[13] One of the great wits of the Revolution.—Editor.
[14] M. Eugène Pelletan, the father of M. Camille Pelletan, the editor of La Justice, and first lieutenant to M. Clemenceau, having severely criticized some passages in M. Blanc's "Histoire de la Révolution," relating to Marie-Antoinette, the author quoted a passage of Madame Campan's "Mémoires" in support of his writings. The critic refused to admit the conclusiveness of the proof, whereupon M. Blanc appealed to the Société des Gens de Lettres, which, on the summing up of M. Taxile Delord, gave a verdict in his favour. M. Pelletan declined to submit to the verdict, as he had refused to admit the jurisdiction, of the tribunal. M. Blanc, who had at first scouted all idea of a duel, considered himself obliged to resort to this means of obtaining satisfaction, seeing that M. Pelletan stoutly maintained his opinion. A meeting had been arranged when the Revolution of '48 broke out. The opponents having both gone to the Hôtel-de-Ville, met by accident at the entrance, and fell into one another's arms. "Thank Heaven!" exclaimed Thiers, when he heard of it. "If Pelletan had killed Blanc, I should have been the smallest man in France."
M. Blanc's allusion to other "preux chevaliers" aimed particularly at M. Cousin, who, having become a minister against his will, resumed with a sigh of relief his studies under the Second Empire. He was especially fond of the seventeenth century, and all at once he, who had scarcely ever noticed a pretty woman, became violently smitten with the Duchesse de Longueville, who had been in her grave for nearly two centuries. He positively invested her with every perfection, moral and mental; unfortunately, he could not invest her with a shapely bust, the evidence being too overwhelmingly against her having been adorned that way. One day some one showed him a portrait of the sister of the "grand Condé," in which she was amply provided with the charms the absence of which M. Cousin regretted. He wrote a special chapter on the subject, and was well-nigh challenging all his contradictors.—Editor.
[15] The great fencing-master, whom Dumas immortalized in his "Maître d'Armes."—Editor.
[16] The English nobleman must have been Lord Malmesbury, who alludes to her as follows: "This was a most remarkable woman, and may be said by her conduct at Munich to have set fire to the magazine of revolution, which was ready to burst forth all over Europe, and which made the year 1848 memorable. I made her acquaintance by accident, as I was going up to London from Heron Court, in the railway. The Consul at Southampton asked me to take charge of a Spanish lady who had been recommended to his care, and who had just landed. I consented to do this, and was introduced by him to a remarkably handsome person, who was in deep mourning, and who appeared to be in great distress. As we were alone in the carriage, she, of her own accord, informed me, in bad English, that she was the widow of Don Diego Leon, who had lately been shot by the Carlists after he was taken prisoner, and that she was going to London to sell some Spanish property that she possessed, and give lessons in singing, as she was very poor. On arriving in London she took some lodgings, and came to my house to a little concert which I gave, and sang some Spanish ballads. Her accent was foreign, and she had all the appearance of being what she pretended to be. She sold different things, such as veils, etc., to the party present, and received a good deal of patronage. Eventually she took an engagement for the ballet at the Opera House, but her dancing was very inferior. At last she was recognized as an impostor, her real name being Mrs. James, and Irish by extraction, and had married an officer in India. Her engagement at the Opéra was cancelled, she left the country, and retired to Munich. She was a very violent woman, and actually struck one of the Bavarian generals as he was reviewing the troops. The king became perfectly infatuated with her beauty and cleverness, and gave her large sums of money, with a title, which she afterwards bore when she returned to England." ("Memoirs of an Ex-minister," by the Earl of Malmesbury.)
Lord Malmesbury is wrong in nearly every particular which he has got from hearsay. Lola Montès did not retire to Munich after her engagement at the Opera House had been cancelled, but to Brussels, and from there to Warsaw. Nor did she play the all-important part in the Bavarian riots or revolution he ascribes to her. The author of these notes has most of the particulars of Lola Montès' career previous to her appearance in Munich from her own lips, and, as he has already said, she was not in the least reticent about her scheming, especially when her scheming had failed. For the story of the events at Munich, I gather inferentially from his notes that he is indebted to Karl von Abel, King Ludwig's ultramontane minister, who came afterwards to Paris, and who, if I mistake not, was the father or the uncle of Herr von Abel, the Berlin correspondent of the Times, some fourteen or fifteen years ago.—Editor.
[17] Lola Montès was perfectly correct. It was Frederick IV. of Denmark, only the woman was not an adventuress like herself, but the Countess Reventlow, whom he had abducted.—Editor.
[18] "Companions in Walhalla."—Editor.
[19] The following is virtually a summary of an article by Count G. de Contades, in a French bibliographical periodical, Le Livre (Dec. 10, 1885), and shows how near Alexandre Dumas was to the truth. I have given it at great length. My excuse for so doing is the extraordinary popularity of Dumas' play with all classes of playgoers. As a consequence, there is not a single modern play, with the exception of those of Shakespeare, the genesis of which has been so much commented upon. It is no exaggeration to say that most educated playgoers, not to mention professional students of the drama, have at some time or other expressed a wish to know something more of the real Marguerite Gautier's parentage and antecedents than is shown by Dumas, either in his play or in his novel, or than what they could gather from the partly apocryphal details given by her contemporaries. Dumas himself, in his preface to the play, says that she was a farm servant. He probably knew no more than that, nor did Alphonsine Plessis herself. In after-years, the eminent dramatist had neither the time nor the inclination to search musty parish registers; Count de Contades has done so for him. Here are the results, as briefly as possible, of his researches. Alphonsine Plessis' paternal grandmother, "moitié mendiante et moitié prostituée," inhabited, a little less than a century ago, the small parish of Longé-sur-Maire, which has since become simply Longé in the canton of Briouze, arrondissement of Argentan (about thirty miles from Alençon). She had been nicknamed "La Guénuchetonne," a rustic version of the archaic French word guénippe (slattern). Louis Descours, a kind of country clod who had entered the priesthood without the least vocation, and just because his people wished him to do so, becomes enamoured of "La Guénuchetonne," and early in January, 1790, the curé Philippe christens a male child, which is registered as Marin Plessis, mother Louis-Renée Plessis, father unknown. That the father was known well enough is proved by the Christian name bestowed upon the babe, Marin, which was that of Louis Descours' father. This gallant adventure of the country priest was an open secret for miles around.
Marin Plessis grew into a handsome fellow, and when about twenty took to travelling in the adjacent provinces of lower and upper Normandy with a pack of small wares. Handsome and amiable besides, he was a welcome guest everywhere, and soon became a great favourite with the female part of the Normandy peasantry. For a little while he flitted from one rustic beauty to another, until he was fairly caught by one more handsome than the rest, Marie Deshayes. She was not, perhaps, immaculately virtuous, but, apart from her extraordinary personal attractions, she was something more than an ordinary peasant girl.