Chapter XXXIV: Last Scene of All 227 (4)

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!

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."

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