The Magnificent Montez Part 1

The Magnificent Montez.

by Horace Wyndham.

FOREWORD

Sweep a drag-net across the pages of contemporary drama, and it is unquestionable that in her heyday no name on the list stood out, in respect of adventure and romance, with greater prominence than did that of Lola Montez. Everything she did (or was credited with doing) filled columns upon columns in the press of Europe and America; and, from first to last, she was as much "news" as any Hollywood heroine of our own time. Yet, although she made history in two hemispheres, it has proved extremely difficult to discover and unravel the real facts of her glamorous career. This is because round few (if any) women has been built up such a honeycomb of fable and fantasy and imagination as has been built up round this one.

Even where the basic points are concerned there is disagreement. Thus, according to various chroniclers, the Sultan of Turkey, an "Indian Rajah" (unspecified), Lord Byron, the King of the Cannibal Islands, and a "wealthy merchant," each figure as her father, with a "beautiful Creole," a "Scotch washerwoman," and a "Dublin actress" for her mother; and Calcutta, Geneva, Limerick, Montrose, and Seville--and a dozen other cities scattered about the world--for her birthplace. This sort of thing is--to say the least of it--confusing.

But Lola Montez was something of an anachronism, and had as lofty a disregard for convention as had the ladies thronging the Court of Merlin. Nor, it must be admitted, was she herself any p.r.o.nounced stickler for exact.i.tude. Thus, she lopped half a dozen years off her age, allotted her father (whom she dubbed a "Spanish officer of distinction") a couple of brevet steps in rank, and insisted on an ancestry to which she was never ent.i.tled.

Still, if Lola Montez deceived the public about herself, others have deceived the public about Lola Montez. Thus, in one of his books, George Augustus Sala solemnly announced that she was a sister of Adah Isaacs Menken; and a more modern writer, unable to distinguish between Ludwig I and his grandson Ludwig II, tells us that she was "intimate with the mad King of Bavaria." To anybody (and there still are such people) who accepts the printed word as gospel, slips of this sort destroy faith.

As a fount of information on the subject, the _Autobiography_ (alleged) of Lola Montez, first published in 1859, is worthless. The bulk of it was written for her by a clerical "ghost" in America, the Rev. Chauncey Burr, and merely serves up a tissue of picturesque and easily disproved falsehoods. A number of these, by the way, together with some additional embroideries, are set out at greater length in other volumes by Ferdinand Bac (who confounds Ludwig I with Maximilian II) and the equally unreliable Eugene de Mirecourt and Auguste Papon.

German writers, on the other hand, have, if apt to be long-winded, at least avoided the more obvious pitfalls. Among the books and pamphlets (many of them anonymous) of Teutonic origin, the following will repay research: _Die Grafin Landsfeld_ (Gustav Bernhard); _Lola Montez, Grafin von Landsfeld_ (Johann Deschler); _Lola Montez und andere Novellen_ (Rudolf Ziegler); _Lola Montez und die Jesuiten_ (Dr. Paul Erdmann); _Die spanische Tanzerin und die deutsche Freiheit_ (J.

Beneden); _Die Deutsche Revolution, 1848-1849_ (Hans Blum); _Ein vormarzliches Tanzidyll_ (Eduard Fuchs); _Abenteur der beruhmten Tanzerin_; _Anfang und Ende der Lola Montez in Bayern_; _Die Munchener Vergange_; _Unter den vier ersten Konigen Bayerns_ (Luise von Kobell); and, in particular, the monumental _Histeriche_ of Heinrich von Treitschke. But one has to milk a hundred cows to get even a pint of Lola Montez cream.

With a view to gathering at first hand reliable and hitherto unrecorded details, visits have recently been made by myself to Berlin, Brussels, Dresden, Leningrad, Munich, Paris, and Warsaw, etc., in each of which capitals some portion of colourful drama of Lola Montez was unfolded. In a number of directions, however, the result of such investigations proved disappointing.

"Lola Montez--h'm--what sort of man was he?" was the response of a prominent actor, recommended to me as a "leading authority on anything to do with the stage"; and the secretary of a theatrical club, anxious to be of help, wrote: "Sorry, but none of our members have any personal reminiscences of the lady." As she had then been in her grave for more than seventy years, it did not occur to me that even the senior _jeune premier_ among them would have retained any very vivid recollections of her. Still, many of them were quite old enough to have heard something of her from their predecessors.

But valuable a.s.sistance in eliciting the real facts connected with the career of this remarkable woman, and disentangling them from the network of lies and fables in which they have long been enmeshed, has come from other sources. Among those to whom a special debt must be acknowledged are Edmund d'Auvergne (author of a carefully doc.u.mented study), _Lola Montez_ (_an Adventuress of the 'Forties_); Gertrude Aretz (author of _The Elegant Woman_); Bernard Falk (author of _The Naked Lady_); Arthur Hornblow (author of _A History of the Theatre in America_); Harry Price (Hon. Sec. University of London Council for Psychical Investigation); Philip Richardson (editor of _The Dancing Times_); and Constance Rourke (author of _Troupers of the Gold Coast_); and further information has been forthcoming from Mrs.

Charles Baker (Ruislip), and John Wade (Acton).

Much help in supplying me with important letters and doc.u.ments and hitherto unpublished particulars relating to the trail blazed by Lola Montez in America has been furnished by the following: Miss Mabel R.

Gillis (State Librarian, Californian State Library, Sacramento); Mrs.

Lillian Hall (Curator, Harvard Theatre Collection); Miss Ida M. Mellen (New York); Mrs. Helen Putnam van Sicklen (Library of the Society of Californian Pioneers); Mrs. Annette Tyree (New York); Mr. John Stapleton Cowley-Brown (New York); Mr. Lewis Chase (Hendersonville); Professor Kenneth L. Daughrity (Delta State Teachers' College, Cleveland); Mr. Frank Fenton (Stanford University, California); Mr.

Harold E. Gillingham (Librarian, Historical Society of Pennsylvania); Mr. W. Sprague Holden (a.s.sociate-Editor, Argonaut Publishing Company, San Francisco); and Mr. Milton Lord (Director, Public Library, Boston).

In addition to these experts, I am also indebted to Monsieur Pierre Tugal (Conservateur, Archives de la Danse, Paris); and to the directors and staffs of the Bibliotheque d'a.r.s.enal, Paris, and of the Theatrical Museum, Munich, who have generously placed their records at my disposal.

Unlike his American and Continental colleagues, a public librarian in England said (on a postcard) that he was "too busy to answer questions."

H. W.

THE MAGNIFICENT MONTEZ

CHAPTER I

PRELUDE TO ADVENTURE

I

In a tearful column, headed "Necrology of the Year," a mid-Victorian obituarist wrote thus of a woman figuring therein:

This was one who, notwithstanding her evil ways, had a share in some public transactions too remarkable to allow her name to be omitted from the list of celebrated persons deceased in the year 1861.

Born of an English or Irish family of respectable rank, at a very early age the unhappy girl was found to be possessed of the fatal gift of beauty. She appeared for a short time on the stage as a dancer (for which degradation her sorrowing relatives put on mourning, and issued undertakers' cards to signify that she was now dead to them) and then blazed forth as the most notorious Paphian in Europe.

Were this all, these columns would not have included her name. But she exhibited some very remarkable qualities. The natural powers of her mind were considerable. She had a strong will, and a certain grasp of circ.u.mstances. Her disposition was generous, and her sympathies very large.

These qualities raised the courtesan to a singular position.

She became a political influence; and exercised a fascination over sovereigns and ministers more widely extended than has perhaps been possessed by any other member of the _demi-monde_. She ruled a kingdom; and ruled it, moreover, with dignity and wisdom and ability. The political Hypatia, however, was sacrificed to the rabble. Her power was gone, and she could hope no more from the flattery of statesmen. She became an adventuress of an inferior cla.s.s.

Her intrigues, her duels, and her horse-whippings made her for a time a notoriety in London, Paris, and America.

Like other celebrated favourites who, with all her personal charms, but without her glimpses of a better human nature, have sacrificed the dignity of womanhood to a profligate ambition, this one upbraided herself in her last moments on her wasted life; and then, when all her ambition and vanity had turned to ashes, she understood what it was to have been the toy of men and the scorn of women.

Altogether a somewhat guarded suggestion of disapproval about the subject of this particular memoir.

II

Three years after the thunderous echoes of Waterloo had died away, and "Boney," behind a fringe of British bayonets, was safely interned on the island of St. Helena, there was born in barracks at Limerick a little girl. On the same day, in distant Bavaria, a sovereign was celebrating his thirty-fifth birthday. Twenty-seven years later the two were to meet; and from that meeting much history was to be written.

The little girl who first came on the scene at Limerick was the daughter of one Ensign Edward Gilbert, a young officer of good Irish family who had married a Senorita Oliverres de Montalva, "of Castle Oliver, Madrid." At any rate, she claimed to be such, and also that she was directly descended from Francisco Montez, a famous toreador of Seville. There is a strong presumption, however, that here she was drawing on her imagination; and, as for the "Castle Oliver" in Sunny Spain, well, that country has never lacked "castles."

The Oliver family, as pointed out by E. B. d'Auvergne in his carefully doc.u.mented _Adventuresses and Adventurous Ladies_, was really of Irish extraction, and had been settled in Limerick since the year 1645. "The family pedigree," he says, "reveals no trace of Spanish or Moorish blood." Further, by the beginning of the last century, the main line had, so far as the union of its members was blessed by the Church, expired, and no legitimate offspring were left. Gilbert's spouse, accordingly, must, if a genuine Oliverres, have come into the world with a considerable blot on her 'scutcheon.

Still, if there were no hidalgos perched on her family tree, Mrs.

Gilbert probably had some good blood in her veins. As a matter of fact, there is some evidence adduced by a distant relative, Miss D. M.

Hodgson, that she was really an illegitimate daughter of an Irishman, Charles Oliver, of Castle Oliver (now Cloghnafoy), Co. Limerick, and a peasant girl on his estate. This is possible enough, for the period was one when squires exercised "seigneurial rights," and when colleens were complacent. If they were not, they had very short shrift.

Mrs. Gilbert's wedding had been a hasty one. Still, not a bit too hasty, since the doctor and monthly nurse had to be summoned almost before the ink was dry on the register. As a matter of fact, Mrs.

Gilbert must have gone to church in the condition of ladies who love their lords, for this "pledge of mutual affection" was born in Limerick barracks while the honeymoon was still in full swing, and within a couple of months of the nuptial knot being tied. She was christened Marie Dolores Eliza Rosanna, but was at first called by the second of these names. This, however, being a bit of a mouthful for a small child, she herself soon clipped it to the diminutive Lola. The name suited her, and it stuck.

While these facts are supported by doc.u.mentary evidence, they have not been "romantic" enough to fit in with the views of certain foreign biographers. Accordingly, they have given the child's birthplace as in, among other cities, Madrid, Lucerne, Constantinople, and Calcutta; and one of them has even been sufficiently daring to make her a daughter of Lord Byron. Larousse, too, not to be behindhand, says that she was "born in Seville, of a Spanish father"; and, alternatively, "in Scotland, of an English father." Both accounts, however, are emphatic that her mother was "a young Creole of astonishing loveliness, who had married two officers, a Spaniard and an Englishman."

It was to Edward Gilbert's credit that he had not joined the Army with the King's commission in his pocket, but in a more humble capacity, that of a private soldier. Gallant service in the field had won him advancement; and in 1817 he was selected for an ensigncy in the 25th Foot, thus exchanging his musket and knapsack for the sword and sash of an officer. From the 25th Foot he was, five years later, transferred to the 44th Foot, commanded by Colonel Morrison. In 1822, its turn coming round for a spell of foreign service, the regiment moved from Dublin to Chatham and embarked for India. Sailing with his wife and child, the young officer, after a voyage that lasted the best (or worst) part of six months, landed at Calcutta and went into barracks at Fort William. On arrival there, "the newcomers," says an account that has been preserved, "were entertained with lavish hospitality and in a fashion to be compared only with the festivities pictured in the novels of Charles Lever." But all ranks had strong heads, and were none the worse for it.

During the ensuing summer the regiment got "the route," and was ordered up country to Dinapore, a cantonment near Patna, on the Ganges, that had been founded by Warren Hastings. It was an unhealthy station, especially for youngsters fresh from England. A burning sun by day; hot stifling nights; and no breath of wind sweeping across the parched ghats. Within a few weeks the dreaded cholera made its appearance; the melancholy roll of m.u.f.fled drums was heard every evening at sunset; and Ensign Gilbert was one of the first victims.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "John Company" troops on the march in India]

The widow, it is recorded, was "left to the care and protection of Mrs. General Brown," the wife of the brigadier. But events were already marching to their appointed end; and, as a result, this charitable lady was soon relieved of her charge.

Left a young widow (not yet twenty-five) with a child of five to bring up, and very little money on which to do it (for her husband had only drawn 108 rupees a month), the position in which Mrs. Gilbert found herself was a difficult one. "You can," wrote Lola, years afterwards, "have but a faint conception of the responsibility." Warm hearts, however, were at hand to befriend her. The warmest among them was that of a brother officer of her late husband, Lieutenant Patrick Craigie, of the 38th Native Infantry, then quartered at Dacca. A bachelor and possessed of considerable private means, he invited her to share his bungalow. The invitation was accepted. As a result, there was a certain amount of gossip. This, however, was promptly silenced by a second invitation, also accepted, to share his name; and, in August, 1824, Mrs. Gilbert, renouncing her mourning and her widowhood, blossomed afresh as Mrs. Craigie. It is said that the ceremony was performed by Bishop Heber, Metropolitan of Calcutta, who happened to be visiting Dacca at the time. Very soon afterwards the benedict received a staff appointment as deputy-adjutant-general at Simla, combined with that of deputy-postmaster at Headquarters. This sent him a step up the ladder to the rank of captain and brought a welcome addition to his pay. In the opinion of the station "gup," some of it not too charitable, the widow "had done well for herself."

Captain Craigie, who appears to have been a somewhat Dobbin-like individual, proved an affectionate husband and step-father. The little girl's prettiness and precocity appealed to him strongly. He could not do enough for her; and he spoiled her by refusing to check her wayward disposition and encouraging her mischievous pranks. It was not a good upbringing; and, as dress and "society" filled the thoughts of her mother, the "Miss Baba" was left very much to the care of the swarms of native servants attached to the bungalow. She was petted by all with whom she came into contact, from the gilded staff of Government House down to the humblest sepoy and bearer. Lord Hastings, the Commander-in-Chief--a rigid disciplinarian who had reintroduced the "cat" when Lord Minto, his predecessor in office, had abolished it--smiled affably on her. She sat on the laps of be-medalled generals, veterans of a.s.saye and Bhurtpore, and pulled their whiskers unchecked; and she ran wild in the compounds of the civilian big-wigs and mercantile nabobs who, as was the custom in the days of "John Company," had shaken the paG.o.da tree to their own considerable profit.

After all, as they said, when any protest filtered through to Leadenhall Street, what were the natives for, except to be exploited; and busybodies who took them to task were talking nonsense. Worse, they were "disloyal."

As, however, there were adequate reasons why children could not stop in the country indefinitely, Lola's step-father, after much anxious consideration, decided that, since she was running wild and getting into mischief, the best thing to do with her would be to have her brought up by his relatives in Scotland. A suitable escort having been found and a pa.s.sage engaged, in the autumn of 1826 she was sent to Montrose, where his own father, a "venerable man occupying the position of provost, and sisters were living."

From India to Scotland was a considerable change. Not a change for the better, in the opinion of the new arrival there. The Montrose household, ruled by Captain Craigie's elderly sisters, was a dour and strict one, informed by an atmosphere of bleak and chill Calvinism.