The Magnificent Montez Part 23

"The Countess of Landsfeld, who is now among us," adds a second scribe, "owes more to the brilliancy of intellect with which Heaven has gifted her than to her world-wide celebrity as an artiste. Her person and bearing are unmistakably aristocratic. If we may credit the stories which from time to time have reached us, she can, if necessary, use her riding-whip in vigorous fas.h.i.+on about the ears of any offending biped or quadruped. In America she is somewhat out of her lat.i.tude. Paris should be her real home."

For the present, however, Lola decided to stop where she was.

While she was in America on this tour, Barnum wanted to be her impresario, and promised "special terms." Despite, however, the lure of "having her path garlanded with flowers and her carriage drawn by human hands from hotel to theatre," the offer was not accepted.

The New York debut of Lola Montez was made on December 29, 1851, in a ballet: _Betly, the Tyrolean_. Public excitement ran high, for appet.i.tes had been whetted by the sensational accounts of her "past"

with which the papers were filled.

"Scandal does not necessarily create a great dancer," declared one rigid critic; and a second had a long column, headed: "MONTEZ _v._ RESPECTABILITY," in which he observed (thoughtfully supplying a translation): "_Parturiunt_ MONTEZ, _nascitur ridiculus mus_." All the same, the box-office reported record business. As a result, prices were doubled, and the seats put up to auction.

If she had her enemies in the press, Lola also had her champions there. Just before she arrived, one of them, a New York paper, took up the cudgels on her behalf in vigorous fas.h.i.+on:

The most funny proceeding that is going on in this town is the terrible to-do that is being made about Lola Montez. If this state of things continues we will guarantee a continuance of the fun after Lola makes her advent among us, for if she doesn't properly horse-whip those squeamish gentlemen we are much mistaken in her character.

Now we want to call the attention of our fair-minded readers to a few other matters that are sure to occur. Here are the various papers pouring out a torrent of abuse on Lola. What will it all amount to? In a few weeks she will land. In a few weeks a popular theatre will be occupied by her, and tens of thousands will throng that theatre. The manager will reap a fortune, and so will Lola Montez; and those short-sighted conductors of the Press will be begging for tickets and quarrelling among themselves as to who can say the most extravagant things in her favour. Public curiosity will be gratified at any price; and if Lola Montez is a capital dancer she will soon dance down all opposition. With what grace can the public talk about virtue in a public actress, when they have followed in the wake of an ELSSLER?

If the private character of a public actress is to be the criterion by which to judge of her professional merit, then half the theatres would be compelled to shut their doors.

We are as independently correct as any other paper that exists. We don't care a straw whether we go on with or without the other newspapers. We will do justice and say what is true, regardless of popularity. We detest hypocrisy; and we have no disposition to make a mountain out of a molehill, or to see a mote in the eye of Lola Montez, and not discover a beam in the eye of f.a.n.n.y Elssler, or of any of the other great dancers or actresses.

"What is Lola Montez?" enquire the public. A good dancer, says the manager of a theatre. She is also notorious. The public will crowd the theatre to see her and to judge whether she is not also a good actress; and if they get their money's worth, they are satisfied. They do not pay to judge of the former history of Lola Montez.... A few squeamish people cannot prevent Lola Montez from creating a sensation here, or from crowding from pit to dome any house where she may appear; and, as they will be the first to endorse her success, they would be more consistent were they to let her alone until she secures it.

None the less, there was compet.i.tion to meet. A great deal of compet.i.tion, for counter-attractions were being offered in all directions. Thus, "Professor" Anderson was conjuring rabbits out of borrowed top hats; Thackeray was lecturing on "The English Humourists"; Macready was bellowing and posturing in Shakespeare; General Tom Thumb was exhibiting his lack of inches; and Mrs. Bloomer was advancing the cause of "Trousers for Women!" Still, Lola more than held her own as a "draw."

In January the bill was changed to _Diana and the Nymphs_. The fact that some of the "Nymphs" supporting the star adopted a costume a little suggestive of modern nudism appears to have upset a feminine critic.

"When," was her considered opinion, "a certain piece first presented a partly unclothed woman to the gaze of a crowded auditory, she was met with a gasp of astonishment at the effrontery which dared so much. Men actually grew pale at the boldness of the thing; young girls hung their heads; a death-like silence fell over the house. But it pa.s.sed; and, in view of the fact that these women were French ballet-dancers, they were tolerated."

To show that she was properly qualified to express her views on such a delicate matter, this censor added: "Belonging, root and branch, to a theatrical family, I have not on that account been deemed unworthy to break bread at an imperial table, nor to grasp the hand of friends.h.i.+p extended to me by an English lordly divine."

By the way, on this subject of feminine attire (or the lack of it) a rigid standard was also applicable to the audience's side of the curtain, and any departure from it met with reprisals. This is made clear by a shocked paragraph chronicling one such happening at another theatre:

"During the evening of our visit there transpired an occurrence to which we naturally have some delicacy in alluding. Since, however, it indicates a censors.h.i.+p in a quarter where refinement is perhaps least to be expected, it should not be suffered by us to pa.s.s unnoticed. In the stalls, which were occupied by a number of ladies and gentlemen in full evening costume, and of established social position, there was to be observed a woman whose remarkable lowness of corsage attracted much criticism. Indeed, it obviously scandalised the audience, among the feminine portion of which a painful sensation was abundantly perceptible. At last, their indignation found tangible expression; and a voice from the pit was heard to utter in measured accents a stern injunction that could apply to but one individual. Blus.h.i.+ng with embarra.s.sment, the offender drew her shawl across her uncovered shoulders. A few minutes later, she rose and left the house, amid well merited hisses from the gallery, and significant silence from the outraged occupants of the stalls and boxes."

Decorum was one thing; _decolletage_ was another. In the considered opinion of 1851 the two did not blend.

A certain Dr. Judd, who, in the intervals of his medical practice, was managing a Christy Minstrels entertainment at this period, has some recollections of Lola Montez. "Many a long chat," he says, "I had with her in our little bandbox of a ticket-office. Thackeray's _Vanity Fair_ was being read in America just then, and Lola expressed to me great anger that the novelist should have put her into it as Becky Sharp. 'If he had only told the truth about me,' she said, 'I should not have cared, but he derived his inspiration from my enemies in England.'"

This item appears to have been unaccountably missed by Thackeray's other historians.

IV

Lola's tastes were distinctly "Bohemian," and led her, while in New York, to be a constant visitor at Pfaff's underground _delicatessen_ cafe, then a favourite haunt of the literary and artistic worlds of the metropolis. There she mingled with such accepted celebrities as Walt Whitman, W. Dean Howells, Commodore Vanderbilt, and that other flas.h.i.+ng figure, Adah Isaacs Menken. She probably found in Pfaff's a certain resemblance to the Munich beer-halls with which she had been familiar. A bit of the Fatherland, as it were, carried across the broad Atlantic. German solids and German liquids; talk and laughter and jests among the company of actors and actresses and artists and journalists gathered night after night at the tables; everybody in a good temper and high spirits.

Walt Whitman, inspired, doubtless, by beer, once described the place in characteristic rugged verse:

The vaults at Pfaff's, where the drinkers and laughers meet to eat and drink and carouse, While on the walk immediately overhead pa.s.s the myriad feet of Broadway.

There was a good deal more of it, for, when he had been furnished with plenty of liquid refreshment, the Muse of Walt ran to length.

From New York Lola set out on a tour to Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Boston. While in this last town, she "paid a visit of ceremony" to one of the public schools. Although the children there "expressed surprise and delight at the honour accorded them," the _Boston Transcript_ shook its editorial head; and "referred to the visit in a fas.h.i.+on that aroused the just indignation of the lady and her friends."

The cudgels were promptly taken up on her behalf by a New York journalist:

"Lola Montez," he declared, "owes less of her strange fascination and world-wide celebrity to her powers as an _artiste_ than to the extraordinary mind and brilliancy of intellect with which Heaven has thought fit to endow her. At one moment ruling a kingdom, through an imbecile monarch; and the next, the wife of a das.h.i.+ng young English lord.... Her person and bearing are unmistakably aristocratic. In her recent visit to one of our public schools she surprised and delighted the scholars by addressing them in the Latin language with remarkable facility."

It would be of interest to learn the name of the "das.h.i.+ng young English lord." This, however, was probably a brevet rank conferred by the pressman on Cornet Heald.

On April 27, 1852, Lola Montez appeared at the Albany Museum in selections from her repertoire. On this occasion she brought with her a "troupe of twelve dancing girls." As an additional lure, the bills described these damsels as "all of them unmarried, and most of them under sixteen."

But the attraction which proved the biggest success in her repertoire was a drama called _Lola in Bavaria_. This was said to be written by "a young literary gentleman of New England, the son of a somewhat celebrated poetess." The heroine, who was never off the stage for more than five minutes, was depicted in turns as a dancer, a politician, a countess, a revolutionary, and a fugitive; and among the other characters were Ludwig I, Eugene Sue, Dujarier, and Cornet Heald, while the setting offered "a correct representation of the Lola Montez palace at Munich." It seemed good value. At any rate, the public thought it was, and full houses were secured. But the critics restrained their raptures. "I sympathise," was the acid comment of one of them, "with the actresses who were forced to take part in such stuff"; and Joseph Daly described the heroine as "deserting a royal admirer to court the sovereign public." The author of this balderdash was one C. P. T. Ware, "a poor little hack playwright, who wrote anything for anybody."

March of 1853 found Lola Montez fulfilling an engagement at the Varietes Theatre, St. Louis. Kate Field, the daughter of the proprietor, wrote a letter on the subject to her aunt.

"Well, Lola Montez appeared at father's theatre last night for the first time. The theatre was crowded from parquet to doors. She had the most beautiful eyes I ever saw. I liked her very much; but she performed a dumb girl, so I cannot say what she would do in speaking characters."

During this engagement Lola apparently proved a little _difficile_, for her critic adds: "She is trying to trouble father as much as possible."

Lola certainly was apt to "trouble" people with whom she came into contact. As an accepted "star," she had a high sense of her own importance and considered herself above mere rules. Once, when travelling from Niagara to Buffalo by train, she elected to sit in the baggage car and puff a cigarette. "While," says a report, "thus cosily ensconced, she was discovered by the conductor and promptly informed by him that such behaviour was not permitted. Thereupon, Madame replied that it was her custom to travel where and how she pleased, and that she had frequently horse-whipped much bigger men than the conductor. This settled the matter, for the company's officer did not care to challenge the tigress."

The visit to Buffalo was crowned with success. "Lola Montez," declared the _Troy Budget_, "has done what Mrs. McMahon failed to accomplish--she positively charmed the Buffaloes. This can perhaps be attributed to her judicious choice of the ex-Reverend Chauncey Burr, by whom she is accompanied on her tour in the capacity of business-manager."

The choice of an "ex-Reverend" to conduct a theatrical tour seems, perhaps, a little odd. Still, as Lola once remarked: "It is a common enough thing in America for a bankrupt tradesman or broken-down jockey to become a lawyer, a doctor, or even a parson." Hence, from the pulpit to the footlights was no great step.

CHAPTER XIV

THE "GOLDEN WEST"

I

As this was before the days when actresses in search of publicity announce that they are _not_ going to Hollywood, Lola had to hit on a fresh expedient to keep her name in the news. Ever fertile of resource, the one she now adopted was to give out that this would be her "positively last appearance, as she was abandoning the stage and becoming a nun." The scheme worked, and the box-office coffers were filled afresh. But Lola did not take the veil. Instead, she took a trip to California, sailing by the Isthmus route in the summer of 1853.

A ridiculous book, _The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole_, with an introductory puff by a windbag, W. H. Russell, has a reference to this project:

Came one day Lola Montez, in the full zenith of her evil fame, bound for California, with a strange suite. A good-looking, bold woman, with fine, bad eyes and a determined bearing; dressed ostentatiously in perfect male attire, with s.h.i.+rt collar turned down over a lapelled coat, richly worked s.h.i.+rt front, black hat, French unmentionables, and natty polished boots with spurs. She carried in her hand a riding-whip.... An impertinent American, presuming--perhaps not unnaturally--upon her reputation, laid hold jestingly of the tails of her long coat; and, as a lesson, received a cut across his face that must have marked him for some days. I did not wait to see the row that followed, and was glad when the wretched woman rode off on the following morning.

Russell was not a fellow-pa.s.senger in the s.h.i.+p by which Lola travelled. Somebody else, however, who did happen to be one, gives a very different description of her conduct on the journey:

"We had not been at sea one day," says Mrs. Knapp, "before all the saloon occupants were charmed by this lovely young woman. Her vivacity was infectious, and her _abandon_ was always of a specially airy refinement."

The arrival of Lola Montez at San Francisco would have eclipsed that of any Hollywood heroine of the present era. A vast crowd, headed by the City Fathers, "in full regalia," gathered at the quay. Flags decked the public buildings; guns fired a salute; bands played; and the schoolchildren were a.s.sembled to strew her path with flowers as she stepped down the gangway; and, "to the accompaniment of ringing cheers," the horses were taken from her carriage, which was dragged by eager hands through the streets to her hotel. "The Countess acknowledged the reception accorded her with a graceful inclination."

"What if Europe has exiled her?" demanded an editorial. "This is of no consequence. After all, she is Lola Montez, acknowledged Mistress of Kings! She is beautiful above other women; she is gorgeous; she is irresistible; and we are genuinely proud to welcome her."

Enveloped in legend, the reputation of the newcomer for "eccentricity"