“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 Athenaeum, 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.

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 Hellènes. “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 Koenigsbau, 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 Genössen, 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 premiere-danseuse, Fraeulein 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 Fraeulein 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!

“Wunderschoen!” 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 Fraeulein 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 entree 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. Therese, 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 Fraeuleins “not to look like the foreign woman.” There is no authoritative record that any of them did so.