2 March, 1848.
Sir,
In case the students of the Alemannia Society have left your hotel, I beg you to inform my servant, the bearer of this letter, where Monsieur Peissner, for whom he has a parcel to deliver, has gone.
Receive in advance my distinguished sentiments.
Countess of Landsfeld.
Lola's first halt in Switzerland (a country she described as "that little Republic which, like a majestic eagle, lies in the midst of the vultures and cormorants of Europe") was at Geneva. An error of judgment, for the austere citizens of Calvin's town, setting a somewhat lofty standard among visitors, were impervious to her blandishments. "They were," she complained, "as chilly as their own icicles." At Berne, however, to which she went next, she had better luck. This was because she met there an impressionable young Chargé d'affaires attached to the British Legation, whom she found "somewhat younger than Ludwig, but more than twice as silly." An entente was soon established. "Sometimes riding, and sometimes driving she would appear in public, accompanied by her youthful adorer."
The official was Robert Peel, a son of the distinguished statesman, and was afterwards to become third baronet. In a curious little work, typical of the period, The Black Book of the British Aristocracy, there is an acid allusion to the matter: "This bright youth has just taken under his protection the notorious Lola Montez, and was lately to be observed walking with her, in true diplomatic style, in the streets of a Swiss town."
It was about this period that it occurred to a theatrical manager in London, looking for a novelty, that there was material for a stirring drama written round the career of Lola Montez. No sooner said than done; and a hack dramatist, who was kept on the premises, was commissioned to set to work. Locked up in his garret with a bottle of brandy, at the end of a week he delivered the script. This being approved by the management, it was put into rehearsal, and the hoardings plastered with bills:
THEATRE ROYAL, HAYMARKET
(Under the Patronage of Her Gracious Majesty The Queen,
His Royal Highness Prince Albert, and the Élite of Rank and
Fashion.) On Wednesday, April 26, 1848, will be produced a
New and Original and Apropos Sketch entitled:
"Lola Montez, or The Countess for an Hour."