term we may understand the English Liberals, is not to be dismissed as
altogether preposterous. Our Government at that time was more or less
actively hostile to the ultra-legitimist and clerical tendencies paramount
in Central Europe: we backed the Swiss Confederation against the
Sonderbund; we sympathised with the Italians in their struggles for
freedom; English volunteers fought for the Liberal Christinos against the
Ultramontane Carlists. Lola's well-known sympathies, her knowledge of
continental courts, above all, her personality, would have recommended her
as a most valuable agent to our Foreign Office. We shall see presently
that she became the honoured guest of an English ambassador, and how legal
proceedings afterwards instituted against her in this country were
mysteriously suffered to collapse, as if in obedience to orders from
above. Lola never describes herself, it is true, as a secret agent of our
Government, but she would naturally have preferred to appear as the
independent, irresponsible dictatrix of a nation's policy.
Whatever the cause may have been, antagonism manifested itself between
Lola Montez and the King's advisers, official and clerical, within a very
few days of her arrival at his court. Louis is said to have introduced her
to his ministers as his best friend. The Jesuits immediately circulated
the report that she was his mistress, and endeavoured to inflame the
Bavarian people against her. In obedience to their principle of the Church
first and political consistency a long way after, they instigated a
general attack upon King and favourite through the clerical press of
Germany. It was truly remarked in one of the independent organs of opinion
that the most extreme radical could not have shown less regard for the
person of the sovereign than these champions of legitimacy. Caricature,
that pitiable prostitution of a divine art, was assiduously employed.
Louis was represented as a crowned satyr, a pug-dog, an ass with a crown
tied to his tail; Lola was treated with even less regard for decency. The
ape that lurks in every man gibbered in every clerical rag. The curious
may inspect some choice examples of this simian humour in Herr Fuchs's
interesting work.[13]
Ridicule, so far from killing, as is so often said, can be proved by
history to be the least potent instrument of attack and persecution
wielded by man. Skits break neither bones nor thrones. Ridicule is
generally on the side of authority and reaction, and as such, in the long
run, on the losing side. Puritanism survived the raillery of
seventeenth-century wags; the North triumphed, despite the loathsome
scurrilities of _Punch_; "Napoleon the Little," succumbed to German
strategy, not to Victor Hugo's satiric force; Teetotalism, Socialism, and
the Cause of Woman wax stronger daily, in spite of the humorists of the
music halls and the racing rags. The King of Bavaria was not to be shamed
or affrighted by all the gutter journalists of Germany. But his smile
became a little grim. Archbishop Diepenbrock remonstrated with him as to
his assumed relations with the dancer. "Stick to your _stola_, bishop,"
was the Plantagenet-like answer, "and leave me my Lola." He claimed for
his domestic affairs the privacy enjoyed by the meanest of his subjects.
His regard for Lola and respect for her opinion grew stronger daily.
Dismay spread through the clerical camp. As vilification failed to produce
any sensible effect, bribery was attempted. At the instance, no doubt, of
Metternich, Louis's sister, the Dowager Empress Karoline Augusta, offered
the favourite two thousand pounds if she would quit Bavaria. The offer was
rejected, in what terms our knowledge of Lola's character enables us to
imagine. She did not lack money, nor did she crave for it. She loved power
for its own sake, and power she now possessed. Under her influence Louis
recovered his sanity. The liberal instincts of his youth and prime
revived. He became once more the Grecian, and the mediaeval fever left him.
His impatience of clerical control grew more evident daily.
"And lo, a blade for a knight's emprise
Filled the fine empty sheath of a man.--
The Duke grew straightway brave and wise."
XX
THE ABEL MEMORANDUM
The King's change of policy first found official expression in the Royal
Decree of 15th December 1846, transferring the control of the Departments
of Education and Public Worship from Abel, the Minister of the Interior,
to Baron von Schrenk. The effect of this measure was practically to remove
the schools from the power of the Jesuits. Abel saw in it a blow aimed at
him by the detested _Andalusierin_. He addressed a letter to the King,
reminding him of his zeal and devotion to the Crown, of his attachment to
his person, of the unpopularity he had willingly incurred in order to
subject the people more thoroughly to royal control. Louis was not greatly
affected by this letter; we seldom earn the gratitude of others by
reminding them that we have taken upon ourselves blame which ought rightly
to be theirs. He was ungrateful enough to say that he had no sympathy with
Abel's policy, but that he found him a convenient man to work with. The
minister hoped that the King, like Henri Quatre, would prefer his servant
to his favourite, but he was disappointed. He next put his trust in
Louis's disinclination to take an active part in the Government; but here
again he was deceived. The King, stimulated by Lola, began to exhibit the
vigour and activity of youth, and showed a disposition to rule as well as
to reign. Baron von Pechmann, the Chief of the Munich Police, was less
patient than Abel, and ventured to protest against the consideration shown
to "a mere adventuress." The King's blue eyes kindled. "Begone!" he
exclaimed angrily; "you will find the air of Landshut purer!" It was a
sentence of banishment which the minister had no choice but to obey.
This opposition on the part of the clericals determined Louis to
regularise his new favourite and counsellor's position in his kingdom, and
to establish her social rank. He proposed to raise her to the peerage, and
as a preliminary measure he signed letters patent, conferring upon her the
status and rights of a Bavarian citizen. According to the constitution
this decree had to be countersigned by a minister. The document was placed
before Abel for his signature. The crisis had come. The King must now
finally decide between minister and favourite, in other words, between
reaction and progress. Abel summoned his colleagues to a council and the
following remarkable memorandum to His Majesty was the result of their
deliberations.[14]
"SIRE,--There are circumstances in which men invested with the
inappreciable confidence of their sovereign, and charged with the
direction of affairs, are called upon either to renounce their most
sacred duties or to expose themselves, at the bidding of their
consciences, to the risk of incurring the displeasure of their beloved
monarch. This is the sad necessity to which your ministers find
themselves reduced by the royal determination to grant to Senora Lola
Montez letters of naturalisation. We are incapable of forgetting the
oaths we took to your Majesty, and our resolution has never been for a
moment doubtful. The proposed naturalisation of Senora Montez was
openly characterised by Councillor von Maurer as the greatest calamity
with which Bavaria could be afflicted. This was the conviction of the
whole Council, and the opinion of all your Majesty's faithful
subjects. Since December last the eyes of the nation have been fixed
on Munich. The respect for the sovereign becomes weaker and weaker in
all minds, because on all sides nothing is heard but the bitterest
blame and disapprobation. National feeling is wounded: Bavaria
believes itself to be governed by a foreign woman, whose reputation is
branded in public opinion. Men like the Bishop of Augsburg [Dr.
Richarz], whose devotion to your Majesty cannot be disputed, daily
shed bitter tears for what is passing before their eyes; the ministers
of the Interior and of Finance have witnessed his profound affliction.
The Prince Bishop of Breslau [Dr. Diepenbrock], hearing of a rumour
that he had countenanced the actual state of things, has written to
persons in Munich formally and most emphatically expressing his
disapprobation. His letter is no longer a secret, and will soon be
known to the whole country. Foreign journals every day relate the most
scandalous anecdotes, and make the most degrading attacks on your
Majesty. The copy of the _Ulner Chronik_, which we subjoin, is a proof
of our assertions. In vain do the police attempt to stop the
circulation of these journals, which are everywhere read with avidity.
The impression which they leave on men's minds is by no means
doubtful. It is the same from Berchtesgaden and Passau to
Aschaffenburg and Zweibruecken. It is the same throughout Europe, in
the cabin of the poor and the palace of the rich. It is not alone the
glory and well-being of your Majesty's Government that is compromised,
but the very existence of royalty itself. It is this which explains
the joy of the enemies of the throne, and the profound grief and
despair of all who are faithfully attached to your Majesty, and who
are alive to the dangers greater than any to which it has been
exposed. In this state of things, it is inevitable that what is
passing will influence the army, and if this bulwark should give way,
where would be our resource? The statement, which the undersigned,
whose hearts are torn with anguish, venture to place before your
Majesty, is not the product of a terrified imagination, but of
observations which each has made within the circle of his
attributions, during several months. The effect of these circumstances
in the ensuing parliamentary session may easily be foreseen. Each of
the undersigned is ready to sacrifice for your Majesty his fortune and
his life. Your ministers believe that they have given you proofs of
their fidelity and attachment, but it is for them a doubly sacred duty
to point out to your Majesty the ever-increasing danger of this
situation. We beg you to listen to our humble prayer and not to
suppose that it is dictated by any desire to thwart your royal will.
It is directed only against a state of things which threatens to
destroy the fair fame, power, and future happiness of a beloved King.
Your ministers are convinced, after earnest deliberation, that if your
Majesty should not deign to give ear to their supplications, they are
bound to resign the positions to which the kindness and confidence of
their sovereign has called them, and to pray your Majesty to remove
the portfolios with which they are entrusted,
(Signed) VON ABEL. VON SEINSHEIM.
VON GUMPPENBERG. VON SCHRENK.
MUNICH, _11th February 1847_."
This extraordinary address exhibits the courage, if not the tact and sense
of humour of the signatories; but none of them cared to present it. Abel
sent it by messenger to the King, who perused it with mingled amusement
and indignation, and then locked it in his desk. He asked Abel if this
was the only copy existing, and was answered in the affirmative. But a day
or two later the memorandum appeared in print in the columns of the
_Augsburger Zeitung_. A preliminary draft had been sent by Abel to a fifth
minister, Herr Von Giese, who had left it carelessly upon his bureau. Here
it was scanned with interest and curiosity by his elderly sister, and was
carried off by her, to be proudly exhibited at a tea-party. Handed round
among the guests for examination, it was not long in finding its way into
the Press. It was reproduced in the French and English papers. The _Times_
devoted an editorial to its contents, and compared the excessive
sensibility of the Bishop of Augsburg with the hardened indifference of
the English hierarchy to the transgressions of the fourth George and
William. The lachrymose prelate contributed hugely to the gaiety of
nations. Bernstorff, the Prussian Ambassador, considered the address
wanting in respect to the sovereign; by another statesman it was qualified
as unbecoming, injudicious, and crude. More heads than one, it was
remarked, had been lost over Lola. No one could have been more amused than
the lady herself by this astonishing memorandum.
She had indeed good cause for mirth. The indiscretion of the Cabinet
brought about the complete triumph of her policy. The King allowed Abel
twenty-four hours to reconsider his attitude, and as the minister stood to
his guns, he was formally dismissed from office on 16th February. His fall
involved his colleagues. Louis's return to his earlier ideas, consequent
upon his relations with Lola, was made evident in his choice of new
ministers. The portfolio of the Interior was entrusted to Baron Zu Rhein,
with the intimation that His Majesty wished to be served by men sincerely
attached to their religion, but determined to resist any encroachment by
the Church upon the rights of the State. Councillor Maurer became Minister
of Justice, having presumably recanted the views attributed to him by his
late colleagues in the memorandum. He was a man of learning and Liberal
tendencies, and was the first Protestant to hold Cabinet rank in Bavaria.
The portfolios of finance and war were given respectively to Councillor
Zenetti and Major-General von Hohenhausen. The whole Cabinet was frankly
Liberal. Lola had coaxed the King back to sanity, and inflicted a signal
defeat upon the clericals. All over Germany she was acclaimed as the
heroine of Liberalism. Metternich groaned over the deplorable state of
things at Munich, and wrote that this woman had become an instrument of
the Radical party. Bernstorff received the news of the fall of Abel's
Ministry with satisfaction, accompanied, as it was, by Maurer's assurance
that the reign of the Jesuits in Bavaria was at an end.
It was at her evening reception at her house in Theresienstrasse that
Louis came to announce to Lola the dismissal of his old ministers, and his
unalterable attachment to her and to her policy. "I will not give Lola
up," he declared; "I will never give up that noble princely being. My
kingdom for Lola!" Maurer was obliged to consent to the naturalisation
that he had described as a national calamity. Lola was soon after raised
to the peerage with the titles of Countess of Landsfeld[15] and Baroness
Rosenthal. She is described in the register of Bavarian nobility as Maria
Dolores Porris y Montez, the daughter of a Carlist officer and Cuban lady.
(That the daughter of a follower of Don Carlos should be a deadly foe of
all that was Ultramontane must have struck her friends and opponents as
odd.) Her titles conveyed with them an estate of importance, and certain
feudal rights--the middle and the low justice, perhaps--over two thousand
souls. She was made a canoness of the aristocratic order of St. Theresa,
of which the Queen was the head. To enable her to support this dignity the
King endowed her with an annuity of twenty thousand florins. With this and
the money bequeathed her by Dujarier she was now rich. A palace befitting
her position was ordered to be built for her in Baererstrasse after the
design of the architect, Metzger, who was one of her most impassioned
admirers. Her portrait was painted by royal command, and placed in the
Gallery of Beauties, where Louis, it is said, was accustomed to spend
hours in rapturous contemplation.
XXI
THE INDISCRETIONS OF A MONARCH
Louis, being a lover of the old school, resorted to verse as an expression
of his sentiments towards his new favourite. The editor of the _Times_,
years after, described His Majesty as something of a poet, in a small way.
How very small that way was the following effusions will show. They were
translated by Mr. Francis, afterwards editor of the _Morning Post_ and
other journals. Unfortunately, or fortunately, they convey no idea of the
odd contortions of language characteristic of the original.
"TO THE ABSENT LOLITA
"The world hates and persecutes
That heart which gave itself to me:
But however much they may try to estrange us,
My heart will cling the more fondly to thine.
"The more they hate, the more thou art beloved;
And more and more is given to thee.
I shall never be torn from thee.
"Against others they have no hate;
It is against thee alone they are enraged;
In thee everything is a crime;
Thy words alone, as deeds, they would punish.
"But the heart's goodness shows itself--
Thou hast a highly elevated mind;
Yet the little who deem themselves great
Would cast thee off as a pariah.
"For evermore I belong to thee;
For evermore thou belongest to me:
What delight! that like the wave
Renews itself out of its eternal spring.
"By thee my life becomes ennobled,
Which without thee was solitary and empty;
Thy love is the nutriment of my heart,
If it had it not, it would die.
"And though thou mightest by all be forsaken,
I will never abandon thee;
For ever will I preserve for thee
Constancy and true German faith."
The next verses relate to the Countess of Landsfeld, in her character as a
Liberal martyr.
"From thee, beloved one, time and distance separate me,
But however distant thou might'st be,
I should ever call thee my own,
Thou eternally bright star of my life.
"The wild steed, if you try to daunt him.
Prances, the bolder only, on and on:
The ties of love will tie us so much closer,
If the world attempt to tear thee from me.
"And every persecution thou endurest
Becomes a new link in the chain
Which, because thou art struggling for truth,
Thou hast, for the rest of my life, cast around me.
"Whether near or far off, thou art mine,
And the love which with its lustre glorifies
Is ever renewed and will last for ever.
For evermore our faith will prove itself true."
[Illustration: LOUIS I. KING OF BAVARIA.]
The following lines are a sonnet in the original, addressed to:--
"LOLITA AND LOUIS
"Men strive with restless zeal to separate us;
Constantly and gloomily they plan thy destruction;
In vain, however, are always their endeavours,
Because they know themselves alone, not us.
Our love will bloom but the brighter for it all--
What gives us bliss cannot be divorced from us--
Those endless flames which burn with sparkling light,
And pervade our existence with enrapturing fire.
Two rocks are we, against which constantly are breaking
The adversaries' craft, the enemies' open rage;
But, scorpion-like, themselves, they pierce with deadly sting--
The sanctuary is guarded by trust and faith;
Thy enemies' cruelty will be revenged on themselves--
Love will compensate for all that we have suffered.
"In the following sonnet," comments the translator, "the royal poet does
not clearly intimate whether he has renounced the political or the
personal rivals of the fair Lolita:--
"'If, for my sake, thou hast renounced all ties,
I, too, for thee have broken with them all;
Life of my life, I am thine--I am thy thrall--
I hold no compact with thine enemies.
Their blandishments are powerless on me,
No arts will serve to seduce me from thee;
The power of love raises me above them.
With thee my earthly pilgrimage will end.
As is the union between the body and the soul,
So, until death, with thine my being is blended.
In thee I have found what I ne'er yet found in any--
The sight of thee gave new life to my being.
All feeling for any other has died away,
For my eyes read in thine--love!'"
The final example of the King's lyrical genius might be inscribed to
"Lolita in Dejection." It is dated the evening of 6th July 1847.
"A glance of the sun of former days,
A ray of light in gloomy night!
Have sounded long-forgotten strings,
And life once more as erst was bright.
"Thus felt I on that night of gladness,
When all was joy through thee alone;
Thy spirit chased from mine its sadness,
No joy was greater than mine own.
"Then was I happy for feeling more deeply
What I possessed and what I lost;
It seemed that thy joy then went for ever,
And that it could never more return.
"Thou hast lost thy cheerfulness,
Persecution has robbed thee of it;
It has deprived thee of thy health,
The happiness of thy life is already departed.
"But the firmer only, and more firmly
Thou hast tied me to thee;
Thou canst never draw me from thee--
Thou sufferest because thou lovest me."
The King of Bavaria was not a poet; but, as a critic said of Emile Auger,
in some remote corner of his being, something was singing.
XXII
THE MINISTRY OF GOOD HOPE
The Ultramontanes had no intention of taking their defeat lying down. The
Jesuits were fighting for their very existence just over the frontier in
Switzerland; the Sonderbund or Catholic League was threatened with an
attack at any moment by the forces of the Confederation. Austria and
France could do nothing for the League through fear of Palmerston, but it
is very probable that help was expected from Bavaria, on which England
could not have brought any direct pressure to bear. Munich was the asylum
of Ultramontane exiles from all parts of Europe--of French Legitimists,
Polish Catholics, and Swiss Jesuits. In Lola's action they detected the
hand of the arch-enemy, Palmerston. Liberally supplied with gold from
Austria (as Bernstorff did not hesitate to allege), these champions of
legitimacy sedulously strove to inflame the people with hatred of the
favourite. Lola's unfortunate temper aided their exertions. The citizens
of Munich disliked being boxed on the ears even by the most beautiful of
her sex, and Baron Pechmann, who had endeavoured to avenge them, had been
banished. Lola, like all people of a rich, generous nature, was fond of
dogs. In London she had bought a bull-dog from a man who told Mark Lemon,
with a very proper professional reservation, that the lady was the most
beautiful thing he had ever seen--_on two legs_. The animal, being
indisposed, was sent by his devoted mistress to the Veterinary Hospital at
Munich. The patient did not progress very rapidly towards recovery, and
Lola remonstrated with the medical man in attendance. His reply was too
brusque for her taste. Her ears having been offended, she promptly boxed
his. She then carried off her darling, who was soon restored to health and
vigour. So complete was his recovery that a week or two later, while
accompanying his mistress in the streets of Munich, he prepared himself to
attack a carrier who was walking beside his cart. The man anticipated the
onslaught by flicking the bull-dog with his whip. The enraged Lola at once
smote the man on the ear. The assault was witnessed by several passers-by,
whose threatening attitude compelled her to take refuge in a neighbouring
shop. From this dangerous situation she was delivered only by the police.
Lola and the King laughed good-humouredly over these incidents; the people
of Munich were disposed to look upon them as deadly outrages.