An Englishman in Paris: Notes and Recollections

by Albert D. Vandam

"Of course he does—they all do," was the answer; "mais ça n'empêche pas les sentiments, does it?" I am very ignorant, and haven't a bit of memory, but I once heard a story about a Danish or Swedish king—I do not know the difference—who married an adventuress like myself, though the queen and the mother of his heir was alive. He committed bigamy, but kings and queens may do things we mayn't. One day, he and his lawful wife were at one of their country seats, and, leaning out of the window, when a carriage passed with a good-looking woman in it, 'Who is this lady?' asked the queen. 'That's my wife,' replied the king. 'Your wife! what am I, then?' said the queen. 'You? well, you are my queen.'[17]

"Never mind, whatever my intentions on Leopold's money or affections may have been, they came to nothing; for before I could get as much as a peep at him, my money had all been spent, and I was obliged to part with my clothes first, and then to sing in the streets to get food. I was taken from Brussels to Warsaw by a man whom I believe to be a German. He spoke many languages, but he was not very well off himself. However, he was very kind, and, when we got to Warsaw, managed to get me an engagement at the Opéra. After two or three days, the director told me that I couldn't dance a bit. I stared him full in the face, and asked him whether he thought that, if I could dance, I would have come to such a hole as his theatre. Thereupon he laughed, and said I was a clever girl for all that, and that he would keep me on for ornament. I didn't give him the chance for long. I left after about two months, with a Polish gentleman, who brought me to Paris. The moment I get a nice round lump sum of money, I am going to carry out my original plan; that is, trying to hook a prince. I am sick of being told that I can't dance. They told me so in London, they told me in Warsaw, they told me at the Porte Saint-Martin where they hissed me. I don't think the men, if left to themselves, would hiss me; their wives and their daughters put them up to it: a woman like myself spoils their trade of honest women. I am only waiting my chance here; for though you are all very nice and generous and all that kind of thing, it is not what I want."

Shortly after this conversation, the death of Dujarrier and his legacy to her gave her the chance she had been looking for. She left for London, I heard, with an Englishman; but I never saw him, so I cannot say for certain. But, it appears, she did not stay long, because, a little while after, several Parisians, on their return from Germany, reported that they had met her at Wiesbaden, at Homburg, and elsewhere, punting in a small way, not settling down anywhere, and almost deliberately avoiding both Frenchmen and Englishmen. The rumour went that her husband was on her track, and that her anxiety to avoid him had caused her to leave London hurriedly. In spite of her chequered career, in spite of the shortcomings at Brussels, Lola Montès was by no means anxious for the "sweet yoke of domesticity." In another six months, her name was almost forgotten by all of us, except by Alexandre Dumas, who now and then alluded to her. Though far from superstitious, Dumas, who had been as much smitten with her as most of her admirers, avowed that he was glad she had disappeared. "She has 'the evil eye,'" he said; "and sure to bring bad luck to any one who closely links his destiny with hers, for however short a time. You see what has occurred to Dujarrier. If ever she is heard of again, it will be in connection with some terrible calamity that has befallen a lover of hers." We all laughed at him, except Dr. Véron, who could have given odds to Solomon Eagle himself at prophesying. Fortunately he was generally afraid to open his lips, for he was thoroughly sincere in his belief that he could prevent the event by not predicting it—at any rate aloud. For once in a way, however, Alexandre Dumas proved correct. When we did hear again of Lola Montès, it was in connection with the disturbances that had broken out at Munich, and the abdication of her royal lover, Louis I. of Bavaria, in favour of his eldest son, Maximilian.

The substance of the following notes relating to said disturbances was communicated to me by a political personage who played a not inconsiderable part in the events themselves. As a rule it is not very safe to take interested evidence of that kind, "but in this instance," as my informant put it, "there was really no political reputation to preserve, as far as he was concerned." Lola Montès had simply tried to overthrow him as Madame Dubarry overthrew the Duc de Choiseul, because he would not become her creature; and she had kept on repeating the tactics with every succeeding ministry, even that of her own making. But it should be remembered that revolution was in the air in the year '48, and that if Lola Montès had been the most retiring of favourites, or Louis I. the most moral of kings, the uprising would have happened just the same, though the upshot might have been different with regard to Louis himself.

Here is a portrait of him, which, in my literary ignorance, I think sufficiently interesting to reproduce.

"Louis was a chip of the old Wittelsbach block; that is, a Lovelace, with a touch of the minnesinger about him. Age had not damped his ardour; for, though he was sixty-one when Lola Montès took up her quarters at Munich, any and every 'beauty' that came to him was sure of an enthusiastic welcome. And Heaven alone knows how many had come to him during his reign; they seemed really directed to him from every quarter of the globe. The new arrival had her portrait painted almost immediately; it was added to the collection for which a special gallery had been set apart, and whither Louis went to meditate by himself at least once a day. He averred that he went thither for poetic inspiration, for he took himself au sérieux as a poet, and, above all, as a classical poet modelling his verse upon those of ancient times. He had published a volume of poems, entitled 'Walhalla's Genossen';[18] but his principal study of antiquity was mainly confined to the rites connected with the worship of Venus. He was very good-natured and pleasant in his dealings with every one; he had not an ounce of gall in the whole of his body. He was, moreover, very religious in his own way, and consequently the tool of the Jesuits, who really governed the kingdom, but who endeavoured to make his own life sweet and pleasant to him. They liked him to take part in the religious processions, as any burgher of devout tendencies might, but being aware of his tendency to be attracted by the first pretty face he caught sight of, they took care to relegate all the handsome maidens and matrons to the first and second floors. In that way Louis's eyes were always lifted heavenwards, and religious appearances were preserved.

"Under such conditions, it was not difficult for a woman of Lola Montès' attractions and daring to gain her ends. She was not altogether without means when she came to Munich, though the sum in her possession was far from a hundred thousand francs, as she afterwards alleged it was. At any rate, she was not the penniless adventuress she had formerly been, and when, in her beautiful dresses, she applied to the director of the Hof-Theatre for an engagement, the latter was fairly dazzled, and granted her request without a murmur. She did, however, not want to dance, and, before her first appearance, she managed to set tongues wagging about her beauty, and, as a matter of course, the rumours reached the king's ears. I am afraid I shall have to prefer a grave charge, but I am not doing so without foundation. It is almost certain by now that the Jesuits, seeing in her a tool for the further subjugation of the superannuated royal troubadour, countenanced, if they did not assist her in her schemes; they, the Jesuits, did many things of which a Catholic, like myself, however firm in his allegiance to Rome, could not but disapprove. At any rate, three or four days after the king's first meeting with her, Lola Montès was presented at court, and introduced to the royal family and corps diplomatique by the sovereign himself, as 'his best friend.' Events proceeded apace. In August, '47, the king granted her patents of 'special naturalization,' created her Baroness von Rosenthal, and, almost immediately afterwards, Countess von Landsfeld. She received an annuity of twenty thousand florins, and had a magnificent mansion built for her. At the instance of the king, the queen was compelled to confer the order of St. Thérèse upon her. I, and many others, had strenuously opposed all this, though not unaware that, up till then, the Jesuits were on her side, rather than on ours. We paid the penalty of our opposition with our dismissal from office, and then Lola Montès confronted the Jesuits by herself. She was absolutely mad to invade Wurtemberg, not for any political reason; she could no more have accounted for any such than the merest hind, but simply because, a few months before her appearance at Munich, she had been, in her opinion, slighted by the old king. The fact was, old William, sincerely attached to Amalia Stubenrauch, the actress, had not fallen a victim to Lola Montès' charms, and had taken little or no notice of her. The contemplated invasion of Wurtemberg was an act of private revenge. But mad as she was, there was some one more mad still—King Louis I. of Bavaria.

"The most ill-advised thing she did, perhaps, was to change her supporters. Like the ignorant, overbearing woman she was, she would not consent to share her power over the king with the Jesuits; she tried to form an opposition against them among the students at the University, and she succeeded to a certain extent. These adherents constituted the nucleus of a corps which soon became known under the title of 'Allemanen.' But the more noble-minded and patriotic youths at the Munich University virtually ostracized the latter, and several minor disturbances had already broken out in consequence of this, when, in the beginning of February, '48, a more than usually serious manifestation against 'Lola's creatures,' as they were called, took place. The woman did not lack pluck, and she insisted upon defying the rioters by herself. But they proved too much for her; and, after all, she was a woman. She endeavoured to escape from their violence, but every house was shut against her; the Swiss on guard at the Austrian Embassy refused her shelter. A most painful scene happened; the king himself, the moment the news reached him, rushed to her rescue, and, having elbowed his way through the threatening, yelling crowd, offered her his arm, and conducted her to the church of the Theatines, hard by. As a matter of course, several officers had joined him, and all might have been well, if she had taken the lesson to heart. But her violent, domineering, vindictive temper got the better of her. No sooner did she find herself in comparative safety, than, emboldened by the presence of the officers, she snatched a pistol from one of them, and, armed with it, leapt out of the building, confronting the crowd, and threatening to fire. Heaven alone knows what would have been the result of this mad act, but for the timely arrival of a squadron of cuirassiers, who covered her retreat.

"The excitement might have died out in a week or a fortnight, though the year '48 was scarcely a propitious one for a display of such quasi-feudal defiance, if she had merely been content to forego the revenge for the insults she herself had provoked; but on the 10th of February she prevailed upon the king to issue a decree, closing the University for a twelvemonth. The smouldering fire of resentment against her constant interference in the affairs of the country blazed forth once more, and this time with greater violence than ever. The working men, nay, the commercial middle classes, hitherto indifferent to the king's vagaries, which, after all, brought grist to their mill, espoused the students' cause. Barricades were erected; the cry was not 'Long live the Constitution,' or 'Long live the Republic,' but 'Down with the concubine.' It was impossible to mistake the drift of that insurrection, but, in order to leave no doubt about it in the sovereign's mind, a deputation of the municipal council and one of the Upper House waited upon Louis, and insisted upon the dismissal of Lola Montès, who, in less than an hour, left Munich, escorted by a troop of gendarmes, who, however, had all their work to do to prevent her from being torn to pieces by the mob. Her departure was the signal for the pillaging of her mansion, at which the king looked on—as he thought—incognito. It is difficult to determine what prompted him to commit so rash an act. Was it a feeling of relief at having got rid of her—for there was a good deal of cynicism about that semi-philosophical, semi-mystical troubadour—or a desire to chew the cud of his vanished happiness? Whatever may have been the reason, he paid dearly for it, for some one smashed a looking-glass over his head, and he was carried back to the palace, unconscious, and bleeding profusely. It was never ascertained who inflicted the wounds, though there is no doubt that the assailant knew his victim. Meanwhile Lola Montès had succeeded in slipping away from her escort, and three hours later she re-entered Munich disguised, and endeavoured to make her way to the palace. But the latter was carefully guarded, and for the next month all her attempts in that direction proved fruitless, though, audacious as she was, she did not dare stop for a single night in the capital itself. Besides, I do not believe that a single inhabitant would have given her shelter. Unlike a good many royal favourites of the past, she had no personal adherents, no faithful servants who would have stood by her through thick and thin, because she never treated any one kindly in the days of her prosperity: she could only bribe; she was incapable of inspiring disinterested affection among those who were insensible to the spell of her marvellous beauty."

So far the narrative of my informant. The rest is pretty well known by everybody. A few years later, she committed bigamy with another English officer, named Heald, who was drowned at Lisbon about the same time that her real husband died. Alexandre Dumas was right—she brought ill-luck to those who attached themselves to her for any length of time, whether in the guise of lovers or husbands.