Lectures of Lola Montez/Chapter 2
On the evening of the last lecture, we left Lola Montez in St. Petersburg. She had then just imbibed a fondness for political matters—a thing that was natural enough, for ever since she left London she had spent her time almost exclusively in diplomatic circles, at the Courts of Saxony, Prussia, Poland, and St. Petersburg. With this fresh love of politics, she went to Paris, and immediately on arriving there she formed the acquaintance of the young and gifted Dujarrier, editor of La Presse, and a popular leader of the Republican party. He was a man of uncommon genius, and greatly loved and respected by all who knew him, except those who disagreed with him in politics, and who dreaded the scorching and terrible power of his pen.
Dujarrier spent almost every hour he could spare from his editorial duties with Lola Montez, and in his society she rapidly ripened in politics, and became a good and confirmed hater of tyranny and oppression, in whatever shape it came.
She soon became familiar with the state of politics throughout Europe, and became so enthusiastic a Republican, that she, in her heart, almost sickened that she had not been made a man. But while she and Dujarrier were thus plotting and scheming polities, they both fell in love, and were immediately pledged to each other in marriage.
This was in autumn, and the following spring the marriage was to take place. It was arranged that Alexander Dumas, and the celebrated poet, Mery, should accompany them on their marriage tour through Spain. But alas, the inscrutable hand of Providence had ordered it otherwise! Dujarrier was most wickedly murdered—for though he fell in a duel, yet politics were at the bottom of it, and he was drawn into it that he might be murdered, and put out of the way of a party which dreaded him, young as he was, more than any other man in France. On the morning of the duel, he wrote her this affectionate note—
"My dear Lola: I am going out to fight with pistols. This explains why I did not come to see you this morning. I have need of all my calmness. At two o'clock, all, all will be over, A thousand embraces, my dear Lola, my good little wife, whom I love so much, and the thoughts of whom will never leave me."
The duel was fought in the Bois de Boulogne, and Dujarrier was instantly killed by the challenger, Beauvallon. After Lola Montez received Dujarrier's note, she rushed out and made every possible effort to find the parties, but it was too late. She received the corpse from the carriage, and made such preparations, with the help of his friends, for the funeral, as she could, under the crushing load of sorrow and despair which weighed upon her heart.
On the morning of the duel, Dujarrier wrote his will, leaving almost all his estate, amounting to over one hundred thousand dollars, to Lola. But she settled the estate, and gave every dollar of it to the relations of the deceased, and then quitted Paris to get rid of the sights that reminded her perpetually of the loss which could never be made up to her in this world.
Beauvallon was arrested and tried for murder, and Lola Montez was summoned as a witness. The following notice of her testimony appeared in the public press—"Mlle. de Montez in her testimony spoke highly of the kind and amiable qualities of the deceased. She had expressed a desire to be introduced to Beauvallon and to go to the dinner, but Dujarrier positively refused to allow it. She received the letter on her return from rehearsal, and immediately took measures to prevent the duel, but it was too late." "I was," said she in her testimony, "a better shot than Dujarrier, and if Beauvallon wanted satisfaction I would have fought him myself."
She received the corpse from the carriage, and the emotion which she then experienced was still visible in her testimony.
Dujarrier evidently entertained a warm affection for her, as, in addition to his farewell letter, he wrote a will, on the morning of the duel, leaving her the principal part of the estate.
The trial took place at Rouen, and among the witnesses was Alexander Dumas, who was a friend of Dujarrier. When Dumas was asked what his profession was, he made this remarkable and characteristic reply—"I should call myself a dramatic poet, if I was not in the birth-place of Corneille." This answer touched the hearts of the audience, for Rouen was the birth-place of the two brothers Pierre and Thomas Corneille, and although two hundred years have elapsed since their birth, their memory is still honored by the inhabitants.
I may state that when Dumas learned that the duel was to take place, he sent his son to practise Dujarrier at a shooting-gallery, where he was able to hit a mark as large as a man only twice in fourteen times, while his antagonist was one of the best shots in Paris.
At this time Lola Montez was full of health and life, and in no degree lacking of the courage to stand in the place of Dujarrier, and could she have done so Beauvallon might not have come off so well as he did with his victim, who was entirely unskilled with the pistol.
After this melancholy event, Lola Montez quitted Paris for Bavaria; and it is a remarkable fact, that a somewhat extended history of her career in Bavaria appeared in the American Law Journal, in 1848, written, as I am informed by a distinguished editor of Philadelphia, by an eminent Chief Justice in this country. The article is on the trial of Beauvallon for the murder of Dujarrier, which developed some peculiarities of French criminal law; and after this legal matter was disposed of, the author devoted several pages to the history of Lola Montez, after the death of Dujarrier, for the facts of which he acknowledges his indebtedness to "Fraser's Magazine." As I intend to make one or two extracts from this eminent American authority, it is proper for me to remind you that the article was written in 1848, just after the events in Bavaria, and some three years before Lola Montez came to this country. The author says:
"After leaving Paris, she next made her appearance upon the theatre at Munich. Her association with the literary and political circles in which Dujarrier moved in Paris, had made her familiar with general literature, and with European politics in particular. The beauty and rare powers of mind which won the attachment of her talented protector in Paris, made a rapid conquest of the King of Bavaria. The masculine energy and courage which prompted the effort to save her friend by hastening to the duelling-ground, with the intention to stand in his place in the deadly conflict, enabled her to acquire an ascendency over the minds of others. The extent of her influence in Bavaria is shown by her success in driving the Jesuits from power, remodelling the cabinet of the king, and directing all the important measures of his administration."
It is very fortunate for Lola Montez that she can appeal to such high American as well as European authority in defence of her deeds in Bavaria; for the tools of the Jesuits in the United States have cunningly misrepresented, and, indeed, covered with most shameful lies, this portion of her history.
Before we can understand fully the nature of the part which Lola Montez performed in Bavaria, we must have a correct understanding of the character of King Louis, and of the political condition of Bavaria at the time of her arrival there. I am compelled to say that a portion of the press of the United States has exhibited an astonishing ignorance of the character of this king. They have represented him as a weak, foolish, and unprincipled man, who sought only his own pleasure, regardless of the good of his people and the honor of his crown—while he was precisely the reverse of all this. Not only was he one of the most learned, enlightened, and intellectual monarchs that Europe has had for a whole century, but he loved his people, and was, in the best political sense of it, a father to his country. During his reign, Munich was raised from a third class to a first class capital in Europe. No monarch of a whole century did so much for the cause of religion and human liberty as he. Look at those magnificent edifices built by him, which are the admiration of all Europe—the Saint Ludwig's church, the Aller Heiligen Chapel, the Theatiner Church, the Au Church, the New Palace, the Glyptothek, with its magnificent statues; the Pinacothek, with its pictures; the Odeon, the Public Library, the University, the Clerical School, the school for the female children of the nobility; the Feldherrenhalle, filled with statues; the Arch of Triumph, the Ruhmshalle, the Bazaar, and the Walhalla. Nearly all these superb structures were erected, and the statues which they contained paid for with the king's own money. And besides these stupendous works of art, Louis set on foot the grandest works of internal improvement. The canal which unites the Main with the Danube, and which establishes an uninterrupted line of water communication from Rotterdam to the Black Sea, owes its origin to him. It was he who originated the plan for the National Railways of Bavaria. He was also the originator of the company for running steamboats from the highest navigable point of the Danube above Donauwerth down to Rensburg. He gave his people the Landrath system, under which the actual cultivator of the soil is protected in comparative independence, while in other portions of Germany he is the trembling slave of despotism.
When Louis ascended the throne he was possessed with the most liberal ideas, and it was his first intention to admit his people to a degree of political freedom which no people of Germany had ever known. But the revolutionary movement of 1830 forced him backwards, and an evil hour brought into his counsels the most despotic and illiberal of the Jesuits. Through the influence of this ministry the natural liberality of the King was perpetually thwarted, and the government had degenerated into a petty tyranny, where priestly influence was sucking out the lifeblood of the people. There was a rigid censorship upon the press, and the cloven foot of Jesuitism was everywhere apparent, until the king had grown sick of the government which necessity seemed to force upon him.
Such was the condition of things in Bavaria, when Lola Montez arrived there. And now, in this connexion, I hope I shall be pardoned for quoting once more the authority of the American Law Journal of 1848: "She obtained permission to dance upon the theatre at Munich. Her beauty and distinguished manners attracted the notice of the king. On further acquaintance with her, he became enamored of her originality of character, her mental powers, and of those bold and novel political views which she fearlessly and frankly laid before him. Under her counsels, a total revolution afterwards took place in the Bavarian system of government. The existing ministry were dismissed; new and more liberal advisers were chosen; the power of the Jesuits was ended; Austrian influences repelled, and a foundation laid for making Bavaria an independent member of the great family of nations." These favorable results may fairly be attributed to the talents, the energy, and the influence of Lola Montez, who received, in her promotion to the nobility, only the usual reward of political services. She became Countess of Landsfeld, accompanied by an estate of the same name, with certain feudal privileges and rights over some two thousand souls. Her income, including a recent addition from the king of 20,000 florins per annum, was 70,000 florins, or little more than £5,000 per annum. After all the noise there has been in the world about Lola Montez in Bavaria, she may challenge history to produce an instance where power in the hands of a woman was used with greater propriety of deportment, and with more unselfish devotion to the cause of human freedom. She, and she alone, induced the king, not only to abolish a ministry which had stood for a quarter of a century, but she went further, and induced him to form his new ministry from the ranks of the people, without respect to the rank of nobility. What an immense step was such an example as that to be set in a German state! And you, in your peaceful republican home, here in the United States, can form no conception of the furious rage it set the nobility in, not only in Bavaria, but all over Germany. It was at that moment that Lola Montez became a fiend, a devil, a she-dragon, with more heads and horns than that frightful beast spoken of in Revelation.
When Lola Montez arrived in Bavaria the nobility had such power that a tradesman could not possibly collect a debt of one of them by law, as they could only be tried by their peers. And the poor people, alas! had no chance when they came under the ban of the laws, for the nobility were alone their judges. To remedy this enormity Lola Montez had obtained the pledges of the king that he would introduce the Code Napoleon, and she was having it copied and put in due form when the revolution broke out and drove her from power. The blow that she had dealt at the swollen heads of the patent nobility was severe enough, in choosing ministers from the ranks of the people, but this introduction of the Code Napoleon was looked upon as the finishing blow. The fat and idle vagabonds who lived off the people's earnings saw the last plank drifting from their hands. And Lola Montez was the devil of it all. The priests used to preach that there was no longer a Virgin Mary in Munich, but that Venus had taken her place. At first they tried to win her to their side. A nobleman was found who would immolate himself in marriage with her; then Austrian gold was tried—old Metternich would give her a million if she would quit Bavaria—all, all was offered to no purpose. Then came threats and the plots for her destruction. She was twice shot at, and once poisoned—and it was only the accident of too large a dose that saved her. In their determination to be doubly sure they defeated themselves. And when the revolution broke out which drove Lola Montez from power, it was not by the superior tact and sagacity of her enemies, but it was by the brute force produced by Austrian gold. Gold was sowed in the streets of Munich, and the rabble—by which I mean not the people—but the baser sort of idlers and mercenary hirelings, became the tools of the Austrian party.
They came with cannon, and guns, and swords, with the voice of ten thousand devils, and surrounded her little castle. Against the entreaties of her friends, who were with her, she presented herself before the infuriated mob which demanded her life. This for the moment had the effect of paralysing them, as it must have seemed like an act of insanity. And it was a little "scary," as the old man said of his unmanageable horse. A thousand guns were pointed at her, and a hundred fat and apoplectic voices fiercely demanded that she should cause the repeal of what she had done. In a language of great mildness—for it was no time to scold—she replied that it was impossible for her to accede to such a request. What had been done was honestly meant for the good of the people, and for the honor of Bavaria.
They could take her life if they would, but that would never mend their cause, for her blood would never prove that they were in the right. In the midst of this speech she was dragged back within the house, by her friends; and soon after, on perceiving that preparations were making to burn it down, she yielded to the persuasion and entreaties or her friends, and made her escape disguised as a peasant girl—she retreated, on foot, through the snow (for it was February), about seven miles into the country. The leaders of the Liberal party were obliged also to escape into the country, with their families.
Lola Montez was now hopelessly banished from Bavaria, and there was no alternative left but to make immediate retreat within the shelter of some friendly state. That state was Switzerland, that little Republic that lies there, like a majestic eagle, in the midst of the monarchical vultures and cormorants of Europe. But, before Lola Montez quitted Bavaria for ever, she went back, disguised in boy's clothes—riding nights, and prudently lying still by day—and at twelve o'clock at night, she obtained a last audience with the king. She gained from the king a promise that he would abdicate—she could not endure the thought that he should, with his own hand, destroy the reforms which he had made at her instigation. She pointed out to him the impossibility of holding his throne, unless he went down into the disgraceful humility of recanting the great deeds which he had proclaimed he had done under a sense of immediate justice. She convinced him that it would be best for his own fame that the backward stop should be taken by his son, who was an enemy of the Liberal party, and who in a short time, at farthest, must ascend the throne. Louis readily saw the propriety of this advice, and he faithfully kept the promise which he then made, to abdicate. And Lola Montez, under the stars of a midnight sky, went out in her boy's disguise, to look upon the turrets and spires of Munich for the last time. She knew that if she were discovered she would be ignominiously shot—but she did not think or care much about that. Her thoughts were on the past. And they have never been able to look much to a future, in this world at least.
Ten years have elapsed since the events with which Lola Montez was connected in Bavaria, and yet the malice of the diffusive and ever vigilant Jesuits is as fresh and as active as it was the first hour it assailed her. For it is not too much for her to say, that few artists, of her profession, ever escaped with so little censure; and certainly none ever had the doors of the highest social respectability so universally open to her, as she had up to the time she went to Bavaria. And she denies that there was anything in her conduct there which ought to have compromised her before the world. Her enemies assailed her, not because her deeds were bad, but because they knew of no other means to destroy her influence. On this point I must quote again the authority of the American Law Journal. Speaking of the king's confidence in Lola Montez, it says:
This attachment enabled her to work out the great political changes which have taken place in Bavaria; and it is but just to acknowledge that it is the political use she has made of her relations with the king, and not the immorality of the connexion itself, that has brought down upon her most of the vehement censures which the defeated party have from time to time bestowed, accompanied by the bitterest calumnies. The moral indignation which her opponents displayed was, unfortunately, a mere sham. They have not only tolerated, but patronized, a female who formerly held a most equivocal position with the king, because she made herself subservient to the then dominant party. Let Lola Montez have credit for her talents, her intelligence, and her support of popular rights. As a political character, she held, until her retirement from Switzerland, an important position in Bavaria and Germany, besides having agents and correspondents in various parts of Europe. On foreign politics she has clear ideas, and has been treated by the political men of the country as a substantive power. She always kept state secrets, and could be consulted in safety in cases in which her original habits of thought rendered her of service. Acting under her advice, the king had pledged himself to a course of steady improvement in the political freedom of the people. Although she wielded so much power, it is alleged that she never used it for the promotion of unworthy persons, or, as other favorites have done, for corrupt purposes; and there is reason to believe that political feeling influenced her course, not sordid considerations."
To the above statement of the American Law Journal, I will add that Lola Montez could then easily have been the richest woman that ever lived, had she preferred her own advantage to the success of political freedom. She willingly sacrificed herself for a principle, and lost, alas! that.
Her last hope for Bavaria being broken, she turned her attention towards Switzerland, as the nearest shelter from the storm that was beating above her head. She had influenced the King of Bavaria to withhold his assent to a proposition from Austria, which had for its object the destruction of that little Republic of Switzerland. If Republics are ungrateful, Switzerland certainly was not so to Lola Montez; for it received her with open arms, made her its guest, and generously offered to bestow upon her an establishment for life. It was a great mistake that she refused that offer, for had she remained in Switzerland, she could have preserved that potential power among those scheming nations, spoken of in the above quotation from the American Journal, and might have still further chastised the Jesuit party in Germany.
But she allowed this brilliant opportunity to pass; and went to London to enter upon another marriage experiment, of which nothing but sorrow and mortification came. The time which she afterwards lived in Paris was, however, pleasantly and comfortably spent. Her house was the resort of the most gifted literary geniuses of Paris, and there she had the honor and happiness of entertaining many literary gentlemen from America, who were temporarily sojourning in the French capital.
The next step of any public note taken by Lola Montez was her passage to America, coming out in the same ship with Kossuth. Shattered in fortune, and broken in health, she came with curiosity and reviving hope, to the shores of the New World; this stupendous asylum of the world's unfortunate, and last refuge of the victims of the tyranny and wrongs of the Old World! God grant that it may ever stand as it is now, the noblest column of liberty that was ever reared beneath the arch of heaven!
Of Lola Montez' career in the United States there is not much to be said. On arriving in this country she found that the same terrible power which had pursued her in Europe, after the blows she had given it in Germany, held even here the means to fill the American press with a thousand anecdotes and rumors which were entirely unjust and false in relation to her. Among other things, she had had the honor of horsewhipping hundreds of men whom she never knew, and never saw. But there is one comfort in all these falsehoods, which is, that these men very likely would have deserved horsewhipping, if she had only known them. As a specimen of the pleasant things said of Lola Montez, I am going to quote you from a book, entitled the "Adventures of Mrs. Seacole," published last year in London, and edited by no less of a literary man than the gifted correspondent of the London Times, W. H. Russell, Esq. Mrs. Seacole is giving her adventures at Cruces, between here and California. She says:—"Occasionally, some distinguished passengers passed on the upward and downward tides of rascality and ruffianism, that swept periodically through Cruces. 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 shirtcollar turned down over a velvet lappelled coat, richly work-ed shirt-front, black hat, French unmentionables, and natty polished boots with spurs. She carried in her hand a handsome riding-whip, which she could use as well in the streets of Cruces as in the towns of Europe; for 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."
Now, there are several rather comical mistakes in this complimentary notice.
1st. Lola Montez was never dressed off the stage in man's apparel in her whole life, except when she went back disguised to Bavaria.
2nd. Therefore no man could have pulled the tails of her coat at Cruces.
3rd. She never had a whip in her hand in Cruces, and could not, therefore, have whipped the American as described.
4th. She never was in Cruces in her life. Before she went to California the new route was opened, and she passed many miles from that place.
5th. The whole story is a base fabrication from beginning to end. It is as false as Mrs. Seacole's Own name. Another funny thing is, that Mrs. Seacole makes this interesting event occur in 1851, whereas Lola Montez did not go to California till 1853.
If I were to collect all similar falsehoods which I have seen in papers or books about Lola Montez, they would form a mountain higher than Chimborazo.
But no matter for these. Since Lola Montez commenced her lectures, she has experienced nothing but kindness at the hands of the entire respectable press of the country. And for this she will carry in her heart a grateful remembrance, when she is back again amidst the scenes of the Old World. And, indeed, as for that, she will carry a whole new world back with her; for her heart and brain are full of the stupendous strides which freedom has made in this magnificent country. Those of you who have not had some taste of the quality of government in the Old World, can but half relish your own glorious institutions. The pilgrim from the effete forms of Europe, must look upon your great Republic with as happy an eye as the storm-tossed and ship-wrecked mariner looks upon the first star that shines beneath the receding tempest. And now suffer me to close my lecture here with the last words of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage: