Lola Montez

igher, not lower, as most women would have done. In the English country towns she would have been quite unknown, and might have earned a modest competence. But her experie

nd her gone-none knew whither. We must feel sorry for our anonymous friend, for it is evident from his confessions that Lola's blue eyes had bored a big ho

he had, quite probably, met his son, the Prince of Orange, who was visiting Lord Auckland about the time she was at Simla, and had heard tales in Calcutta about the Dutch Court. The House of Orange has not been fortunate in its domestic relations. It is said that during the last king's first experience of wedlock, the heads of chamberlains often intercepted the books aimed by the Royal spouses at each other, while the whole palace re-echoed with the slamming of doors and the crash of crockery. William II., though not possessed of the reputation o

r reputation, for it would have been easy enough for so beautiful a woman to have found a wealthy protector in the Belgian capital. She was noticed by a man, whom she believed to be a German, who took her with him to Warsaw. "He spoke many languages," says Lola, "but he was not very w

phrase, but it was order obtained only with the knout and the bayonet. The Polish language was barely tolerated, the Catholic religion proscribed. Women, half-naked, were publicly flogged for their attachment to their faith, school-boys and school-girls sent to perish beyond the Urals. The secret service ramified through every grade of society. Fathers distrusted their sons, husbands fea

smile by the flashing eyes of the new Andalusian dancer. Her beauty enraptured the P

es, and eyebrows; three red-the lips, the cheeks, the nails; three long-the body, the hair, the hands; three short-the ears, the teeth, the legs; three broad-the bosom, the forehead, the space between the eyebrows; three full-the lips, the arms, the calves; three small-the waist, the hands, the feet; three thin-the fingers, the hair, the lips. All these perfections are Lola's, except as regards the colour o

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of a Jacob's ladder leading to Heaven. She reminds one of the Venus of Knidos, carved by Praxiteles in the 104th Olympiad. To see her eye

orth, an

sort is as much a source of trouble in a community as a priceless diamond. Everyone's cupidity is excited, probity and honour melt away in the fierce heat of temptation. The upright think that here at last is a prize worth the sacrifice of all the standards that have hitherto guided them. St. Anthony, after forty years of sainthood, succum

tell the story i

carriage, and heard from the viceroy a most extraordinary proposition. He offered her the gift of a splendid country estate, and would load her with diamonds besides. The poor old man was a comic sight to look upon-unusually short in stature, and every time he spoke, he threw back his head and opened his mouth so w

word fool being applied to one of the ablest,

anny is unrestrained, the social and do

f the gendarmes and director of the theatre, ca

that availed nothing, he insinuated threats, when a grand

and when it came again on the third night, Lola Montez, in a rage, rushed down to the footlights, and declared that those hisses had been set at her by the director, because she had refused certain gifts f

lodgings. She found herself a heroine without expecting it, and indeed without intending it. In a moment of rage she had

s ordered, she barricaded her door; and when the police arrived she sat behind it with a pistol in her hand, declaring that she would certainly shoot the first man dead who should break in. The police were frightened, or at least they could not agree among themselves who should be the martyr, and they wen

ake a slight to her appear as an insult to the Warsaw public. In defending herself with the pistol, she only gave proof of the manlike courage and resolution conspicuous throughout her whole career. As to the cause of the row, one of Lola's recent biographers remarks that if Prince Paskievich had made the offer alleged, it is quite certain that she would have closed with it.

m Poland-an odd refuge! Of her journey in a calèche across the wastes of Lithuania and through the dark forests of Muscovy; of St. Petersburg, still half an Oriental city, where all me

ble as a monarch. He was the strongest pattern of a monarch of this age, and I see no promise

which did not escape the notice of more keen-eyed critics. She did not see that the autocrat's majestic demeanour was a pose, that his stern, hawk-like glance was deliberately cultivated, and that he had only three expressions of countenance, all put on at will. Horace Vernet, who knew Nicholas well, was firmly convinced that he was not wholly sane. As to his amiability in private life, he is said to have been, like many tyrants, a good husband, and he often condescended to take tea with his nur

HOL

right-hand man, the astute Livonian, Benkendorf, held the lady's political acumen in high esteem. While she and the Emperor and the Minister of

t it was about [did she then understand Russian?], joined with the great difficulty of keeping from coughing, made her position a strangely embarrassing one. But the worst of it was, in the midst of this grand quarrel the parties all went out of the room, and forgot Lola Montez, who was locked up in the closet. For a whole hour she was kept in this durance vile, reflecting upon the somewhat confined and cramping honours she was receiving from Royalty, when the Emperor, who seems to have come to himself before Count Benkendorf did, came r

another to his presence. Had not Nicholas I. been a pattern of the domestic virtues, we might have attributed his embarrassment at Lola's being discovered in his closet, and the donation of t

to drive it away. An insult of this sort Lola was the last woman to tolerate. Raising her whip, she slashed the policeman across the face. Out of respect for the Royal party, the incident was allowed to end there, for the moment; but the next day the dancer was waited upon with a summons. She instantly tore the document to pieces, and threw them into the face of the process-server. Such contempt for the law might have been attend

nd Viceroy was now to fall befo