Lola the saint was no more provident than Lola the sinner. She dissipated the large sums she had amassed in her English tour in the space of a few months, and with a mind tormented by remorse and religious scruples, could turn her thoughts to no system of livelihood. Threatened with poverty, and in a state of deep dejection, she was one day met in the streets of New York by a lady and gentleman who stopped and considered her attentively. Finally, evidently at the man’s suggestion, his wife stepped up to Lola, and recalled herself to her recollection as an old school-fellow and playmate of her Montrose days. She was now the wife of Mr. Buchanan, a florist of some standing. Lola was deeply affected by this meeting. This voice from her childhood supplied the human note in her present state of spiritual desolation and exaltation. The friendship begun thirty years before in far-off Scotland was renewed. To the penitent Lola Mrs. Buchanan’s recognition of her seemed an act of amazing kindness and condescension. But the florist and his wife were not only religious but good people. They made provision for the ex-adventuress, perhaps by a judicious investment of the little money that remained to her; and Mrs. Buchanan sympathising warmly with her old friend’s spiritual regeneration, was able to calm her doubts and scruples, and to divert her piety into practical channels.
The wayward, troubled soul of Lola Montez at last tasted peace—thanks, perhaps, as much to the consolations of true friendship as to those of religion. She abandoned the Methodist connection, and embraced the possibly less gloomy tenets of the Episcopal Church of America. She passed much of her time in deep retirement, reading and studying the Bible. One who knew her at this time says that her bearing was calm, graceful, and modest; of her beauty there remained no trace except her deep, lustrous Spanish eyes. A conviction that she was soon to die of consumption possessed her, and she spent the rest of the year 1860 in preparation for her end.
“So far as outward actions could show,” says her spiritual adviser, Dr. F. L. Hawks, “with her ‘old things had passed away, and all things had become new.’ With a heart full of sympathy for the poor outcasts of her own sex, she devoted the last few months of her life to visiting them at the Magdalen Asylum, near New York, warning them and instructing them with a spirit which yearned over them, that they, too, might be brought into the fold. She strove to impress upon them not only the awful guilt of breaking the divine law, but the inevitable earthly sorrow which those who persisted with thoughtless desperation in sinful courses were treasuring up for themselves. Her effort was thus to redeem the time as far as she could; and the result of her labours can only be known on that day when she will meet her erring sisters at the impartial tribunal of the Eternal Judge.”
Lola’s premonition was verified. In December 1860 she was suddenly struck down—not by consumption, but by partial paralysis. She was conveyed to the Asteria Sanatorium, where Mrs. Buchanan took charge of her. She lingered in great pain, patiently borne, for several weeks, and it was seen that there was no hope of her recovery. Dr. Hawks visited her frequently. To him, her chosen confidant at this final stage of her chequered life, and the most fitted to sympathise with the ideas that then dominated her, may be left the description of her last hours.
“In the course of a long experience as a Christian minister, I do not think I ever saw deeper penitence and humility, more real contrition of soul and more of bitter self-reproach than in this poor woman. Anxious to probe her heart to the bottom, I questioned her in various forms; spoke as plainly as I could of the qualities of a genuine repentance; set forth the necessity of the operations of the Holy Spirit really to convert from sin to holiness, and presented Christ as all in all—the only Saviour. For myself I am quite satisfied that God the Holy Ghost had renewed her sinful soul into holiness.
“There was no confident boasting, however. I never saw a more humble penitent. When I prayed with her, nothing could exceed the fervour of her devotion; and never had I a more watchful and attentive hearer than when I read the Scriptures. She read the blessed volume for herself, also, when I was not present. It was always within reach of her hand; and, on my first visit, when I took up her Bible from the table, the fact struck me that it opened of its own accord to the touching story of Christ’s forgiveness of the Magdalene in the house of Simon.
“If ever a repentant soul loathed past sin, I believe hers did.
“She was a woman of genius, highly accomplished, of more than usual attainments, and of great natural eloquence. I listened to her sometimes with admiration, as with the tears streaming from her eyes, her right hand uplifted, and her regularly expressive features (her keen blue eyes especially) speaking almost as plainly as her tongue, she would dwell upon Christ, and the almost incredible truth that He could show mercy to such a vile sinner as she felt herself to have been, until I would feel that she was the preacher and not I.
“When she was near her end, and could not speak, I asked her to let me know by a sign whether her soul was at peace, and she still felt that Christ would save her. She fixed her eyes on mine, and nodded her head affirmatively.”
Thus, on 17th January 1861, in the odour of sanctity, died Lola Montez, Countess of Landsfeld, Baroness Rosenthal, Canoness of the Order of St. Theresa, sometime ruler of the kingdom of Bavaria, in the forty-third year of her age. She, whose fame had filled three continents, was committed to the custody of Mother Earth in Greenwood Cemetery, two days later, with the rites and ceremonial of the Episcopal Church. Her grave was marked by a tablet, bearing the inscription: “Mrs. Eliza Gilbert, born 1818, died 1861.” The men who had risked crowns and fortune for her love would have hardly recognised her in her last part or under her last homely description.