When I had been about two years with Madame Lalande, she resolved, very much against the wishes of her friends, to remove to Paris. She had always pined for her home during the ten or twelve years she had resided in America. She had been fortunate, and laid up some little money, with which she fancied she could establish a large school at “home,” and realize larger profits. Her health was but indifferent. She was, in fact, suffering from maladie du pays; and she gave up the fine school she had been so lucky in establishing in America, to grasp at an uncertainty in her own beloved Paris. Her friends reasoned, but in vain; she said the letters she received from her friends in Paris, assured her that her circumstances would be infinitely improved by a removal there. Lolah and I parted with many tears and promises for the future. The long tress of her beautiful hair, and the crayon sketch which had been made of her by her drawing-master, were her little gifts to me—gifts which I have treasured carefully. After their arrival in Paris, she wrote to me, and a few letters passed between us; but only a few. I never received but two or three from Lolah, and then the correspondence on her side ceased. I continued writing for a year or more, but at last gave it up; and year after year passed without bringing any information to me of her. I remember well what sad tears I shed over that little packet, when I first put it away in my desk; for a year or more I could not bear to open it, so miserable did the little drawing and lock of hair make me feel. Some clever German writer says, “Children live in a world of imagination and feeling;” thus I at last soothed my aching heart by imaginings of the future, and dreaming happy day-visions of a reunion with my darling Lolah.
A year or two since, my father’s health grew delicate, and his physicians thought a sea voyage would prove beneficial. A visit to Europe was recommended, and I, of course, accompanied him. We spent some time abroad, traveling over those parts of the Continent most interesting to him, from early intellectual pursuits and associations. While we were at Munich, the Bavarian capital, we heard that the famous dancer, Lola Montes, was there, creating a great excitement. The strange stories we had heard of this remarkable woman, made us feel desirous to see her; and, accordingly, one evening we went to the theatre to gratify our curiosity. I could scarcely refrain from a loud exclamation when this danseuse appeared upon the stage. She was dressed in Spanish costume, as she was about to execute a favorite Spanish dance. A rich costly veil floated around her head, and her long, glossy hair hung in heavy, dark braids, looped, and bound with glittering gems. It was Lolah Lalande. Love could not be deceived; and tears sprung to my eyes as I recalled our girlish friendship. Had she been in any other dress, I might have failed to trace the resemblance so quickly; but I had so often seen her in that Spanish costume—it was similar to the crayon sketch—it was the dress she most affected at the dancing parties at school, because the Spanish waltzes were her favorite dances when a child; and she always danced them dressed in the beautiful, becoming national costume. How anxiously I noted every movement, traced every feature—it was Lolah herself I felt convinced, although changed. A fierté cold expression overspread her face, and her brilliant eyes flashed a little disdainfully at times, as she seemed to command and exact applause as a right. There was no glittering, set, stage-smile upon her face, but a cold, haughty recognition was all that she gave to any mark of approbation from the audience. Her style of dancing was different from any I had ever seen on the stage. I had admired the childish beauty of Carlotta Grisi’s dancing; the voluptuous Cerito’s; the fascinating, refined Ellsler’s, and the dignified, intellectual Taglioni’s; but Montes’—no, Lolah Lalande’s—seemed to me—it might have been from childish association—more entrancing than any other, although those who were with me, and who were, undoubtedly, good judges, better than I, condemned her style; but when woman’s heart begins to act, good-by to her judgment. Lolah had grown tall; and though still exquisitely graceful, as in childhood, she seemed remarkably strong and commanding. Other dancers, I thought, might be compared to a Hebe or a Venus, but Lolah seemed a Juno and Pallas united; and I quoted to my clever critic friends the lines with which I have headed this sketch, —
“She can show art rules to astonish her.
And what the muses would with study find,
She teaches in her dancing.”
I only saw her that night. The next day we left Munich, and I never saw her again. From a gentleman I met afterward in Paris, and who had known Montes from the time of her first appearance in public, I learned that extreme poverty had driven her to the stage. She had not been educated for it as a profession; and the touching account he gave me of her trials, united with my own knowledge of Lolah Lalande’s history, convinced me that Lolah Lalande and Lolah Montes were, as I had imagined, one and the same person.
Soon after their arrival in Paris, Madame Lalande discovered that her move had been an injudicious one. Success did not attend her as she expected; the château d’Espagne she had created was never realized; and she found herself, although in her “home,” the residence of her childhood, among strangers; old associates were dead, or had formed new connections. Day by day passed, and the little capital she had collected in America, and which was to establish the grand school in Paris for les jeunes demoiselles of the nobility, gradually melted away; and she at last resolved to bid an eternal farewell to Paris, and return, though with mortified feelings, to the school in America she had with such blind willfulness given up. But just as she had come to this conclusion, and Lolah was gladly making preparations for their return, sickness, caused by extreme chagrin and disappointment, attacked chère tante. This sickness was lingering, and at last, bitter, actual poverty stared them in the face.
“What am I to do?” exclaimed poor Lolah, one day, as she turned from the apothecary’s door, to whom she had just paid her last coin for medicine for chère tante. Gay equipages dashed past her; and the busy, bustling crowd moved by, unheeding the misery of that pale, friendless girl. “God help me,” she murmured, in a thick, hoarse voice. Sorrow and want had dried up her tears—the real poor seldom weep. She turned to seek her wretched home, which, miserable as it was, she knew not how long it might remain to them. Faint and exhausted with hunger and anxiety, she could scarcely drag her little feet along the pavé. Regardless of her movements, she stumbled over a stone; a kind person passing, caught her as she fell, and upon lifting her eyes to thank him, she recognized Monsieur Neillet.
“Ah, Mademoiselle Lolah! can this be you?” he exclaimed. “I have been seeking in vain for Madame Lalande’s residence ever since I reached Paris;” and then followed a host of questions and explanations.
The Monsieur had come over to Paris for new dances. A rival had appeared in the city, where he had so long been the favorite teacher; and the Americans were raving for new figures. His gavottes and shawl dances were voted obsolete, and out of date; and he had been dethroned by the children of his former pupils, to make way for the new teacher, who came over fresh from Paris with gallopes and figures of the newest fashion. He could scarcely realize it until he found his hours unoccupied, his school-list, that had formerly been filled to overflowing, without a single name; then, with laudable courage and energy, he resolved to take the little independence he had collected, return to chère Paris—but not as a sober Englishman or Scotchman would have done, live quietly on it for the rest of his days—oh, no! he pined for revenge. What was life to a Frenchman without a triumph? “Inglorious ease” he scorned. No! he, too, would learn new dances; he would return to the scene of his former power, but late discomfiture, and hurl the presumptuous usurper from his throne. He, too, would flourish in gallopes and new figures.