland, who labours even unto this hour under suspicion of having murdered his valet Sellis, to conceal his adultery with his wife? In what differs the King of Bavaria from these?

But even to descend lower into the social scale of those who have occupied the attention of the world without incurring its marked and impertinent censure, has the Marquis Auguste Papon ever heard of the beautiful Miss Foote, who, first the favourite of the celebrated Colonel Berkeley (a natural brother of the Duke of Devonshire) and secondly of a personal friend of the writer of this reply--the celebrated Pea Green Hayne--became finally the charming and amiable Countess of Harrington, one of the sweetest women that ever were placed at the head of the Stanhope family or graced a peerage?

Who, that ever once enjoyed the pleasure of knowing this fairest flower in the parterre of England's aristocracy of beauty, would, in a spirit of revenge and disappointed avarice, have had the grossness to insult _her_ as the Marquis of Papon--the depository of all her secrets--has insulted the Countess of Landsfeld with the loathsome name of "courtesan," because, yielding to the confidence of her woman's heart, she had been the adored of two previous lovers? Never did Lord Petersham, afterwards the Earl of Harrington, take a more sensible course than when he elevated in a holy and irreproachable love--a love that strangled scandal in its bloated fullness--the fascinating Maria Foote to the position she was made to adorn, being twin sister in beauty as well as in law to the charming Miss Green, whose ripe red lips and long dark-lashed blue and laughing eyes were, before her marriage with Colonel Stanhope, the admiration and subject of homage of all London. Should her eye ever rest on this page, she will perceive that we have not forgotten its power and expression.

To descend still lower in the scale of social life, has the Marquis Auguste Papon ever heard of the celebrated Madame Vestris, now Mrs. Mathews? Is he ignorant that her theatre--the Olympic--was ever a resort of the most fashionable and aristocratic people of London? Did her moral life in any way detract from her popularity as a woman of talent and of beauty, and an artiste of exceeding fascination and merit? And yet she had more lovers than the Marquis Auguste Papon can, with all his ingenuity, raise up in evidence against the remarkable woman he, in his not very creditable spirit of vengeance, has sworn to destroy.

Let us enumerate those we know to have been the lovers of Madame Vestris, who, after having passed her youth in all the variety of enjoyment, at length became the wife of a man, not without talent himself, and whose father stood first among the names celebrated in the comic art.

First was a personal friend of the writer of this reply to the unmanly attack of the Marquis Auguste Papon. And we have reason to remember it, for the connection of Henry Cole with the most fascinating woman of her day led to a duel in Hyde Park, of which that lady was the immediate cause, between the writer and a British officer who was so ungallant as to seek to check the enthusiasm created by her scarcely paralleled acting. To him succeeded Sir John Anstruther, and after Sir John the celebrated Horace Claggett. In what order their successors came we do not recollect, but of those who knew Madame Vestris in all the intimacy of the most tender friendship were Handsome Jack, Captain Best, Lord Edward Thynne, and Lord Castlereagh. These things were no secrets to the thousands who, fascinated by her beauty and the perfection of her acting, nevertheless thronged the theatre she was admitted to have conducted with the most amiable propriety and skill. On the contrary, they were as much matters of general knowledge among people of the first rank and fashion as the sun at noon-day. And yet what gentleman ever presumed to affix to the name of this gifted woman, whose very disregard of the opinion of those who hypocritically and _sub rosa_ pursued in nearly ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the same course--what gentleman, we ask, ever dared to commit himself so far as to term her a "courtesan"?

There was a good deal more of it, for the "Reply" ran to seventy-six pages.

The title-page of this counterblast ran:

LOLA MONTEZ

or

A REPLY TO THE "PRIVATE HISTORY AND MEMOIRS"

of

THAT CELEBRATED LADY

RECENTLY PUBLISHED

By

THE MARQUIS PAPON

FORMERLY SECRETARY TO THE KING OF BAVARIA AND FOR A PERIOD THE PROFESSED FRIEND AND ATTENDANT of THE COUNTESS OF LANDSFELD

_Stet Nomnis Umbra_--Junius

NEW YORK

1851

IV

Bavaria was the key position in the sphere of European politics just then. Ludwig, however, had dallied with the situation too long. Nothing that he could do now would save him. Unrest was in the air. All over Europe the tide of democracy was rising, and fast threatening to engulf the entrenched positions of the autocrats. Metternich, reading the portents, was planning to leave a mob-ridden Vienna for the more tranquil atmosphere of Brighton; Louis Philippe, setting him an example, had already fled from Paris; and Prince William of Prussia, shaving off his moustache (and travelling on a false passport), was hurrying to England while the going was still good. With these examples to guide them, the Bavarians, tired of soft promises and smooth words, were clamouring for a fresh hand at the helm. Realising that the choice lay between this and a republic, Ludwig bowed to the inevitable; and, with crocodile tears and hypocritical protestations of good faith, surrendered his sceptre. To give the decision full effect, he issued a Proclamation:

"Bavarians! A new condition has arisen. This differs substantially from the one under which I have governed you for twenty-three years. Accordingly, I lay down my sceptre in favour of my beloved son, Prince Maximilian. I have always governed you with full regard for your welfare. Had I been a mere clerk, I could not have worked more strenuously; had I been a Minister of Finance, I could not have devoted more attention to the requirements of my country. I thank God that I can look the whole world fearlessly in the face and there confront the most scrutinising eye. Although I now relinquish my crown, I can assure you that my heart still beats as warmly as ever for Bavaria.

"MUNICH,

_March 21, 1848_."

Ludwig's signature to this mixture of rigmarole and bombast was followed by those of his sons, the Princes Maximilian Luitpold, Adalbert, and Carl. As for Maximilian, the new sovereign, he, rather than risk being thrown out of the saddle, was prepared to make a clean sweep of a number of existing grievances. As an earnest of his intentions, he promised, in the course of a frothy oration, to grant an amnesty to political prisoners, liberty of the press, the abolition of certain taxes, the institution of trial by jury, and a long delayed reform of the franchise.

With the idea, no doubt, of filling the vacancy in his affections caused by the abrupt departure of Lola Montez, Fräulein Schroder, a young actress at the Hof Theatre, endeavoured to comfort Ludwig in his retirement. He, however, was beyond forming any fresh contacts.

"My happiness is gone from me," he murmured sadly. "I cannot stop in a capital to which I have long given a father's loving care."

Firm in this resolve, he left Munich for the Riviera and took a villa among the olives and oranges of Nice. There he turned over a fresh leaf. But he did not stop writing poetry. Nor did he stop writing to the woman who was still in his thoughts. One ardent epistle that followed her into exile ran in this fashion:

Oh, my Lolita! A ray of sunshine at the break of day! A stream of light in an obscured sky! Hope ever causes chords long forgotten to resound, and existence becomes once again pleasant as of yore. Such were the feelings which animated me during that night of happiness when, thanks to you alone, everything was sheer joy. Thy spirit lifted up mine out of sadness; never did an intoxication equal the one I then felt!

Thou hast lost thy gaiety; persecution has stripped you of it; and has robbed you of your health. The happiness of your life is already disturbed. But now, and more solidly than ever, are you attached to me. Nobody will ever be able to separate us. You have suffered because you love me.

When accounts of what was happening in Bavaria reached England a well pickled rod was applied to Lola's back:

"The sanguinary and destructive conduct of the Munich mob," began a furious leading article, "was caused by the supposed return of Bavaria's famous strumpet, Lola Montez. This heroine was once familiar to the eyes of all Paris, and notorious as a courtesan. When she was invested with a title, the Bavarians shuddered at their degradation. It was nothing less than an outrage on the part of royalty, never to be forgotten or forgiven."

The columns of _Maga_ also wielded the rod in vigorous fashion:

"The late King, one of the most accomplished of dilettanti, worst of poets, and silliest of men, had latterly put the coping-stone to a life of folly by engaging in a most bare-faced intrigue with the notorious Lola Montez. The indecency and infatuation of this last _liaison_--far more openly conducted than any of his former numerous amours--had given intense umbrage to the nobility whom he had insulted by elevating the ci-devant opera-dancer to their ranks."

Yet, with all his faults heavy upon him, Ludwig, none the less, had his points. Thus, in addition to converting Munich from a second-rate town to a really important capital, he did much to encourage the development of art and letters and science and education throughout his kingdom. Ignaz Döllinger, the theologian, Joseph Görres, the historian, Jean Paul Richter, the poet, Franz Schwanthaler, the sculptor, and Wilhelm Thirsch, the philosopher, with Richard Wagner and a host of others basked in his patronage. When he died, twenty years later, these facts were remembered and his little slips forgotten. The Müncheners gave him burial in the Basilica; and an equestrian statue, bearing the inscription, "Just and Persevering," was set up in the Odeon-Platz.

It is the fashion among certain historians to charge Lola Montez with responsibility for the revolution in Bavaria. But this charge is not justified. The fact is, the kingdom was ripe for revolution; and the equilibrium of the government was so unstable that Ludwig would have lost his crown, whether she was in the country or not.

It is just as well to remember this.

V

After a few months among them, Lola, tiring of the Swiss cantons, thought she might as well discover if England, which she had not visited for six years, could offer any fresh attractions. Accordingly, resolved to make the experiment, on December 30, 1848, she arrived in London.

The _Satirist_, hearing the news, suggested that the managers of Drury Lane and Covent Garden should engage her as a "draw." But she did not stop in England very long, as she returned to the Continent almost at once.

In the following spring, she made a second journey to London, and sailed from Rotterdam. Unknown to her, the passenger list was to have included another fallen star. This was Metternich, who, with the riff-raff of Vienna thundering at the doors of his palace, was preparing to seek sanctuary in England. Thinking, however, that the times were not altogether propitious, he decided to postpone the expedition.

"If," he wrote, "the Chartist troubles had not prevented me embarking yesterday at Rotterdam, I should have reached London this morning in the company of the Countess of Landsfeld. She sailed by the steamer in which I was to have travelled. I thank heaven for having preserved me from such contact!"

All things considered, it is perhaps just as well that the two refugees did not cross the Channel together. Had they done so, it is probable that one of them would have found a watery grave.

Metternich had worsted Napoleon, but he found himself worsted by Lola Montez. On April 9, he wrote from The Hague:

"I have put off my departure for England, because I wished to know first what was happening in that country as a result of the Chartists' disturbance. I consider that, for me who must have absolute rest, it would have been ridiculous to have arrived in the middle of the agitation."

Louis Napoleon, however, was made of sterner stuff; and it is to his credit that, as a return for the hospitality extended him, he was sworn in as a special constable.