"HOOKING A PRINCE"
I
Immediately after the Rouen trial, Lola left France, returning once
more to Germany. Perhaps the Irish strain in her blood made her a
little superstitious. At any rate, just before starting, she consulted
a clairvoyante. She felt that she had her money's worth, for the Sibyl
declared that she would "exercise much influence on a monarch and the
destiny of a kingdom." A long shot, and, as it happened, quite a sound
one.
Her intention being, as she had candidly informed Dumas, to "hook a
prince," she studied the _Almanach de Gotha_, and familiarised herself
with the positions and revenues of the various "notables" accorded
niches therein.
Germany was obviously the best field to exploit, for that country just
then was full of princes. As a matter of fact there were no less than
thirty-six of them waiting to be "hooked." The first place to which
she went on this errand was Baden, where, according to Ferdinand Bac,
she "bewitched the future Emperor William I. The Prince, however,
being warned of her syren spell, presently smiled and passed on."
Better luck befell the wanderer at her next attempt to establish
intimate contact with a member of the _hoch geboren_, Henry LXXII. His
principality, Reuss-Lobenstein-Ebersdorf (afterwards amalgamated with
Thuringia), had the longest name, but the smallest area, of any in the
kingdom, for it was only about the size of a pocket-handkerchief. But
to Lola this was of no great consequence. What, however, was of
consequence was that he was a millionaire (in thalers) and possessed
an inflammable heart.
A great stickler for etiquette, he once published the following notice
in his _Court Gazette_:
"For twenty years it has been my express injunction that every
official shall always be alluded to by his correct title. This
injunction, however, has not always been obeyed. In future, therefore,
I shall impose a fine of one thaler on any member of my staff who
neglects to refer to another by his proper title or description."
But that the Prince could unbend on occasion is revealed by another
notification to his subjects:
"His Most Serene Highness and All-Highest Self has graciously
condescended to approve the conduct of those six members of the Reuss
militia who recently assisted to put out a fire. With his own
All-Highest hand he is (on production of a satisfactory birth
certificate) even prepared to shake that of the oldest among them."
Risking a prosecution for _lèse-majesté_, a local laureate described
the incident in stirring verse. An extract from this effort,
translated by Professor J. G. Legge, in his _Rhyme and Revolution in
Germany_, is as follows:
HONOUR TO WHOM HONOUR IS DUE
Quite recently in Reuss
Militia at a fire
(I'm sure it will rejoice you)
Great credit did acquire.
When this, through a memorial,
Their gracious Prince by Right
Had learned; those territorials
He to him did invite.
And when the good men shyly
Stood up before him, each
His Gracious Highness highly
Praised in a Gracious speech.
A solemn affidavit
(With parents' names and date)
Each then produced and gave it
--His birth certificate.
His Highness then demanded
The eldest of the band,
And clasped that horny-handed
With his All-Highest hand.
Now, this great deed recorded,
Who would not dwell for choice
Where heroes are rewarded
As in the land of Reuss?
Where Lola was concerned, she very soon put a match to the
inflammable, if arrogant, heart of Prince Henry, and, as a result, was
"commanded" to accompany him to his miniature court at Ebersdorf. She
did not, however, stop there very long, for, by her imperious attitude
and contempt of etiquette, she disturbed the petty officials and
bourgeois citizens surrounding it to such a degree that they made
formal complaints to his High-and-Mightiness. At first he would not
hear a word on the subject. Such was his favourite's position that
criticism of her actions was perilously near _lèse-majesté_ and
incurred reprisals. As soon, however, as the amorous princeling
discovered that his bank balance was being depleted considerably
beyond the amount for which he had budgeted, he suffered a sudden
spasm of virtue and issued marching-orders to the "Fair Impure," as
his shocked and strait-laced Ebersdorfians dubbed the intruder among
them. There was also some suggestion, advanced by a gardener, that she
had a habit of taking a short cut across the princely flower-beds when
she was in a hurry. This was the last straw.
"Leave my kingdom at once," exclaimed the furious Henry. "You are
nothing but a feminine devil!"
Not in the least discomfited by this change of opinion, Lola riposted
by presenting a lengthy and detailed account for "services rendered";
and, when it had been met (and not before), shook the dust of
Reuss-Lobenstein-Ebersdorf from her pretty feet.
"You can keep your Thuringia," was her parting-shot. "I wouldn't have
it as a gift."
The next places at which she halted were Homburg and Carlsbad, two
resorts then beginning to become popular and attracting a wealthy
crowd seeking a promised "cure" for their various ills. But, finding
the barons apt to be close-fisted, and the smart young lieutenants
without one _pfennig_ in their pockets to rub against another, Lola
was soon continuing her travels.
In September, 1846, she found herself in Wurtemburg, where, much to
her annoyance, she discovered that a certain Amalia Stubenrauch, a
prepossessing damsel, who would now be called a gold-digger, had
conquered the spare affections of King William, on whom Lola herself
had designs. But that large-hearted monarch had, as it happened, few
affections to spare for anybody just then, for, when she encountered
him at Stuttgart, he was on the point of being married to Princess
Olga of Russia. A correspondent of the _Athenæum_, who was there to
chronicle the wedding festivities for his paper, registered
disapproval at her presence in the district. "From the capital of
Wurtemburg," he announced sourly, "Lola Montez departed in the
_schnellpost_ for Munich, unimpeded by any luggage." Somebody else,
however (perhaps a more careful observer), is emphatic that she "went
off with three carts full of trunks." As she always had a considerable
wardrobe, this is quite possible.
II
When, at the suggestion of Baron Maltitz (a Homburg acquaintance who
had suggested that she should "try her luck in Munich"), Lola set off
for Bavaria, that country was ruled by Ludwig I. A god-child of
Marie-Antoinette, and the son of Prince Max Joseph of Zweibrucken and
Princess Augusta of Hesse-Darmstadt, he was born at Salzburg in 1786
and had succeeded his father in 1825. As a young man, he had served
with the Bavarian troops under Napoleon, and detesting the experience,
had conceived a hatred of everything military. This hatred was so
strongly developed that he would not permit his sons to wear uniform.
Under his regime the military estimates were cut down to the bone. The
army, he said, was a "waste of money," and he grudged every _pfennig_
it cost the annual budget. He did his best to abolish conscription,
but had to abandon the effort. For all, too, that he was a god-son of
Marie-Antoinette, he had no love for France.
[Illustration: _Porte St. Martin Theatre, Paris, where Lola was a
"flop"_]
Ludwig's sister, Louisa, exchanging her religion for a consort's
crown, was the wife of the Czar Alexander I; and he himself was
married to the Princess Theresa of Saxe-Hildburghausen, a lady
described as "plain, but exemplary." Still, so far as personal
appearance goes, Ludwig himself was no Adonis. Nestitz, indeed, has
pictured him as "having a toothless jaw and an expressionless
countenance." But his consort did her duty; and, at approved
intervals, presented him with a quiverful of four sons and three
daughters. Of his sons, one of them, Otto, was, as a lad of sixteen,
selected by the Congress of London to be King of Greece, much to the
fury of the Czar Nicholas, who held that this was a cunning, if
diplomatic, attempt to set up a Byzantine empire among the Hellenes.
"Were I," he said in a despatch on the subject, "to give my
countenance to such a step, I should nullify myself in the eyes of my
Church." Nesselrode, however, was of another opinion. "It is
unbecoming," he was daring enough to inform his master, "for the
Emperor of Russia to question a step upon which the Greeks themselves
are not in entire accord." A remarkable utterance. Politicians had
gone to Siberia for less. Palmerston, too, had his way, and Otto,
escorted by a warship, left his fatherland. On arriving in Athens, the
joy-bells rang out and the columns of the Parthenon were flood-lit.
But the choice was not to the popular taste; and it was not long
before Otto was extinguished, as well as the lights. By the irony of
fate, he returned to Munich on the very day that Ludwig had erected a
Doric arch to commemorate the activities of the House of Wittelsbach
in securing the Liberation of Greece.
Despite this untoward happening, Ludwig remained an ardent
Phil-Hellene; and, as such, conceived the idea of converting his
capital into a mixture of Athens and Florence and a metropolis of all
the arts. Under his fostering care, Munich was brought to bed of a
succession of temples and columns, and sprouted pillars and porticoes
in every direction. The slums and alleys and huddle of houses in the
old enceinte were swept away, and replaced by broad boulevards,
fringed with museums and churches and picture galleries. For many of
the principal public buildings he went to good models. Thus, one of
them, the Königsbau, was copied from the Pitti Palace; a second from
the Loggia de' Lanzi; and a third from St. Paul's at Rome. He also
built a Walhalla, at Ratisbon, in which to preserve the effigies of
his more distinguished countrymen. Yet, although it ran to size, there
was no niche in it for Luther.
In his patronage of the fine arts, Ludwig followed in the footsteps of
the Medici. During his regime, he did much to raise the standard of
taste among his subjects. Martin Wagner and von Hallerstein were
commissioned by him to travel in Greece and Italy and secure choice
sculpture and pictures for his galleries and museums. The best of them
found a home in the Glyptothek and the Pinakothek, two enormous
buildings in the Doric style, the cost of which he met from his privy
purse. Another of his hobbies was to play the Maecenas; and any
budding author or artist who came to him with a manuscript in his
pocket or a canvas under his arm was certain of a welcome.
We all have our little weaknesses. That of Ludwig of Bavaria was that
he was a poet. He was so sure of this that he not only produced yards
of turgid verse, defying every law of construction and metre, but he
even had some of it printed. A volume of selections from his Muse,
entitled _Walhalla's Genossen_, was published for him by Baron Cotta,
and, like the Indian shawls of Queen Victoria, did regular duty as a
wedding-gift. One effort was dedicated "To Myself as King," and
another "To my Sister, the Empress of Austria"; and a number of choice
extracts were translated and appeared in an English guide-book.
Ignoring the divinity that should have hedged their author, Heine was
very caustic about this royal assault upon Parnassus. Ludwig riposted
by banishing him from the capital. Still, if he disapproved of this
one, he added to his library the output of other bards, not
necessarily German. But, while Browning was there, Tennyson had no
place on his shelves. One, however, was found for Martin Tupper.
Ludwig cultivated friendly relations with England, and did all he
could (within limits) to promote an _entente_. Thus, on the occasion
of a chance visit to Munich by Lord Combermere, he "sent the
distinguished traveller a message to the effect that a horse and
saddlery, with aide-de-camp complete, were at his service." His
companion, however, a member of the Foreign Office Staff, who had
forgotten to pack his uniform--or in John Bull fashion had declined to
do so--did not fare so well, since his name was struck off the list of
"eligibles" to attend the palace functions. Thereupon, says Lord
Combermere, he "wrote an angry letter to the chamberlain, commenting
on the absurdity of the restriction."
But Ludwig's opinion of diplomatists was also somewhat unflattering,
for, of a certain embassy visited by him on his travels, he wrote:
"A Theatre once--and now an Ambassador's dwelling.
Still, thou are what thou wast--the abode of deception."
A strange mixture of Henry IV and Haroun-al-Raschid, Ludwig of Bavaria
was a man of contradictions. At one moment he was lavishly generous;
at another, incredibly mean. He could be an autocrat to his finger
tips, and insist on the observance of the most minute points of
etiquette; and he could also be as democratic as anybody who ever
waved a red flag. Thus, he would often walk through the streets as a
private citizen, and without an escort. Yet, when he did so, he
insisted on being recognised and having compliments paid him. The
traffic had to be held up and hats doffed at his approach.
Nowadays, he would probably have been clapped into a museum as a
curiosity.
Such, then, was the monarch whose path was to be crossed, with
historic and unexpected consequences to each of them, by Lola Montez.
III
On arriving in Munich, Lola called on the manager of the Hof Theatre.
As this individual already knew of her Paris fiasco, instead of an
engagement from him, she met with a rebuff. Quite undisturbed,
however, by such an experience, she hurried off to the palace, and
commanded the astonished door-keeper to take her straight to the King.
The flunkey referred her to Count Rechberg, the aide-de-camp on duty.
With him Lola had more success. Boldness conquered where bashfulness
would have failed. After a single swift glance, Count Rechberg decided
that the applicant was eligible for admission to the "Presence," and
reported the fact to his master.
But Ludwig already knew something of the candidate for terpsichorean
honours. As it happened, that very morning he had received from Herr
Frays, the director of the Hof Theatre, a letter, telling him that, on
the advice of his _première-danseuse_, Fräulein Frenzal, he had
refused to give her an engagement. Count Rechberg's florid description
of her charms, however, decided His Majesty to use his own judgment.
But he did not give in easily.
"Is it suggested," he demanded acidly, "that I should receive all
these would-be ballerinas and put them through their paces? They come
here by the dozen. Why am I troubled with such nonsense?"
"Sire," returned Rechberg, greatly daring, but with Lola's magnetism
still upon him, "you will not regret it. I assure you this one is an
exception. She is delightful. That is the only word for it. Never have
I seen anybody to equal her. Such grace, such charm, such ----"
"Pooh!" interrupted Ludwig, cutting short the threatened rhapsodies,
"your swan is probably a goose. Most of them are. Still, now that
she's here, let her come in. If she isn't any good, I'll soon send her
about her business."
Brave words, but they availed him nothing. Ludwig shot one glance at
the woman who stood before him, and capitulated utterly.
A sudden thrill passed through him. His sixty years fell away in a
flash. A river of blood surged through his sexagenarian arteries. His
boast recoiled upon himself. Rechberg had not deceived him.
"What has happened to me?" he muttered feebly. "I am bewitched." Then,
as the newcomer stood smiling at him in all her warm loveliness, he
found his tongue.
"Mademoiselle, you say you can dance. Well, let me see what you can
do. Count Rechberg, you may leave us."
"Do I dance here, in this room, Your Majesty?"
"Certainly."
Lola wanted nothing better. The opportunity for which she had been
planning and scheming ever since she left Paris had come at last.
Well, she would make the most of it. Not in the least perturbed that
there was no accompaniment, and no audience but His Majesty, she
executed a _pas seul_ there and then. It was a "royal performance,"
and eminently successful. Her feet tripped lightly across the polished
floor, and danced their way straight into Ludwig's heart.
"You shall dance before the public," he announced. "I will myself give
orders to the director of the Hof Theatre."
Luise von Kobell, when a schoolgirl, encountered her by chance just
after her arrival, and thus records the impression she received:
As I was walking in the Briennerstrasse, not far from the
Bayersdorf Palace, I saw a veiled lady, wearing a black gown
and carrying a fan, coming towards me. Something flashed
across my vision, and I suddenly stood still, completely
dazzled by the eyes into which I stared, and which shone
from a pale countenance that lit up with a laughing
expression at my bewilderment. Then she swept past me; and
I, forgetting what my governess had said about looking
round, stared after her until she disappeared.... "That,"
said my father, when I reached home and recounted my
adventure, "must have been Lola Montez, the Spanish dancer."
The next evening little Fräulein von Kobell saw her again at the Hof
Theatre, where her first appearance before the Munich public was made
on October 10, 1846.
Lola Montez assumed the centre of the stage. She was not
dressed in the customary tights and short skirts of a
ballerina, but in a Spanish costume of silk and lace, in
which shone at intervals a diamond. It seemed as if fire
darted from her wonderful blue eyes, and she bowed like one
of the Graces at the King in the royal box. She danced after
the manner of her country, bending on her hips and
alternating one posture with another, each rivalling the
former one in beauty.
While she was dancing she held the attention of all;
everybody's eyes followed her sinuous movements, now
indicative of glowing passion, now of frolicsomeness. Not
until she ceased her rhythmic swayings was the spell
interrupted. The audience went mad with rapture, and the
entire dance had to be repeated over and over again.
Ludwig, ensconced in the royal box, could not take his eyes off her.
During an _entr'acte_ he scribbled a verse:
Happy movements, clear and near,
Are in thy living grace.
Supple and tender, as a deer
Art thou, of Andalusian race!
"_Wunderschön!_" declared an admiring aide-de-camp to whom he showed
it.
"_Kolossal!_" echoed a second, not to be outdone in recognising
laureateship.
As, however, the cheers were mingled with a few hisses ("due to the
report that the newcomer was an English Freemason, and wanted to
destroy the Catholic religion"), the next evening the management took
the precaution of filling the pit with a leather-lunged and
horny-handed _claque_. This time the bill consisted of a comedy, _Der
Weiberseind von Benedix_, followed by a cachucha and a fandango with
Herr Opsermann for a dancing-partner.
Lola's success was assured; and Herr Frays, who had started by
refusing to let her appear, was now full of grovelling apologies. He
offered her a contract. But Lola, having other ideas as to how her
time should be employed in Munich, would not accept it.
"Thank you for nothing," she said. "When I asked you for an
engagement, you told me I was not good enough to dance in your
theatre. Well, I have now proved to both Fräulein Frenzal and yourself
that I am. That is all I care about, and I shall not dance again,
either for you or for anybody else."
If she had known enough German, she would probably have added: "Put
that in your pipe and smoke it!"
Munich in those days must have proved attractive to people with small
incomes. Thus, Edward Wilberforce, who spent some years there, says
that meat was fivepence a pound, beer twopence-halfpenny a quart, and
servants' wages eight shillings a month. But there were drawbacks.
"The city," says an English guide-book of this period, "has the
reputation of being a very dissolute capital." Yet it swarmed with
churches. The police, too, exercised a strict watch upon the hotel
registers; and, as a result of their activities, a "French visitor was
separated from his feminine companion on grounds of public morality."
"None of your Parisian looseness for us!" said the City Fathers.
But Lola appears to have avoided any such rigid censorship. At any
rate, a certain Auguste Papon (a mixture of pimp and _souteneur_),
whom she had met in Paris, happened to be in Munich at the same time
as herself. The intimacy was revived; and, as he did not possess the
entrée to the Court, for some weeks they lived together at the Hotel
Maulich. In the spring of 1847 a young Guardsman found himself in the
town, on his way back to England from Kissengen. He records that, not
knowing who she was, he sat next Lola Montez at dinner one evening,
and gives an instance of her quick temper. "On the floor between us,"
he says, "was an ice-pail, with a bottle of champagne. A sudden
quarrel occurred with her neighbour, a Bavarian lieutenant; and,
applying her foot to the bucket, she sent it flying the length of the
room."
IV
Lola certainly made the running. Five days after she first met him,
Ludwig summoned all the officials of the Court, and astonished (and
shocked) them by introducing her with the remark: "Gentlemen, I have
the honour to present to you my best friend. See to it that you accord
her every possible respect." He also compelled his long suffering
spouse to admit her to the Order of the Chanoines of St. Thérèse, a
distinction for which--considering her somewhat lurid "past"--this new
recipient was scarcely eligible.
When he heard that instructions had been issued for paying special
compliments to her, Mr. _Punch_ registered severe disapproval.
"It is a good joke," he remarked, "to call upon others to uphold the
dignity of one who is always at some freak or other to lower herself."
When she first sailed in dramatic fashion into the orbit of Bavaria's
sovereign, Lola Montez was just twenty-seven. In the full noontide of
her beauty and allurement, she was well equipped with what the modern
jargon calls sex-appeal. Big-bosomed and with generously swelling
curves, "her form," says Eduard Fuchs, "was provocation incarnate."
Fuchs, who was an expert on the subject of feminine attractions, knew
what he was talking about. "Shameless and impudent," adds Heinrich von
Treitschke, "and as insatiable in her voluptuous desires as Sempronia,
she could converse with charm among friends; manage mettlesome horses;
sing in thrilling fashion; and recite amorous poems in Spanish. The
King, an admirer of feminine beauty, yielded to her magic. It was as
if she had given him a love philtre. For her he forgot himself; he
forgot the world; and he even forgot his royal dignity."
The fact that Lola always wore a Byronic collar helped the theory,
held by many, that she was a daughter of the poet. But her real reason
for adopting the style was that she had a lovely neck, and this set it
off to the best advantage. She studied the art of dress and gave it an
immense amount of care. Where this matter was concerned, no trouble or
care was too much. Her favourite material was velvet, which she
considered--and quite justifiably--to exercise an erotic effect on men
of a certain age. She was insistent, too, that the contours of her
figure ("her quivering thighs and all the demesnes adjacent thereto")
should be clearly revealed, and in a distinctly provocative fashion.
This, of course, was not far removed from exhibitionism. As a result,
bourgeois opinion was outraged. The wives of the petty officials
shopping in the Marienplatz shuddered, and clutched their ample skirts
when they saw her; anxious mothers instructed dumpy Fräuleins "not to
look like the foreign woman." There is no authoritative record that
any of them did so.