Chapter XXXIV: Last Scene of All 227 (5)

The Ultramontanes had no intention of taking their defeat lying down. The Jesuits were fighting for their very existence just over the frontier in Switzerland; the Sonderbund or Catholic League was threatened with an attack at any moment by the forces of the Confederation. Austria and France could do nothing for the League through fear of Palmerston, but it is very probable that help was expected from Bavaria, on which England could not have brought any direct pressure to bear. Munich was the asylum of Ultramontane exiles from all parts of Europe--of French Legitimists, Polish Catholics, and Swiss Jesuits. In Lola's action they detected the hand of the arch-enemy, Palmerston. Liberally supplied with gold from Austria (as Bernstorff did not hesitate to allege), these champions of legitimacy sedulously strove to inflame the people with hatred of the favourite. Lola's unfortunate temper aided their exertions. The citizens of Munich disliked being boxed on the ears even by the most beautiful of her sex, and Baron Pechmann, who had endeavoured to avenge them, had been banished. Lola, like all people of a rich, generous nature, was fond of dogs. In London she had bought a bull-dog from a man who told Mark Lemon, with a very proper professional reservation, that the lady was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen--_on two legs_. The animal, being indisposed, was sent by his devoted mistress to the Veterinary Hospital at Munich. The patient did not progress very rapidly towards recovery, and Lola remonstrated with the medical man in attendance. His reply was too brusque for her taste. Her ears having been offended, she promptly boxed his. She then carried off her darling, who was soon restored to health and vigour. So complete was his recovery that a week or two later, while accompanying his mistress in the streets of Munich, he prepared himself to attack a carrier who was walking beside his cart. The man anticipated the onslaught by flicking the bull-dog with his whip. The enraged Lola at once smote the man on the ear. The assault was witnessed by several passers-by, whose threatening attitude compelled her to take refuge in a neighbouring shop. From this dangerous situation she was delivered only by the police. Lola and the King laughed good-humouredly over these incidents; the people of Munich were disposed to look upon them as deadly outrages.

The new favourite, then, was not likely to become popular with the masses; and her enemies could turn with some confidence to the educated classes, as far as they were represented at the University. Students in France, Russia, Italy, and indeed most civilised countries, are admittedly hot-blooded, enthusiastic champions of freedom and progress; in some states they are the very backbone of the revolutionary party. In Bavaria at this time, on the contrary, the students, like those of our English universities, displayed fervent devotion to the ideals of their grandmothers, and held tenaciously by the standards of the nurseries they had so lately quitted. Munich rivalled Oxford and Cambridge in its zeal for Conservatism and obsolete canons. Professor Lassaulx, therefore, was only voicing the sentiments of the University generally when he presented an address to Councillor von Abel, deploring that minister's retirement, and congratulating him upon his adherence to Ultramontane principles. This was tantamount to a vote of censure on the sovereign. Lassaulx was at once deprived of his chair, despite (it is said by Dr. Erdmann) Lola's earnest entreaties with the King. The professor received a tremendous ovation from the students. On the 1st March 1847 they collected in the morning outside his house in Theresienstrasse, cheering him vociferously. Lola, unluckily, was then living in the same street, and having expressed their sympathy with the professor, it occurred to the students that they might as well express their disapprobation of the woman to whom they attributed his downfall. Lola was at lunch when howls and hoots and cries of "Pereat Lola!" brought her to the window. She was received with yells from the throats of two hundred stout, beer-drinking, Bavarian _burschen_. Amused at the sight, and undismayed, as she ever was, she derisively toasted the mob in a glass of champagne and ate chocolates while she watched their gyrations. Her coolness would have disarmed the enmity of an English crowd, and sent it away cheering. But the sportsman-like qualities are not specially inculcated by the disciples of Loyola, nor were perhaps highly esteemed in the Germany of that date. Presently the King himself came along the street, and, unmolested and unnoticed, quietly elbowed his way through the mob. He stood at Lola's door composedly contemplating his excited subjects. He turned to Councillor Hoermann, whom the noise of the disturbance had also brought to the spot. "If she were called Loyola Montez," remarked His Majesty, "I suppose they would cheer her." Then he quietly entered the house. The street was cleared by the mounted police. Louis remained all the afternoon at his favourite's house, and when night fell, attempted to return to the palace on foot, and unattended, as he had come. He was compelled to abandon the attempt. He was received with howls and threats, and could only reach his residence by the aid of a military escort. The streets were filled with the most dangerous elements in the city. A crowd collected before the palace, and cheered the Queen, who, poor lady! must have been embarrassed by this demonstration of sympathy with the emotions of wifely jealousy and injured dignity to which she was a stranger! Before day broke order had been restored by the sabres of the cuirassiers.

Lola, knowing the temper of her countrymen, saw in this attack on a woman a sure means of enlisting their sympathies. She wrote a letter to the _Times_ in which she gave her own version of affairs in Bavaria in the following terms:--

"I had not been here a week before I discovered that there was a plot
existing in the town to get me out of it, and that the party was the
Jesuit party. Of course, you are aware that Bavaria has long been
their stronghold, and Munich their headquarters. This, naturally, to a
person brought up and instructed from her earliest youth to detest
this party (I think you will say naturally) irritated me not a
little.

"When they saw that I was not likely to leave them, they commenced on
another tack, and tried what bribery would do, and actually offered me
50,000 francs yearly if I would quit Bavaria and promise never to
return. This, as you may imagine, opened my eyes, and as I indignantly
refused their offer, they have not since then left a stone unturned to
get rid of me, and have never for an instant ceased persecuting me. I
may mention, as one instance, that within the last week a Jesuit
professor of philosophy at the University here, by the name of
Lassaulx, was removed from his professorship, upon which the party
paid and hired a mob to insult me and break the windows of my palace,
and also to attack the palace; but, thanks to the better feeling of
the other party, and the devotedness of the soldiers to His Majesty
and his authority, this plot likewise failed."

It was, in fact, as disastrous to its instigators as the famous memorandum. The King perceived the University to be a hot-bed of clericalism, and promptly invited the majority of the professors to transfer their services to other seats of learning, or to abandon this particular sphere of usefulness altogether. Their chairs were filled by men of moderate views. At the same time the University was freed from the oppressive surveillance of the Ministry; the obnoxious decrees affecting the sale of books were withdrawn; and even the undergraduates felt constrained to testify their gratitude to the liberal King by means of a torchlight procession.

Louis and his new ministers were not wanting in firmness. Several officers and civil servants were transferred to distant stations, and otherwise made to feel the weight of the royal displeasure for having taken part in an Ultramontane gathering at Adelholz, in the Bavarian Highlands, where a protest was raised against Lola's elevation to the peerage. With the bulk of the people, notwithstanding, the King's popularity knew no diminution. He received an enthusiastic greeting at Bruckenau, Kissingen, and Aschaffenburg, where he passed the summer. He wrote to his secretary in Munich, on 27th June 1847: "I am very satisfied with my reception throughout my whole progress;" and on 31st August: "I was surprised, agreeably surprised, by my evidently joyful reception in the Palatinate." In Franconia, inhabited largely by Protestants, the King's change of policy was naturally welcome. Lola's popularity likewise increased by leaps and bounds, though her uncontrollable temper continued to lead her into mischief. A furious quarrel with the commandant of the Wuerzburg garrison interrupted her journey north to join the Court at Aschaffenburg. The Queen, meanwhile, was the object of a demonstration of sympathy at Bamberg, really directed against the favourite. Certain sections of the aristocracy held aloof from the Countess, with that steadfast devotion to virtue that has always characterised their order. Lola complained of their attitude to His Majesty. Questioned by him they alluded to the lady's doubtful antecedents as sufficient justification for their refusal to present her to their wives. The King's answer was that of a chivalrous man of the world: "What other woman of so-called high standing would have conducted herself better, had she been abandoned to the world, young, beautiful, and helpless? Bah! I know them all, and I tell you I don't rate too highly the much-belauded virtue of the inexperienced and untried." Louis was a gentleman as well as a prince, and had the courage to protect the woman he loved. "Mark well," he wrote to a person of rank, "if you are invited to the house the King frequents, and you do not come, the King will see in this an offence against his dignity, and his displeasure will follow." Louis's rule for his courtiers was, in short: "Love me, love Lola."

Social distinction and wealth were not enough to satisfy the Countess of Landsfeld. She was not content to pull the wires; she wanted the appearance of power, as well as its substance. She longed to display openly her talents as a ruler. She was galled by the affected indifference of statesmen, who could not in reality put a single measure into execution without her sanction. While all Germany acclaimed her as the Liberal heroine, Zu Rhein was able afterwards to affirm publicly in the Chamber that the favourite had at no time come between the Cabinet and the sovereign, nor had in any way governed its policy. This statement may be accepted as far as it goes, but the ministers could have done nothing without the King's co-operation, and the King never denied that he was accustomed to consult the Countess on all affairs of state. The credit of the Zu Rhein-Maurer administration rightly, therefore, belongs in great measure to her. She was always by the King to keep him in the straight way of reform, to safeguard him against a relapse into Ultramontanism. She not unnaturally chafed at what must have seemed the ingratitude of the ministers. She had not yet forgiven Maurer for his reference to her proposed naturalisation as a calamity. Now she regarded him as a puppet which had the impudence to ignore its maker. He got the credit of reforms, she told herself, that she had initiated. Meantime, the clerical Press bombarded her with low abuse. She demanded the enforcement of the censorship and the suppression of the offending journals. Such steps as these, a professedly Liberal Government was loth to take. A collision took place between the favourite and "the Ministry of Good Hope," as it was derisively called. Lola found an instrument ready to her hand in Councillor von Berks, whose devotion to her was warmer than a merely political allegiance. In December, the King decided to reconstitute the Ministry. He appointed Berks to the Department of the Interior, and to Prince Wallerstein, lately Bavarian representative at Paris, he gave the portfolio of foreign affairs. The new Cabinet was composed entirely of men wholly in sympathy with the views of both sovereign and favourite. By its opponents it was derisively dubbed the Lola Ministry. The _Muenchner Zeitung_ welcomed its frank and whole-hearted Liberalism as a guarantee of the solution of all the problems of Bavaria's internal and foreign policy. Wallerstein was even more anti-clerical than his predecessors. The Sonderbund was crushed in November by the strategy of Dufour, and the Jesuits came flying from Switzerland into Bavaria. They were forbidden to remain in the country more than a few days. The Press was not gagged, but conciliated. Lola was acclaimed as the good genius of Bavaria. The German Liberals hailed her as a valued ally. To her influence was attributed the tardy addition of Luther's bust to the collection of German worthies in the Walhalla. _Punch_, as a suggestion for a colossal statue of Bavaria, represents Lola upholding a banner inscribed "Freedom and the Cachuca." The "good little thing" of Simla wielded the sceptre, and wielded it well.

XXIII

THE UNCROWNED QUEEN OF BAVARIA

George Henry Francis, an English journalist, a resident of Munich at that time, and afterwards editor of the _Morning Post_, contributed the following account of Lola's manner of life at this period to _Fraser's Magazine_ for January 1848:--

"The house of Lola Montez at Munich presents an elegant contrast to
the large, cold, lumbering mansions, which are the greatest defect in
the general architecture of the city. It is a _bijou_, built under her
own eye, by her own architect,[16] and it is quite unique in its
simplicity and lightness. It is of two storeys, and, allowing for its
plainness, is in the Italian style. Elegant bronze balconies from the
upper windows, designed by herself, relieve the plainness of the
exterior; and long, muslin curtains, slightly tinted, and drawn close,
so as to cover the windows, add a transparent, shell-like lightness to
the effect. Any English gentleman (Lola has a great respect for
England and the English) can, on presenting his card, see the
interior; but it is not a 'show place.' The interior surpasses
everything, even in Munich, where decorative painting and internal
fitting has been carried almost to perfection. We are not going to
write an upholsterer's catalogue, but as everything was done by the
immediate choice and under the direction of the fair Lola, the general
characteristics of the place will serve to illustrate her character.
Such a tigress, one would think, would scarcely choose so beautiful a
den. The smallness of the house precludes much splendour. Its place is
supplied by French elegance, Munich art, and English comfort. The
walls of the chief room are exquisitely painted by the first artists
from the designs found in Herculaneum and Pompeii, but selected with
great taste by Lola Montez. The furniture is not gaudily rich, but
elegant enough to harmonise with the decorations. A small winter room,
adjoining the larger one, is fitted up, quite in the English style,
with papered walls, sofas, easy-chairs, all of elegant shape. A
chimney, with a first-rate grate of English manufacture, and rich,
thick carpets and rugs, complete the illusion; the walls are hung with
pictures, among them a Raphael. There are also some of the best works
of modern German painters; a good portrait of the King; and a very bad
one of the mistress of the mansion. The rest of the establishment
bespeaks equally the exquisite taste of the fair owner. The
drawing-rooms and her boudoir are perfect gems. Books, not of a
frivolous kind, borrowed from the royal library, lie about, and help
to show what are the habits of this modern Amazon. Add to these a
piano and a guitar, on both of which she accompanies herself with
considerable taste and some skill, and an embroidery frame, at which
she produces works that put to shame the best of those exhibited for
sale in England; so that you see she is positively compelled at times
to resort to some amusement becoming her sex, as a relief from those
more masculine or unworthy occupations in which, according to her
reverend enemies, she emulates alternately the example of Peter the
Great and Catharine II. The rest of the appointments of the place are
in keeping: the coach-house and stabling (her equipages are extremely
modest and her household no more numerous or ostentatious than those
of a gentlewoman of means), the culinary offices, and an exquisite
bath-room, into which the light comes tinted with rose-colour. At the
back of the house is a large flower-garden, in which, during the
summer, most of the political consultations between the fair Countess
and her sovereign are held.

"For her habits of life, they are simple. She eats little, and of
plain food, cooked in the English fashion; drinks little, keeps good
hours, rises early, and labours much. The morning, before and after
breakfast, is devoted to what we must call semi-public business. The
innumerable letters she receives and affairs she has to arrange, keep
herself and her secretary constantly employed during some hours. At
breakfast she holds a sort of _levee_ of persons of all
sorts--ministers _in esse_ or _in posse_, professors, artists, English
strangers, and foreigners from all parts of the world. As is usual
with women of an active mind, she is a great talker; but although an
egotist, and with her full share of the vanity of her sex, she
understands the art of conversation sufficiently never to be
wearisome. Indeed, although capable of violent but evanescent
passions--of deep but not revengeful animosities, and occasionally of
trivialities and weaknesses very often found in persons suddenly
raised to great power--she can be, and almost always is, a very
charming person and a delightful companion. Her manners are
distinguished, she is a graceful and hospitable hostess, and she
understands the art of dressing to perfection.

"The fair despot is passionately fond of homage. She is merciless in
her man-killing propensities, and those gentlemen attending her
_levees_ or her _soirees_, who are perhaps too much absorbed in
politics or art to be enamoured of her personal charms, willingly pay
respect to her mental attractions and conversational powers.

"On the other hand, Lola Montez has many of the faults recorded of
others in like situations. She loves power for its own sake; she is
too hasty and too steadfast in her dislikes; she has not sufficiently
learned to curb the passion which seems natural to her Spanish blood;
she is capricious, and quite capable, when her temper is inflamed, of
rudeness, which, however, she is the first to regret and to apologise
for. One absorbing idea she has which poisons her peace. She has
devoted her life to the extirpation of the Jesuits, root and branch,
from Bavaria. She is too ready to believe in their active influence,
and too early overlooks their passive influence. Every one whom she
does not like, her prejudice transforms into a Jesuit. Jesuits stare
at her in the streets, and peep out from the corners of her rooms. All
the world, adverse to herself, are puppets moved to mock and annoy her
by these dark and invisible agents. At the same time she has,
doubtless, had good cause for this animosity; but these restless
suspicions are a weakness quite incompatible with the strength of
mind, the force of character, and determination of purpose she
exhibits in other respects.

"As a political character, she holds an important position in Bavaria,
besides having agents and correspondents in various Courts of Europe.
The King generally visits her in the morning from eleven till twelve,
or one o'clock; sometimes she is summoned to the palace to consult
with him, or with the ministers, on state affairs. It is probable that
during her habits of intimacy with some of the principal political
writers of Paris, she acquired that knowledge of politics and insight
into the manoeuvres of diplomatists and statesmen which she now
turns to advantage in her new sphere of action. On foreign politics
she seems to have very clear ideas; and her novel and powerful method
of expressing them has a great charm for the King, who has himself a
comprehensive mind. On the internal politics of Bavaria she has the
good sense not to rely upon her own judgment, but to consult these
whose studies and occupations qualify them to afford information. For
the rest, she is treated by the political men of the country as a
substantive power; and, however much they may secretly rebel against
her influence, they, at least, find it good policy to acknowledge it.
Whatever indiscretions she may, in other respects, commit, she always
keeps state secrets, and can, therefore, be consulted with perfect
safety, in cases where her original habits of thought render her of
invaluable service. Acting under advice, which entirely accords with
the King's own general principles, His Majesty has pledged himself to
a course of steady but gradual improvement, which is calculated to
increase the political freedom and material prosperity of his kingdom,
without risking that unity of power, which, in the present state of
European affairs, is essential to its protection and advancement. One
thing in her praise is, that although she really wields so much power,
she never uses it either for the promotion of unworthy persons or, as
other favourites have done, for corrupt purposes. Her creation as
Countess of Landsfeld, which has alienated from her some of her most
honest Liberal supporters, who wished her still to continue in rank,
as well as in purposes, one of the people, while it has exasperated
against her the powerless, because impoverished, nobility, was the
unsolicited act of the King, legally effected with the consent of the
Crown Prince. Without entrenching too far upon a delicate subject, it
may be added, that she is not regarded with contempt or detestation by
either the male or the female members of the Royal family. She is
regarded by them rather as a political personage than as the King's
favourite. Her income, including a recent addition from the King, is
seventy thousand florins, or little more than five thousand pounds.
While upon this subject of her position, it may be added, that it is
reported, on good authority, that the Queen of Bavaria (to whom, by
the way, the King has always paid the most scrupulous attentions due
to her as his wife) very recently made a voluntary communication to
her husband, apparently with the knowledge of the princes and other
member of the Royal family, that should the King desire, at any
future time, that the Countess should, as a matter of right, be
presented at Court, she (the Queen) would offer no obstacle.

"The relation subsisting between the King of Bavaria and the Countess
of Landsfeld is not of a coarse or vulgar character. The King has a
highly poetical mind, and sees his favourite through his imagination.
Knowing perfectly well what her antecedents have been, he takes her as
she is, and finding in her an agreeable and intellectual companion,
and an honest, plainspoken councillor, he fuses the reality with the
ideal in one deep sentiment of affectionate respect."

XXIV

THE DOWNFALL

This view of the King's sentiments towards his favourite was not acceptable to that lady's political enemies. It is to be observed, also, that the champions of orthodox morality are the hardest to persuade of the actual existence or possibility of virtue in the individual. It would seem at times that they doubt the efficacy of baptismal waters to wash out original sin. Morality finds strange champions in all lands. The House of Lords, the racing papers, the transpontine stage, and the Irish moon-lighters have all been found at one time or another on the side of the angels. In Bavaria in 1848 the University students, still for the greater part leavened by Ultramontane doctrines, posed as the vindicators of Christian morality, and spoke of Lola as the Scarlet Woman. With singular inconsistency they continued to profess their devotion to the King, who must have obviously been in their eyes, a partner in the woman's guilt. The Catholic Church does not discriminate between the sexes as regards this particular offence; moreover, evil example in a prince is held by all moralists to be more serious than in a private person. Lola, also, was believed to be single; Louis was living with his wife. The man's offence, then, would seem from every point of view to have been graver; nor could it have been excused on the ground of weakness of will or understanding, for this in a king would itself have aggravated his guilt. The undergraduates of Munich, however, being pupils of the Jesuits and presumably skilled in casuistry, would no doubt have been able to explain an attitude which appears inconsistent to the non-academic mind.

All the members of the University were not under the thumb of the clericals. Two or three students of the corps Palatia (Pfalz)--probably Protestants--did not hesitate to appear at the Countess of Landsfeld's _salon_, which was the resort of the most brilliant people in Munich. Lola's fancy was taken by the colours of the corps, and she playfully stuck one of the young fellows' caps on her pretty head. The students were, in consequence, expelled from their association. A large number of Liberal students thereupon seceded from their respective corps and formed a new one, appropriately called Alemannia. The new body was at once recognised by the King, and endowed with all the privileges of an ancient corps. Lola insisted upon providing every member with an exceedingly smart uniform, at her own expense, and with delight saw them establish their head-quarters in a house backing upon her own. The Alemannia became her devoted bodyguard. They watched her house, they escorted her in the street. She graced their festivals, dressed in the close-fitting uniform of the corps. Berks entertained them to a banquet at the palace of Nymphenburg, and in a stirring speech publicly commended their zeal for the cause of enlightenment, humanity and progress.

Conflicts between the Alemannen and the other corps were frequent. The University was split into two bitterly, venomously hostile camps, and Lola's partisans, being the fewer, seemed likely to have the worst of it. The Rector, Thiersch, intervened, and publicly took the new corps under his protection. For this act he was thanked by the King. But the mutual hatred of the factions knew no abatement. Now the wires began to feel the touch of other operators than the Jesuits. The revolutionary party was gathering strength in the winter of 1847-8. Any rod was good enough to beat a King with, and no means or agents were to be despised which would weaken his authority, and the respect in which he was held by his subjects. As to the Countess of Landsfeld, she had played her part: she had struck a mortal blow at the Jesuits, she had kept Bavaria in leash while Switzerland throttled the Sonderbund. Now, the Liberals could do without her. Her downfall would involve the King's. The situation was promising. The Radicals determined to let the Clericals pull the chestnuts out of the fire.

The death of Goerres, a former revolutionary who had turned mystic and Ultramontane in his latter years, was the signal for a formidable explosion. The police forbade any speech-making at his funeral, which took place on 31st January 1848, but were unable to prevent a pilgrimage to his grave, organised by the Ultramontane students, a week later. The corps Franconia, Bavaria, Isar, and Suabia, turned out in force. The procession soon resolved itself into a demonstration against the King's favourite. The fierce hostile murmur of the mob reached the ears of Lola in her palace in Barerstrasse. She could, without loss of honour or dignity, have ignored the demonstration: an angry mob is a foe which a brave man hesitates to meet single-handed. But Lola Montez knew not the meaning of fear. With incredible rashness and magnificent courage she deliberately went out into the street to meet her enemies face to face. She was received with groans and insult. "Very well," she cried, "I will have the University closed!" This haughty threat maddened the crowd. A rush was made for her. A gallant band of Alemannen closed round to defend her. Their leader, Count Hirschberg, attempted to use a dagger in his own defence, but it was wrested from him, and he was severely injured. Lola, forced at last to yield before superior numbers, retreated into the Church of the Theatines. The Catholic rowdies, not daring to violate the right of sanctuary, laid siege to the building, and were dispersed with difficulty by the military. The Ultramontanes reckoned it a glorious day; it was such, indeed, for the Countess of Landsfeld, who displayed a courage on this occasion of which no king or prince has ever given proof in any revolutionary crisis. The picture of this woman, attended only by two or three students, deliberately going out to meet a band of her infuriated enemies, is one which deserves a place in the gallery of heroic deeds.

The King immediately gave effect to Lola's threat. On 9th February he signed a decree closing the University, and ordered all students not natives of the city to leave it within twenty-four hours. The edict threw all Munich into consternation. The departure of upwards of a thousand young men, many of them wealthy and well-connected, meant a serious blow to trade and a rending of innumerable social ties. The students marched, singing songs of adieu, to present a valedictory address to the Rector. The citizens bestirred themselves, and to the number of two thousand signed a petition, imploring His Majesty to reconsider the decision. Louis inclined a favourable ear to their prayers, and announced on 10th February that the University would remain closed only for the summer term.

This act of weakness cost Louis I. his mistress and his crown.

The revolutionary party perceived that this was the moment to strike. The King had yielded; the students were exultant and conscious of their strength; the townsfolk were weary of this ceaseless conflict between the Countess and her foes. Your good, old-fashioned burgher cares nothing for the rights and wrongs of a public dispute; he wishes to be left in peace to turn a penny into three half-pence, and to achieve that end is as ready to sacrifice the innocent as the guilty. Jacob Vennedey, a publicist and Radical famous in his day, writing from Frankfort, did his utmost to fan the flame of revolution.

"The King of Bavaria," so ran an article, "wastes the sweat of the
poor country on mistresses and their followers. Everybody knows that
the jewellery which Lola wore lately at the theatre cost 60,000
guldens; that her house in the Barerstrasse is a fairy palace; that
the Cabinet, the Council of State, and the whole civil service are at
her beck and call; that the _gendarmerie_ and military are her
particular escort; that the best Catholic professors at the University
have been dismissed at her caprice. For the people nothing is done."

The last statement was untrue. If, too, the sixty thousand guldens had come out of the people's pockets, Lola had well earned them by her services in emancipating the country from its clerical oppressors.

Louis's concession came too late--if it should have been made at all. On the morning of 11th February, Munich was in insurrection. Students and citizens flew to arms, and mustered in dense masses before the palace, and in the squares, loudly demanding the expulsion of the Countess of Landsfeld and the immediate reopening of the University. The situation, ministers thought, was critical. The King summoned a Cabinet Council, and was prevailed upon to accede to the demands of his insurgent subjects. He who had sworn before all the world that he would never give up Lola, now signed a decree for her banishment from Munich. To save his crown he broke all the solemn pledges he had given her. It was a base capitulation. But Louis of Bavaria was an old man, sixty-two years of age. His vows had been those of a young lover; but he wanted the youthful strength of will and hand that should have defended his mistress against an armed nation. Peace--peace--is ever the craving, the last and strongest passion of age.

The King's surrender to their demands was made known at midday to the angry crowds before the Rathaus. The silly mob hailed with delight the downfall of the woman who had set them free to keep their own consciences, and speak their minds. The King's decision was communicated to Lola by an aide-de-camp. She was commanded to withdraw at once from the capital. The intrepid woman could with difficulty be persuaded to credit the officer's words. Such pusillanimity was incomprehensible to her. She could not believe that the King would abandon her without drawing the sword. Lieutenant Nuessbaum, at the outbreak of the disturbance, had been locked by a friend in an upper storey room to keep him out of danger, but at the risk of breaking his neck, the young officer had jumped from the window and hastened to offer his sword to the defenceless woman; but the King of Bavaria had surrendered without striking a blow. His own signature at last satisfied Lola of this. She looked up and down the street. No--there was not a single soldier or _gendarme_ to protect her. Not for an instant did her nerve forsake her. With a smiling face she quitted the house where she had for nearly a year directed the fortunes of a kingdom. She took the Augsburg train, as if _en route_ for Lindau; but alighted at a wayside station and drove to Blutenburg, a few miles from Munich, three of her faithful Alemannen--Peisner, Hertheim, and Laibinger--escorting her.

The rabble, who feared her manlike valour, did not attempt to molest her in her retreat, but having made sure that she was gone, they broke into her house, pillaging and wrecking. A curious, unaccountable impulse drew the King to the spot, where he must have passed many of the happiest hours of his life. With strange emotions he must have watched the human swine routing in this bower of Venus. He stood there, a pathetic figure--an old man surveying the wreckage of his last and supreme passion. Unheeded and seemingly unrecognised, he was suddenly dealt a violent blow on the head, probably by a revolutionary agent, and tottered back to his palace, bruised and dazed.

The next night, disguised in man's clothes, Lola the intrepid slipped back into Munich, and took refuge in the house of her loyal partisan, Berks. She sent a secret message to the King, confident that if she could see him, she could regain her power. Those must have been anxious moments, while she was awaiting the reply. It came at last, in the form of a letter brought by two police commissaries, Weber and Dichtl. The King refused to see her, and wished that he had come to that decision before. She turned to the officials. They read an order for her expulsion from Bavaria. Lola tore the document to pieces and threw them in their faces. Not till they presented their pistols at her bosom did she consent to accompany them. It was reported that she had been sent to Lindau on the Bodensee, thence to be conducted into Switzerland. In reality, Louis had selected for her the oddest and most fantastic place of seclusion. The mental crisis through which he had passed seems to have weakened his understanding, and he actually was persuaded by his new clerical friends that Lola's power over him was due to witchcraft. These enlightened Ultramontanes repeated some ridiculous yarn about a great black bird that visited her room by night. At a place called Weinsberg lived a man named Justinus Kerner, who exercised the profession of an exorcist or expeller of devils. To this person's custody was Lola confided on 17th February, as was first learnt from the charlatan's letters, published some ten or fifteen years ago.[17] In one of these he says:--

"Lola Montez arrived here the day before yesterday, accompanied by
three Alemannen. It is vexatious that the King should have sent her to
me, but they have told him that she is possessed. Before treating her
with magic and magnetism, I am trying the hunger cure. I allow her
only thirteen drops of raspberry water, and the quarter of a wafer.
Tell no one about this--burn this letter."

To another correspondent Kerner writes:--

"Lola has grown astonishingly thin. My son, Theobald, has mesmerised
her, and I let her drink asses' milk."

That the fiery, man-compelling Countess should have submitted to this disagreeable tomfoolery, certainly seems to suggest hypnotic influence. It is not unlikely that from the strain of the preceding few days a nervous breakdown had resulted. Or, again, she may have lingered on at Kerner's, in the hope that the King's love for her would revive. But before the month of February was over she had shaken off for ever the dust of Bavaria, and was safe in free Switzerland. Peisner, Hertheim, and Laibinger followed her into exile. Lieutenant Nuessbaum, dismissed from the Bavarian army because of his devotion to her, found a soldier's grave before the redoubts of Dueppel.

XXV

THE RISING OF THE PEOPLES

Louis of Bavaria had sacrificed his self-respect and the woman he loved to wear the crown a few years longer. The sacrifice proved futile. The expulsion of the strongest personality in Bavaria was merely the first act in the programme of the revolutionary party. On 24th February the King of the French was hurled from his throne, and every sovereign in Europe trembled. The spirit of the Revolution spread from state to state with amazing rapidity. Encouraged by the King's late compliance, the citizens of Munich once more gathered in their strength and demanded that the Chambers should be convoked forthwith. Louis refused to summon a Parliament before the end of May. Nor would he consent to the dismissal of Berks. On the 2nd March barricades were erected in the principal streets, and two days later the arsenal was attacked by the people, and carried after a short struggle. Again Louis yielded to his fears, and dismissed the unpopular minister; again the surrender came too late. The spark of insurrection in Munich had now become absorbed in the mighty flame of a great European revolution. Everywhere the people were feeling their strength. The Middle Ages, even in Germany, had at last come to an end. Six thousand men, armed with muskets, swords, hatchets, and pikes, surged round the royal palace. In the market-place, the troops were ordered to fire on the insurgents. They remained motionless, leaning on their muskets. Some one called for cheers for the Republic; the crowd responded heartily. Then up rode Prince Charles of Bavaria, the King's brother, and announced that His Majesty had conceded all the demands of his people and pledged his royal word to summon the Chambers on the 16th of the month. With this assurance the excited people feigned to be content, and returned to their homes.

But the opening of the Parliamentary session was attended by a renewal of the disturbances. A report circulated that the Countess of Landsfeld had returned to the city. The silly people again flew to arms, and demolished the ministry of police. To calm the tumult the King published a decree, withdrawing the rights of citizenship from his exiled favourite, and forbidding her to re-enter his dominions. With this disgraceful act of violence to his personal feelings, Louis lost all taste for kingship. Rumours of his impending abdication spread through the capital, and now the democratic party stood in fear of an Ultramontane conspiracy to defeat their own policy. More rioting ensued. The Landwehr were eager to rescue the King from the hands of his supposed enemies in the palace. But the old man was weary of the whole comedy, and craved only peace. On 21st March 1848 he took leave of his people in the following proclamation:--

"BAVARIANS,--A new state of feeling has begun--a state which differs
essentially from that embodied in the Constitution according to which
I have governed the country twenty-three years. I abdicate my crown in
favour of my beloved son, the Crown Prince Maximilian. My government
has been in strict accordance with the Constitution; my life has been
dedicated to the welfare of my people. I have administered the public
money and property as if I had been a republican officer, and I can
boldly encounter the severest scrutiny. I offer my heartfelt thanks to
all who have adhered to me faithfully, and though I descend from the
throne, my heart still glows with affection for Bavaria and for
Germany.

LOUIS."

Less than six weeks thus elapsed between the downfall of Lola Montez and the dethronement of the king who had not been man enough to uphold her. Had the positions been reversed--had the woman been able to command one tithe of the forces of which Louis could dispose--not the most powerful coalition of parties would have driven her from the throne without the bloodiest of struggles. In her, as was said of the Duchesse de Berry, there was mind and heart enough for a dozen kings. The country that so angrily threw off the unofficial yoke of its one strong-minded ruler, has since acknowledged the sway of two raving madmen. The Bavarians prefer King Log to King Stork.

Louis soon recovered his popularity with his late subjects. The cares and ambitions of kingship put aside, the tempestuous emotions of manhood at last exhausted, the old man was now free to devote himself wholly to his first and last love, Art. Though now a private person, his interest in the embellishment of Munich and the enrichment of the city's collections never waned. He maintained more than one residence in Bavaria, and was indeed a familiar and well-liked figure in the streets of his old capital; but most of his remaining years he spent wandering in Italy and the south of France. He lived to witness the expulsion of his son, Otto, from the throne of Greece; the death of his other son and successor, Maximilian II.; and the humiliation of his country by the arms of ever-broadening Prussia. But he could always find consolation in the contemplation of the beautiful, and in the society of men of wit and genius. The last twenty years of his life were, perhaps, the happiest he had known. He died at Nice on 29th February 1868, in the eighty-third year of his age. You may see his equestrian statue at Munich, but the whole city is virtually his monument. A great man he was not, but he was the greatest king Bavaria has yet known. So he passed from the stage of history:--

"A courteous prince, and sociable, sympathetic gentleman; a poet, too,
in a small way, taking off his diamond collar at Weimar, and putting
it round Goethe's neck; he had a gracious, winning, kingly way of his
own, and many as were his faults and his foibles, neither his son nor
his grandson supplanted him in the affections of the Bavarian
people."[18]

XXVI

LOLA IN SEARCH OF A HOME

"Her last hope for Bavaria being broken," Lola (to use her own words)
"turned her attention towards Switzerland, as the nearest shelter from
the storm that was beating above her head. She had influenced the King
of Bavaria to withhold his consent from a proposition by Austria,
which had for its object the destruction of that little republic of
Switzerland. If republics are ungrateful, Switzerland certainly was
not so to Lola Montez; for it received her with open arms, made her
its guest, and generously offered to bestow an establishment upon her
for life."

At Bern, the quaint, beautiful old city of fountains and arcades, the deposed dictatrix of Bavaria found a pleasant asylum. She was greeted with especial cordiality by the English Charge d'Affaires, Mr. Robert Peel (son of the more celebrated statesman of the same name), whose fine presence, gaiety of manner, and brilliant conversational powers rendered him a universal favourite. Peel was a warm supporter of the anti-clerical policy of the Government to which he was accredited, and on political grounds alone, must have felt the strongest sympathy for the Countess of Landsfeld. Peisner, Hertheim, and Laibinger seem to have at last parted company with Lola at Bern, for a letter in her handwriting is preserved, dated from that city, 2nd March 1848, alluding to their probable departure, and directing that a packet be forwarded to Peisner.

From the terraces of Bern, Lola looked forth over Europe and beheld the utter discomfiture of her enemies. If she craved revenge, here was enough and a surfeit. Metternich, the mighty minister, whose gold had contributed to her undoing, was dismissed and driven into exile after forty years of unquestioned sway. Everywhere Liberal principles were in the ascendant. Louis of Bavaria, who had not dared to save her, had now shown himself unable to defend his own throne. Lola must have been more than human if she experienced no inward exultation at the downfall of those who had basely abandoned her. The reign of her clerical foes and conquerors had indeed been short-lived. Too late did they realise that they had been merely the instruments of their natural antagonists, the extreme revolutionary party.

But if the situation of Europe in the spring of 1848 afforded satisfaction to Lola's vindictive instincts, it offered little incentive to her ambition. The men who were shaping the nation's destinies were cast in the stern, republican mould, and disdained to use the charms and wiles of a woman in the furtherance of their ends. Issues were being fought out on the battlefield, not in the boudoir. Nor did any state, from the Baltic to the Mediterranean, present even such slight evidences of stability as a high-flying adventuress might found her plans upon. To re-enter the political arena at such a moment was to plunge headlong into a whirlpool. The old order had changed. The world, hardly tolerant of kings, would no longer brook the domination of their favourites, wise or unwise. The princes pulled long faces, and swore that the Constitution and the Catechism should be henceforward their only rule of life. They vowed to live like respectable citizens, indulging their amiable weaknesses only in privacy. Pericles must no longer converse on affairs of state with Aspasia in the market place. Beauty must exert what power it could in the boudoir and on the back stairs. For half a century woman as a political factor almost ceased to be. Only in our own day has her voice again been heard, demanding in stern, menacing tones her right to a larger, nobler part in the councils of the nations than the Pompadours and Maintenons ever dreamed of.

Weary, it may be conceived, of affairs of state, of strife and intrigue, conscious that she had played in her greatest _role_, the Countess of Landsfeld quitted Switzerland, once more to try her fortunes in England. She had stepped down from the throne for ever. She embarked for London at Rotterdam on 8th April 1848. By the irony of fate, it was ordered that the bitterest, and once the most powerful, of her foes, the fallen minister, Metternich, should be waiting at the same port seeking the same destination. The news of the Chartist demonstration alone prevented him sailing by the same vessel. "I thank God," he piously remarks, "for having preserved me from contact with her." Assuredly, the meeting would have been a painful and ignominious one for the fallen minister, at any rate.

Lola's arrival in the troubled state of England passed almost unnoticed. She determined to try her fortunes once more upon the stage, and found, of course, as a celebrity, that she was _persona grata_ to the managers and agents. The directors of Covent Garden conceived the ingenious idea of presenting her as herself in a dramatic representation of the recent events at Munich. The play was written and entitled, "Lola Montez, ou la Comtesse d'une Heure," but the Lord Chamberlain declined to license a performance in which living royal personages were introduced.[19] The scheme fell through, and Lola, having a private income to fall back upon, retired into lodgings at 27 Halfmoon Street, Mayfair. There "she invited a few men, including myself," writes the Hon. F. Leveson Gower, "to visit her in the evening. She had lost much of her good looks, but her animated conversation was entertaining."[20] The journalist, George Augustus Sala, then a very young man, describes Lola on the contrary, as a very handsome lady, "originally the wife of a solicitor," whom he met at a little cigar-shop, under the pillars, in Norreys Street, Regent Street. She proposed that he should write her life, "starting with the assumption that she was a daughter of the famous matador, Montes."[21] Lola's imaginative powers, especially when directed to inventing romantic origins for herself, rivalled those of the heroine of "The Dynamiter." Lord Brougham, that learned but relatively susceptible Chancellor, she also claimed acquaintance with; he lived not far from her, in Grafton Street. It is probable that a woman of Lola's beauty, wit, and remarkable attainments would have numbered the most brilliant and distinguished men in London among her associates, whatever attitude may have been assumed towards her by the little clique of prigs and prudes that arrogated to itself the title of Society.

XXVII

A SECOND EXPERIMENT IN MATRIMONY

The company of any number of agreeable men about town and the amenities of life in a Mayfair lodging-house were not, however, likely to content a woman who had lately ruled a kingdom. Experience, it is true, had taught Lola to set limits to her ambition. She had succeeded in her design of hooking a prince, but the catch had been torn off the hook with considerable violence to the angler. It was of no use again to cast her line into royal waters. The fish were now too wary. After the ordeal through which she had passed, Lola sighed for some enduring ties and an established position. She yearned as the most fiery and erratic do at one time or another, for a home. Some think that they who have loved most, love best; but I imagine Lola was a trifle weary of love just then, and longed for some felicity more stable and material. She inclined, in fact, towards the sweet yoke of domesticity, which was quite a fashionable institution in England at that time. Among her visitors was a Mr. George Trafford Heald, son of a rich Chancery barrister, and a cornet in the Second Life Guards. This gallant officer is described as a tall young man, of juvenile figure and aspect, with straight hair and small light brown downy mustachios and whiskers; his turned-up nose gave him an air of great simplicity. As, however, he had, on his coming of age in January 1849, inherited a fortune of between six and seven thousand pounds per annum, he was considered, especially by unattached ladies, in and out of society, a very interesting person. He was very much in love with the Countess of Landsfeld who, no doubt, easily persuaded herself that she entertained a strong affection for so eligible a suitor. In this respect Lola was, it is safe to say, no more mercenary than half the good and well-brought-up young ladies who were looking out for a good match that season. Heald seems to have been what women call a nice boy; in many ways he probably contrasted favourably with Lola's bolder, more experienced wooers. So when (with many blushes, and in shy stammering words, I doubt not) he offered the adventuress his hand and heart and fortune, she was able without any natural repugnance to consent to be his wife.

That she ever doubted that she was free to wed again is not to be supposed. In all likelihood, she had been made acquainted with her divorce from Captain James only through the medium of the newspapers, and these would lead any one to believe that the divorce had been made absolute. It was, therefore, without any apprehension that she married Cornet Heald at St. George's, Hanover Square, on 19th July 1849. As she left the church on the arm of her youthful husband, she must have thought half-regretfully of the career of adventure that was ended, and yet looked forward with complacency to the life of respectability and affluence that seemed to stretch before her.

Vain hope! By the common domestic women of her time Lola was regarded with bitter hatred. It is unnecessary to analyse this species of animosity. It is compounded, apparently, of jealousy, of some vague religious sentiment of inherited prejudice, and of the trade-unionist's dislike for the blackleg. This attitude, though instinctive, is not unreasonable on the part of the vast numbers of women who consider marriage a profession, but it is more difficult to understand in the case of an aged lady, long since resigned to celibacy. Such a spinster was Miss Susanna Heald, of Headington Grove, Horncastle, the aunt of Cornet George. This lady manifested great displeasure at her nephew's marriage; and, certain facts having been communicated to her by Lola's numerous enemies, she forthwith set in motion that efficient engine of man's injustice, the English law.