The Magnificent Montez Part 28

Sir: The French and Belgian papers are announcing as a positive fact that the suicide of Monsieur Mauclerc (who deliberately precipitated himself from the top of the Pic du Midi cliff) was caused by various troubles I had occasioned him. If he were still living, Monsieur Mauclerc would himself, I feel certain, contradict this calumny.

It is true that we were married; but, finding, after eight days, that our union was not likely to turn out a happy one, we parted by mutual consent. The story of my responsibility for the Pic du Midi business only exists in the imaginative brain of some journalist who revels in supplying tragic details. Anyhow, Mr. Editor, I count upon your sympathy to exculpate me from any share in the melancholy event.--Yours, LOLA MONTEZ.

Mauclerc, however, so far from being dead, was still very much alive, and was sunning himself just then at Bayonne. Having read this letter, he answered it in the next issue:

I have just seen in the columns of _La Presse_ a letter from Lola Montez. This gives an account of a deliberate jump from the top of a cliff and of a marriage with myself as the chief actor in each catastrophe. All I have to say about them is that I know nothing of these important occurrences.

I a.s.sure you, sir, I have never felt any desire to "precipitate" myself, either from the Pic du Midi or from anywhere else; nor have I ever had the distinction of being the husband of the famous Countess of Landsfeld for a matter of even eight days.--MAUCLERC. Artist dramatique.

_September 9, 1856._

Lola ignored this _dementi_. Possibly, however, she did not read it, for she was just then arranging another trip to America.

CHAPTER XVI

FAREWELL TO THE FOOTLIGHTS

I

Having booked a number of engagements there, in December, 1857, Lola landed in New York for the second time. Directly she stepped off the ship, she was surrounded by a throng of reporters. Never losing the chance of making a speech, she gave them just what they wanted.

"America," she said, as they pulled out their note-books, "is the last refuge left the victims of tyranny and oppression in the old world. It is the finest monument to liberty ever erected beneath the canopy of heaven."

For her reappearance she offered the public _Lola Montez in Bavaria_, which had already done good service. By this time, however, it was a little frayed.

"The drama represents her as a coquettish and reckless woman," was the considered opinion of one critic. "We a.s.sure our readers she is nothing of the sort."

This testimonial was a help. Still, it could not infuse fresh life into a piece that had obviously outlived its popularity. Hence, she soon changed the bill for a double one, _The Eton Boy_ and _Follies of a Night_. But the cash results were not much better; and when she left New York and tried her luck in Boston the week's receipts were scarcely two hundred dollars. This, in theatrical parlance, was "not playing to the gas."

Realising that she was losing her grip, she cast about for some fresh method of attracting the public. It was not long before she hit on one. As she was in a democratic country, she would make capital out of her "t.i.tle." A plan was soon matured. This was to hold "receptions,"

where anybody would be welcome who was prepared to pay a dollar.

A dollar for ten minutes' chat with a genuine countess, and, for another 50 cents, the privilege of shaking her hand. A bargain. The tariff appealed to thousands. Among them Charles Sumner, the distinguished jurist, who declared of Lola Montez that, "She was by far the most graceful and delightful woman I ever met."

Her next scheme for raising the financial wind was to employ her pen.

It was true that her "memoirs," strung together in Paris, had fallen flat--owing to the pusillanimity of the editor of _Le Pays_--but a full length "autobiography" would, she thought, stand a better prospect. Apart, too, from other considerations, there was now more material on which to draw. An embarra.s.sing amount of it. She could say something--a lot--about the happenings in Bavaria, in France, in California, and in Australia. All good stuff, and a field hitherto untouched.

The pen, however, being still an unaccustomed weapon, she availed herself of outside help; and practically the whole of the _Autobiography of Lola Montez_ was written for her (on a profit-sharing agreement) by a clerical collaborator, the Rev.

Chauncey Burr.

The tale of the Odyssey--as set forth in this joint production--established contact with glittering circles and the breathing of perfumed air. Within its chapters emperors and kings and princes jostle one another; scenes shift continually from capital to capital; and plots follow counter-plots in breathless fashion. Yet those who purchased the volume in the fond belief that it would turn out to be the a.n.a.lysis of a modern Aspasia were disappointed. As a matter of fact, there was next to nothing in it that would have upset a Band of Hope committee-meeting. This, however, was largely because, an adept at skating over thin ice, the Rev. Mr. Burr ignored, or coloured, such happenings as did not redound to the credit of his subject.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Lola Montez in Middle Life. A characteristic pose_]

The "Autobiography" (alleged) finishes on a high note:

"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 at the first hour it a.s.sailed her. It is not too much 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 them 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 a.s.sailed her, not because her deeds were bad, but because they knew of no other means to destroy her influence."

Although too modest to acknowledge it, this pa.s.sage is obviously the Rev. Chauncey Burr verbatim.

An offer to serialise part of the "autobiography" in the columns of _Le Figaro_ was accepted. In correcting the proofs, Lola still clung to the earlier account that had already done service in the "memoirs"

contributed to _Le Pays_. But she embellished it with fresh embroideries. Thus, to keep up the Spanish connection, she now claimed as her aunts the Marquise de Pavestra and the Marquise de Villa-Palana, together with an equally imaginary Uncle Juan; and she also, for the first time, gave her schoolgirl friend, f.a.n.n.y Nicholls, a sister Valerie.

The "autobiography" had originally been accepted for _Le Pays_ by Antenon Joly. When, however, shortly afterwards, MM. de la Gueronniere and de Lamartine acquired the journal, they repudiated the contract.

Hence, its transfer to _Le Figaro_. But this organ also developed a sudden queasiness, and, after the first few instalments had appeared, declined to print the remainder, on the grounds that they were "too scandalous." Some time afterwards, Eugene de Mirecourt, thinking he had a bargain, secured the interrupted portions and made them the basis of a chapter on Lola Montez in his _Les Contemporains_. This chapter is marked throughout by severe disapproval. Thus, it begins:

"The woman who revives in the nineteenth century the scandals of Jeanne Vaubernier belongs to our gallery, and the abject materialism accompanying her misconduct will be revealed in the pages that follow."

De Mirecourt was not too happy in his self-appointed task. Like everything else from his pen, the entire section is distinctly imaginative. Thus, he declares that Lola, while living in Madrid, was "supported by five or six great English lords"; and, among other amorous incidents, says that a Brahmin priest fell in love with her; that she conducted a "scandalous intrigue" with a young French diplomat who was carrying despatches to the Emperor of China; and that her husband, Lieutenant James, once intercepted a tender pa.s.sage between herself and a rajah. Further embroideries a.s.sert that Lola's father was the son of a Lady Gilbert, and that her mother was the daughter of a "Moorish warrior who abjured paganism." To this rigmarole he adds that she was sent to a boarding-school at Bath, kept by a Mrs. Olridge, where she had an early _liaison_ with the drawing-master.

It was perhaps as well for de Mirecourt, and others of his kidney, that libel actions had not then been added to the perils of authorship. Still, if they had, Lola would not have troubled to bring one. To take proceedings in America against a man living in France was difficult. Also, by this time she was so accustomed to studied misrepresentation and deliberate falsehoods that she refused to interfere.

"It doesn't matter what people choose to say about me," she remarked contemptuously, when she was informed by a friend in Paris of the liberties being taken with her name.

Although (except when she took it into her own hands) she liked to keep clear of the law, this was not always possible. Such an instance occurred in March, 1858, when a Mr. Jobson of New York brought an action against her in respect of an alleged debt. The proceedings would appear to have been conducted in a fashion that must have been peculiar to the time and place; and, in an effort to discredit her, she was subjected to a cross-examination that would now be described as "third degree."

"Were you not," began the plaintiff's counsel, "born in Montrose, the daughter of one Molly Watson?"

When this was denied, he put his next question.

"How many intrigues have you had during your career?"

"None," was the answer.

"We'll see about that, Madam," returned the other, consulting his brief. "To begin with, were you not the mistress of King Ludwig?"

"You are a vulgar villain," exclaimed Lola indignantly. "I can swear on the Bible, which I read every night, but you don't, that I never had what you call an 'intrigue' with him. As a matter of fact, I did him a lot of good."

"In what way?" enquired the judge, looking interested.

"Well, I moulded his mind to the love of freedom."

"Before you ran off with your first husband," continued counsel, "were you not employed as a chambermaid?"

"Never," was the emphatic response. "And, let me tell you, Mr.

Attorney, it is not at all a shameful thing to be a chambermaid. If I had been born one, I should consider myself a much more distinguished woman than I am."

When her own counsel, coming to the rescue, dubbed Mr. Jobson a "fellow," there followed, in the words of a reporter, "an unseemly fracas." From abuse of one another, the rival attorneys took to fisticuffs; the spectators and officials joined in the struggle; and an ink pot was hurled by the furious Jobson at the occupants of the jury-box. This being considered contempt of court, he was arrested, and the judge, gathering up his papers, left the Bench, announcing that the further hearing would be adjourned.

II

After this experience, Lola developed a fresh activity. Like a modern Joan of Arc, she suddenly announced that she heard "Voices," and that, on their instructions, she was giving up the stage for the platform.

Her plans were soon completed; and, on February 3, 1858, she mounted the rostrum and made her debut as a lecturer, at the Hope Chapel, New York.