A ridiculous book, The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole, with an introductory puff by a windbag, W. H. Russell, has a reference to this project:
Came one day Lola Montez, in the full zenith of her evil fame, bound for California, with a strange suite. A good-looking, bold woman, with fine, bad eyes and a determined bearing; dressed ostentatiously in perfect male attire, with shirt collar turned down over a lapelled coat, richly worked shirt front, black hat, French unmentionables, and natty polished boots with spurs. She carried in her hand a riding-whip.... An impertinent American, presuming—perhaps not unnaturally—upon her reputation, laid hold jestingly of the tails of her long coat; and, as a lesson, received a cut across his face that must have marked him for some days. I did not wait to see the row that followed, and was glad when the wretched woman rode off on the following morning.
Russell was not a fellow-passenger in the ship by which Lola travelled. Somebody else, however, who did happen to be one, gives a very different description of her conduct on the journey:
"We had not been at sea one day," says Mrs. Knapp, "before all the saloon occupants were charmed by this lovely young woman. Her vivacity was infectious, and her abandon was always of a specially airy refinement."
The arrival of Lola Montez at San Francisco would have eclipsed that of any Hollywood heroine of the present era. A vast crowd, headed by the City Fathers, "in full regalia," gathered at the quay. Flags decked the public buildings; guns fired a salute; bands played; and the schoolchildren were assembled to strew her path with flowers as she stepped down the gangway; and, "to the accompaniment of ringing cheers," the horses were taken from her carriage, which was dragged by eager hands through the streets to her hotel. "The Countess acknowledged the reception accorded her with a graceful inclination."
"What if Europe has exiled her?" demanded an editorial. "This is of no consequence. After all, she is Lola Montez, acknowledged Mistress of Kings! She is beautiful above other women; she is gorgeous; she is irresistible; and we are genuinely proud to welcome her."
Enveloped in legend, the reputation of the newcomer for "eccentricity" had preceded her. She lived up to this reputation, too, for, when the spirit moved her (and it did so quite often), she would dance in the beer gardens "for fun"; she had her hair cut short, when other women were affecting chignons; and—wonder of wonders—she would "actually smoke cigarettes in public." Clearly, a trifle ahead of her period.
By the way, while she was in San Francisco, Lola is said to have renewed her acquaintance with the mysterious Jean François Montez, who, during the interval since they last met, had turned over a fresh leaf and was now married. But according to a chronicler: "The family felicity very soon succumbed to the lure of the lovely Lola." Without, too, any support for the assertion, a contributor of theatrical gossip dashed off an imaginative column, in which he declared her, among other things, to have been "the petted companion of Louis Napoleon"; and also "the idolised dancer of the swells and wits of the capitals of the Old World, with the near relatives of royalty and the beaux of Paris for her intimates."
This was going too far. Lola, much incensed, shook her dog-whip and threatened reprisals.