LUDWIG THE LOVER

I

Lola Montez had done better than “hook a prince.” A lot better. She had now “hooked” a sovereign. Her ripe warm beauty sent the thin blood coursing afresh through Ludwig’s sluggish veins. There it wrought a miracle. He was turned sixty, but he felt sixteen.

The conversation of Robert Burns is said to have “swept a duchess off her feet.” Perhaps it did. But that of Lola Montez had a similar effect on a monarch. Under the magic of her spell, this one became rejuvenated. The years were stripped from him; he was once more a boy. With his charmer beside him, he would wander through the Nymphenburg Woods and under the elms in the Englischer Garten, telling her of his dreams and fancies. His passion for Greece was forgotten. Pericles was now Romeo.

In dem Süden ist die Liebe,
Da ist Licht und da ist Glut!

that is,

In the south there is love,
There is light and there is heat,

sang Ludwig.

Yet Lola Montez was not by any means the first who ever burst into the responsive heart of Ludwig I. She had many predecessors there. One of them was an Italian syren. But that Lola soon ousted her is clear from a poetical effort of which the royal troubadour was delivered. This begins:

Tropfen der Seligkeit und ein Meer von bitteren Leiden
Die Italienerin gab Seligkeit, Seligkeit nur
Laessest Du mich entzuendend, begeistert, befaendig empfinden,
In der Spanierin fand Liebe und Leben ich nur!

A free rendering of this passionate heart throb would read very much as follows:

Drops of bliss and a sea of bitter sorrow
The Italian woman gave me. Bliss, only bliss,
Thou gav’st my enraptured heart and soul and spirit.
In the Spanish woman alone have I found Love and Life!

Ludwig had a prettier name for his inamorata than the “feminine devil” of Henry LXXII of Reuss. He called her the “Lovely Andalusian” and the “Woman of Spain.” She also inspired him to fresh poetic flights. One of these ran:

Thine eyes are blue as heavenly vaults
Touched by the balmy air;
And like the raven’s plumage is
Thy dark and glistening hair!

There were several more verses.

A feature of the Residenz Palace was a collection of old masters. Wanting to add a young mistress, Ludwig allotted a place of honour among them to a portrait of Lola Montez, from the brush of Josef Stieler. The work was well done, for the artist was inspired by his subject; and he painted her wearing a costume of black velvet, with a touch of colour added by red carnations in her head-dress.

Ludwig’s heart being large, Die Schoenheitengalerie (as the “Gallery of Beauties” was called) filled two separate rooms. The one qualification for securing a niche on the walls being a pretty face, the collection included the Princess Alexandra of Bavaria (daughter of the King of Greece), the Archduchess Sophie of Austria, and the Baroness de Kruedener (catalogued as the “spiritual sister” of the Czar Alexander I), a popular actress, Charlotte Hagen, a ballet-dancer, Antoinette Wallinger, and the daughters of the Court butcher and the municipal town-crier. To these were added a quartet of Englishwomen, in Lady Milbanke (the wife of the British Minister), Lady Ellenborough, Lady Jane Erskine, and Lady Teresa Spence. It was to this gallery that Ludwig was accustomed to retire for a couple of hours every evening, to “meditate” on the charms of its occupants. Being, however, possessed of generous instincts, and always ready (within limits) to share his good things, the public were admitted on Sunday afternoons.

But Ludwig could scratch, as well as purr. On one occasion he chanced to meet a lady who had figured among the occupants of the Schoenheiten. She was considerably past the first flush of youth, and Ludwig, exercising his prerogative, affected not to remember her.

“But, Sire,” she protested, “I used to be in your gallery.”

“That, madame,” was the response, “must have been a very long time ago. You would certainly not be there now.”

II

From her modest hotel, where, soon tiring of his society, she left Auguste Papon to stay by himself, Lola took up fresh quarters in a small villa which the King had placed at her disposal in the Theresienstrasse, a boulevard conveniently near the Hofgarten and the Palace. While comfortable enough, it was held to be merely a temporary arrangement. There was not enough room in it for Lola to expand her wings. She wanted to establish a salon and to give receptions. Accordingly, she demanded something more suitable. It meant spending money, and Ludwig had already, he reflected, spent a great deal on her whims and fancies. Still, under pressure, he came round, and, agreeing that there must be a fitting nest for his love-bird (with a perch in it for himself), he summoned his architect, Metzger, and instructed him to build one in the more fashionable Barerstrasse.

“No expense is to be spared,” he said.

None was spared.

The new dwelling, which adjoined the Karolinen Platz, was really a bijou palace, modelled on the Italian style. Everything in it was of the best, for Ludwig had cash and Lola had taste. Thus, her toilet-set was of silver ware; her china and glass came from Dresden: the rooms were filled with costly nicknacks; mirrors and cabinets and vases and bronzes; richly-bound books on the shelves; and valuable tapestries and pictures on the walls. French elegance, added to Munich art, with a touch of solid English comfort in the shape of easy chairs and couches.

To check a playful habit that the Munich mob had of throwing bricks through them, when they had drunk more beer than they could carry, the windows were fitted with iron grilles. As a further precaution, a mounted officer always accompanied the Barerstrasse chatelaine when she was driving in public, and sentries stood at the door, to keep the curious at a respectful distance.

A description of the Barerstrasse nest was sent to London by a privileged journalist who had inspected it:

“The style of luxury in which Lola Montez lives here passes all bounds. Nothing to equal it has been met with in Munich. It might almost be an Aladdin’s palace! The walls of her bed-chamber are hung with guipure and costly satin. The furniture is of Louis XV era, and the mantelpiece is of valuable Sèvres porcelain. The garden is filled with rare flowers, and the carriages and horses in the stables are the wonder and envy of the honest burghers.”

“The Queen herself could not be better housed,” said Lola delightedly, when she saw all the luxuries of which she was now the mistress.

“You are my Queen,” declared Ludwig fondly.

While Lola, to please her patron, grappled with the intricacies of the German tongue, Ludwig, to please his charmer, took lessons from her in Spanish. She still stuck to her Andalusian upbringing, and is said (but the report lacks confirmation) to have introduced him to a Kempis. This, however, is probably a misprint for Don Quixote. None the less, her inspiration was such that her pupil could write:

Thou dost not wound thy lover with heartless tricks;
Nor dost thou play with him wantonly.
Thou art not for self; thy nature is generous and kind.
My beloved! Thou art munificent and unchanging.

“Give me happiness!” I begged with fierce longing.
And happiness I received from thee, thou Woman of Spain!

Notwithstanding the suggestion implied by this assurance, Lola always insisted that her relations with the King were purely platonic. While this view is a little difficult to accept, it is significant that Ludwig’s lawful spouse never objected to their “friendship.” Her Majesty, however, was of a placid temperament. Perhaps, too, she thought that the fancy would not endure. If so, she was wrong, for, with the passage of time, the newcomer was obviously consolidating her position. “Lola Montez, of horse-whipping notoriety,” remarked a journalist, “appears to be increasing in favour at the Court of Bavaria. The Queen calls her ‘My dear,’ and the ladies consider it their duty to caress the one who has all the world of Munich at her feet.”

During the summer, Ludwig, divesting himself of the cares of state, retired to his castle at Bruckenau, picturesquely situated in the Fulda Forest; and Lola, attended by a squadron of Cuirassiers, accompanied him to this retreat. There, as in the Nymphenburg Park, Ludwig dreamed dreams, while Lola amused herself with the officers of the escort. Halcyon days and nights. They inspired His Majesty with yet another “poem”:

SONG OF WALHALLA

Through the holy dome, oh come,
Brothers, let us roam along;
Let from thousand throats the hum
Rise, like rivers, swift and strong!

When the notes have died away
Let us clasp each other’s hand;
And, to high Heaven, let us pray
For our dearest Fatherland!

While she accorded it full value, Lola Montez did not depend on mere beauty for her power. She had a markedly sadistic vein in her composition; and, when annoyed, was not above laying about her right and left with a dog-whip that she always carried. An impudent lackey would be flogged into submission, or set upon by a fierce mastiff that she kept at her heels. High office, too, meant nothing to her. She boxed the ears of Baron Pechman; and, because he chanced to upset her, she encouraged her four-coated companion to tear the best trousers of Professor Lasaulx, the nephew of Goerrez, a Cabinet Minister.

Her English bulldog (with apparently a strain of Presbyterian blood in him) had an unerring scent for Jesuits. He seemed to disapprove of their principles as much as his mistress did, and would attack them at sight. This animal would also appear to have been something of a prohibitionist. At any rate, he once bit a brewer’s carman, delivering goods to a bierkeller. When the victim expostulated, Lola struck him with her whip. This infuriated the crowd to such an extent that she had to take refuge in a shop. There she happened to jostle a lieutenant, who, not recognising her, ventured on a protest. The next morning he received a challenge from a fire-eating comrade, alleging that he had “insulted a lady.” Because the challenge was refused, a “court of honour” had him deprived of his commission.

III

What a distressed commentator has dubbed the “equivocal position” of Lola Montez at Munich also stuck in the gullet of the Cabinet, and heads were shaken. Public affronts were offered her. When she visited the Odéon Theatre, the stalls adjoining the one she occupied were promptly emptied. “Respectable women drew back, exhibiting on their countenances disgust and terror.” But the masculine members of the audience were less exclusive, or perhaps made of sterner material, for they displayed eagerness to fill up the vacant stalls. “A new chivalry was born,” says a chronicler of town gossip, “and paladins were anxious to act as a buckler.”

With the passage of time the infatuation of the Wittelsbach Lovelace became so marked that it could not be ignored in places beyond Munich. The Countess Bernstorff grew seriously perturbed. “There has long been talk,” she confided to a friend, “as to whether King Ludwig would so far presume on the kindness and indulgence of the Queen of Prussia as to bring Lola Montez to Court during Her Majesty’s forthcoming stay in Munich.” The problem, however, was solved by the tactful action of Lola herself, who gave the palace a wide berth until the visit had come to an end.

In his Memoirs of Madam Jenny Lind-Goldschmidt shocked horror is similarly expressed by Canon Scott Holland at the possibility of the Swedish Nightingale, who was arranging to give a concert there, encountering Lola in her audience:

The time fixed for this visit to Munich was, in one respect, most unpropitious; and, for a young artist, unsupported by powerful moral protection, the visit itself might well have proved extremely unpleasant. It was impossible to sing at Court, for the reigning spirit in the household of King Ludwig I was the notorious Lola Montez, who was then at the climax of her ill-gotten power. To have been brought into contact with such a person would have been intolerable. An invitation to Court would have rendered such contact inevitable.

But if Jenny Lind adopted a lofty attitude and refused to fulfil an engagement in the Bavarian capital, lest she should have chanced to rub shoulders with Ludwig’s mistress, other visitors did not share these qualms. They arrived in battalions, and evinced no disinclination to make her acquaintance. “To the shame of the aristocracy and the arts,” says a rigid commentator, “every day there were to be found at the feet of this Cyprian intruder a throng of princes and philosophers, authors and painters, and sculptors and musicians.”

Fresh tactics to get her out of Munich were then adopted. When, however, somebody remarked that Ludwig was old enough to be her grandfather, she sent him away with a flea in his ear.

“It is ridiculous to talk like that,” she said. “My Ludwig’s heart is young. If you knew the strength of his passion, you would not credit him with being more than twenty!”

As for Ludwig himself he was bombarded with anonymous letters and warnings, calling Lola by every evil name that occurred to the writers. She was La Pompadour and the Sempronia of Sallust in one, a “voluptuous woman,” and a “flame of desire.” There were also tearful protests from the higher clergy, who, headed by Archbishop Diepenbrock, were positive that the “dancing woman” was an emissary of Satan (sometimes they said of Lord Palmerston) sent from England to destroy the Catholic religion in Bavaria.

Ludwig was curt with His Grace. “You stick to your stola,” he said, “and let me stick to my Lola.”

A soft answer, perhaps; but not a very satisfactory one.

“It is all very well for kings to have mistresses,” was the opinion of the more broad-minded, “but they should select them from their own countrywomen. This one is a foreigner. Why should our hard-earned money be lavished on her?” The grievance was, as it happened, well founded, for Lola was drawing 20,000 marks a year, wrung from the pockets of the tax-payers.

Baron Pechman, the Chief of Police, had a bad reception when he suggested that the populace might get out of control.

“If you can’t manage the mob,” said Ludwig, turning on him furiously, “I’ll get someone who can. A change of air may do you good.”

The next morning the discomfited Baron Pechman found himself dégomme and a successor appointed to his office.

The intrigue was too openly conducted to be “hushed up.” Word of what was happening in Munich soon filtered through to Vienna. Queen Caroline-Augusta, Ludwig’s sister, shook her head. “Alas,” she sighed, “my wretched brother is always bringing fresh shame on me.” She wrote him letters of tearful protest. They were ignored. She protested by word of mouth. Ludwig, in unbrotherly fashion, told her to “mind her own business.” Caroline’s next move was to take clerical counsel. “These creatures are always venal,” said the Jesuits. “They only care for cash.” An emissary was accordingly despatched to the Barerstrasse mansion, to convey an offer. Unfortunately, however, he had not advanced beyond “Gnaedige Frau, erlauben,” when he himself capitulated to Lola’s charms, and returned to the Hofburg, his task unaccomplished. Still, he must have made out some sort of story to save his face, for the Princess Melanie wrote: “Our good Senfft has come back. He was unable to speak to Lola Montez. The poor country of Bavaria is in a sad condition, which gets worse every day.”

The least disturbed individual appeared to be Queen Therese. Her attitude was one of placidity itself. But perhaps she was, by this time, accustomed to the dalliance of her Ludwig along the primrose path. Also, she probably knew by experience that it was not the smallest use making a fuss. The milk was spilled. To cry over it now would be a wasted effort.

The King’s favourite was good “copy” for the Bavarian press; and the Munich journals were filled with accounts of her activities. Not in the least upset by their uncomplimentary references to himself, Ludwig instructed his librarian, Herr Lichenthaler, to collect all the pasquinades, lampoons, squibs, and caricatures (many of them far from flattering, and others verging on the indecent) that appeared and have them sumptuously bound. It was not long before enough had been assembled to fill half a dozen volumes. His idea was “to preserve for posterity all this mountain of mud, as a witness of Bavaria’s shame.” That somebody else was responsible for the “shame” did not occur to him.

A choice specimen among the collection was one entitled Lola Montez, oder Des Mench gehoert dem Koenige ("Lola Montez, or the Wench who belongs to the King"). There was also a scurrilous, and distinctly blasphemous, broadsheet, purporting to be Lola’s private version of the Lord’s Prayer:

“Our Father, in whom throughout my life, I have never yet had much belief, all’s well with me. Hallowed be thy name so far as I am concerned. Thy kingdom come, that is, my bags of gold, my polished diamonds, and my unpolished Alemannia. Thy will be done, if thou wilt destroy my enemies. Give me this day champagne and truffles and pheasant, and all else that is delectable, for I have a very good appetite.... Lead me not into temptation to return to this country, for, even if I were bullet-proof, I might be arrested, clapped into a cage, and six francs charged for a peep at me. Amen!”

IV

Those were the days when gentlemen (at any rate, Bavarians) did not necessarily prefer blondes. Lola’s raven locks were much more to their taste. If she were not a success in the ballet, she was certainly one in the boudoir. Of a hospitable and gregarious disposition, she kept what amounted to open house in her Barerstrasse villa. Every morning she held an informal levee there, at which any stranger who sent in his card was welcome to call and pay his respects; and in the evenings, when she was not dancing attendance on Ludwig at the Palace, the Barerstrasse reception would be followed by a soiree. These gatherings attracted in addition to a throng of artists and authors and musicians professors and scholars from all over Europe; and, as Gertrude Aretz remarks, in her admirable study, The Elegant Woman (with considerable reference to this one): “the best intellects of her century helped to draw her victorious chariot.” The uncultured mob, however, dubbed her a “Fair Impire” and a “Light o’ Love,” and flung even stronger and still more uncomplimentary epithets. Their subject, however, received them with a laugh. The shopkeepers, with an eye to business, embellished their wares with her portrait; and the University students, headed by Fritz Peissner, serenaded her in front of her windows.

Lolita schoen, wie Salamoni’s Weiber.
Welch ’suszer Reis flog ueber dich dahin!

they sang in rousing chorus.

Among the students engaged in amassing light and learning at the University of Munich, there were a number of foreigners. One of them was a young American, Charles Godfrey Leland ("Hans Breitmann"), who had gone there, he says, to “study aesthetics.” But this did not take up all his time, for, during the intervals of attending classes, he managed to see something of Lola Montez. “I must,” he says, “have had a great moral influence on her, for, so far as I am aware, I am the only friend she ever had at whom she never threw a plate or a book, or attacked with a dagger, poker, broom, or other deadly weapon.... I always had a strange and great respect for her singular talents. There were few, indeed, if any there, were, who really knew the depths of that wild Irish soul.”

In another passage Leland offers further details: “The great, the tremendous, celebrity at that time in Munich was also an opera dancer, though not on the stage. This was Lola Montez, the King’s last favourite.... She wished to run the whole kingdom and government, kick out the Jesuits, and kick up the devil, generally speaking.

“One of her most intimate friends was wont to tell her that she and I had many very strange characteristics in common, which we shared with no one else, while we differed utterly in other respects. It was very like both of us, for Lola, when defending the existence of the soul against an atheist, to tumble over a great trunk of books of the most varied kind, till she came to an old vellum-bound copy of Apuleius, and proceed to establish her views according to his subtle neo-Platonism. But she romanced and embroidered so much in conversation that she did not get credit for what she really knew.”

Well, if it comes to that, Leland for his part was not above “romancing” and “embroidering.” His books are full of these qualities. “Marvels,” says a biographer, “fill his descriptions of student life at Munich. Interesting people figure in his reminiscences.... Prominent among them was Lola Montez, the King’s favourite of the day, cordially hated by all Munich for an interference in public affairs, hardly to be expected from the ’very small, pale, and thin or frêle little person with beautiful blue eyes and curly black hair’ who flits across the pages of the Memoirs.”

If this were Leland’s real opinion of Lola’s appearance, he must have formed it after drinking too much of the Munich beer of which he was so fond. He seems to have drunk a good deal at times, as he admits in one passage: “after the dinner and wine, I drank twelve schoppens.” A dozen imperial pints would take some swallowing, and not leave the memory unclouded as to subsequent events.

V

Despite the alleged Spanish blood in her veins, Lola (with, perhaps, some dim stirring of memory for the far-off Montrose chapter) declared herself a staunch Protestant, and, like her pet bull dog, disavowed the Jesuits and all their works. Hence, she supported the Liberal Government; and, as an earnest of her intentions, started operations by attempting to establish contact with von Abel, the head of the Ultramontane Ministry. He, however, affecting to be hurt at the bare suggestion, would have nothing to do with the “Scarlet Woman,” as he did not scruple to call her. Following his example, the clerical press redoubled their attacks. As a result, Lola decided to form an opposition and to have a party of her own. For this purpose she turned to some of the younger students, among whom she had a particular admirer in one Fritz Peissner. In response to her smiles, he, together with Count Hirschberg and a number of his friends, embodied themselves in a special corps, pledged to act as her bodyguard. Its members elected to be known as the Alemannia, and invited her to accept the position of Ehren-Schwester ("honorary sister"). Lola was quite agreeable, and reciprocated by setting apart a room in her villa where the swash-bucklers could meet. Not to be outdone in paying compliments, the Alemannia planted a tree in her garden on Christmas Day. Their distinguishing badge (which would now probably be a black shirt) was a red cap. As was inevitable, they were very soon at daggers drawn with the representatives of the other University Corps, who, having long-established traditions, looked upon the newcomers as upstarts, and fights between them were constantly occurring when they met in public. Altogether, Ludwig had reason to regret his action in transferring the University from its original setting at Landshut. On the other hand, Councillor Berks, a thick and thin champion of Lola (and not above taking her lap-dogs for an airing in the Hofgarten), supported the Alemannia, declaring them to be “an example to corrupt youth.” Prince Leiningen retaliated by referring to him as “that wretched substitute for a minister, commonly held by public opinion in the deepest contempt.”

The origin of the Alemannia was a little curious. Two members of the Palatia Corps happened one afternoon, while peering through the windows of the Barerstrasse mansion, to see Lola entertaining a couple of their fellow-members. This they held to be “an affront to the honour of the Palatia,” and the offenders, glorying in their conduct, were expelled by the committee. Thereupon, they joined with Fritz Peissner when he was thinking of establishing a fresh corps.

In her new position, Lola did not forget her old friends. Feeling her situation with Ludwig secure, she wrote to Liszt, offering him “the highest order that Bavaria could grant.” He declined the suggestion, and sent word of her doings to Madame d’Agoult:

Apropos of this too celebrated Anglo-Spanish woman, have you heard that King Louis of Bavaria has demanded the sacrifice of her theatrical career? and that he is keeping her at Munich (where he has bought her a house) in the quality of a favourite Sultanah?

Later on, he returned to the subject:

I have been specially pleased with a couple of allusions to Lola and this poor Mariette; but, to be perfectly candid and being afraid that you would find the subject a little indecorous I began to reproach myself for having mentioned it to you in my last letter from Czernowitz.

In speaking of Lola, you tell me that you defend her (which I do also, but not for the same reasons) because she stands for progress. Then, a page further on, in resuming the subject at Vienna, you find me very young to still believe in justice, not realising that, in this little circle of ideas and things, I represent in Europe a progressive and intelligent movement. “Alas! Who represents anything in Europe to-day?” you enquire with Bossuet.

Well, then, Lola stands for the nineteenth century, and Daniel Stern stands for the woman of the ninth century; and, were it not for having contributed to the representation of others, I too shall finish by representing something else, by means of the 25,000 francs of income it will be necessary for me to end up by securing.