The Magnificent Montez Part 29

There were beery chuckles from the reporters who were "covering" this effort. "Lola Montez in the chapel pulpit is good fun," was the conclusion at which one of them arrived; and another headed his column, "A Desperado in Dimity."

Judging from his account of this initial sample (a lecture on "Beautiful Women"), the _Tribune_ representative did not regard it very seriously:

"Temperance, exercise, and cleanliness, preached Lola the plucky; light suppers and reasonable hours; jolly long walks in thick boots and snug wrappers for the benefit of the complexion. From these, said Lola, come good digestion, good humour, and good sense. And that's the way, my dear Flora, to be healthy and wealthy--speaking crinolinely and red-petticoatedly--and wise."

Lola was before her time. Nowadays she would have set up as a "beauty specialist." Had she done so, she would have secured a big income from the sale of creams and perfumes, powders and paints, and dyes and unguents, and all the other nostrums with which women endeavour to recover their vanished charms. But, instead of becoming a pract.i.tioner, she became an author and compiled a handbook, _The Arts of Beauty, or Secrets of a Lady's Toilet_. This went very fully into the subject, and had helpful hints on "Complexion Treatment," "Hair Culture," "Removal of Wrinkles," and what was then coyly termed "Bust Development." Importance was also attached to "Intellect," as a sovereign specific for repairing the ravages of advancing years. "A beautiful mind," announced the author, "is the first thing required for a beautiful face."

Lola's light was not hidden under any bushel. An American firm of publishers, convinced that there was money in this sort of thing, made an acceptable offer and issued the work with a prefatory inscription:

+--------------------------------------------------------+ | TO | | ALL MEN AND WOMEN | | OF EVERY LAND | | WHO ARE NOT AFRAID OF THEMSELVES | | WHO TRUST SO MUCH TO THEIR OWN SOULS THAT THEY DARE TO | | STAND UP | | IN THE MIGHT OF THEIR | | OWN INDIVIDUALITY | | TO MEET THE TIDAL CURRENTS OF THE WORLD, THIS BOOK IS | | RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED BY | | THE AUTHOR | +--------------------------------------------------------+

The t.i.tle-page of this effort ran as follows:

+---------------------------------+ | THE | | ARTS OF BEAUTY | | OR | | SECRETS OF A LADY'S TOILET | | WITH HINTS TO GENTLEMEN | | ON THE | | ART OF FASCINATION | | BY MADAME LOLA MONTEZ | | COUNTESS OF LANDSFELD | | NEW YORK | | d.i.c.k AND FITZGERALD, PUBLISHERS | | 18 ANN STREET | +---------------------------------+

A Canadian publisher, John Lovell, on the look-out for a novelty, read this effort and suggested that a friend of his, emile Chevalier, of Paris, should sponsor an edition of Lola's _Arts of Beauty_ for consumption on the boulevards. "I am too much an admirer of the gifted author," was M. Chevalier's response, "to undertake the work without consulting her." Accordingly, he got into touch with Lola, offering to have a translation made. "Thank you," she replied, "but I wish to do it myself. You, however, can put in any corrections you think necessary. I have not written anything in French since the death of poor Bon-Bon [Dujarier], and I want to see if I still remember the language." Apparently she did so, for, shortly afterwards, the ma.n.u.script was sent across the Atlantic and delivered to M. Chevalier.

Within another month it was on the bookstalls. "I have retouched it very little," says the editor in his preface, "as I was anxious to preserve Madame Lola's distinctly original style. Her pen is as mordant as her dog-whip."

M. Chevalier was charmed with the fas.h.i.+on in which Lola had acquitted herself, and wrote florid letters of thanks to her in New York. With a supplementary lecture on "Instructions for Gentlemen in the Art of Fascination," which was added to fill up the book, he declared himself much impressed. "This," he says, "exhibits a profound knowledge of the human heart, and is altogether one of the finest and most piquant criticisms on American manners with which I am familiar." "Who," he continues, warming to his work, "is more thoroughly qualified to discuss the development and preservation of natural beauty than the Countess of Landsfeld?"; and in an introductory puff he adds: "These observations are very judicious, and as applicable in Europe as in America. They should, I feel, be indelibly engraved on the minds of all sensible women."

Perhaps they were. At any rate, the result of M. Chevalier's enterprise was a distinct success, and the Paris bookshops soon got rid of 50,000 copies. In fact, Lola was very nearly a best-seller.

In addition to her expert views on "Beautiful Women," Lola had plenty of other subjects up her sleeve, to be incorporated in a series of lectures. The list covered a wide range, for it included such diverse headings as "Ladies with Pasts," "Heroines of History," "Romanism,"

"Wits and Women of Paris," "Comic Aspects of Love," and "Gallantry."

On all of these matters she had plenty to say. On some of them quite a lot, for they ran to an average of a dozen closely printed pages, and, when delivered in public, took up three hours. In the one on "Beautiful Women" precise details were given as to the advent.i.tious causes contributing to her own sylph-like figure, glossy hair and pearly teeth, etc., and a number of prescriptions were also offered.

These, she recommended, should be manufactured at home. "For a few s.h.i.+llings and a little trouble," she pointed out, "any lady can secure an adequate supply of all such things, composed of materials far superior to the expensive compounds bought from druggists;" and the recipes, she insisted, "had been translated by herself from the original French, Spanish, German, and Italian." Among these were _Beaume a l'Antique_, _Unction de Maintenon_, and _Pommade de Seville_; and "a retired actress at Gibraltar" was responsible for a specific for "warding off baldness." Lola put it in two words--"avoid nightcaps." But she was sympathetic about scalp troubles. "Without a fine head of hair, no woman can be really beautiful.... The dogs would bark at and run away from her in the street." To be well covered on top was, she held, "quite as important for the opposite s.e.x." "How like a fool or a ruffian," she remarked, "do the n.o.blest masculine features appear if the hair of the head is bad. Many a dandy who has scarcely brains or courage enough to catch a sheep has enslaved the hearts of a hundred girls with his Hyperion locks!"

Although nominally the author of them, these lectures were, like her previous flight, really strung together by that clerical "ghost," the Rev. Chauncey Burr, with whom she had collaborated in her "memoirs."

Wielding a ready pen, he gave good value, for the chapters were well sprinkled with choice cla.s.sical quotations and elegant extracts from the poets, together with allusions to Aristotle and Theophrastus, to Madame de Stael and Was.h.i.+ngton Irving.

In the lecture on "Gallantry," Lola had a warm encomium for King Ludwig.

"His Majesty," she informed her audience, "is one of the most refined and high-toned gentlemen of the old school of manners. He is also one of the most learned men of genius in all Europe. To him art is more indebted than to any other monarch who has ever lived. King Ludwig is the author of several volumes of poems, which are evidence of his natural genius and elaborately cultivated taste.... He wors.h.i.+ps beauty like one of the old troubadours; and his gallantry is caused by his love of art. He was the greatest and best King Bavaria ever had."

In another pa.s.sage she had a smack at the Catholic Church:

"An evil hour brought into Ludwig's counsels the most despotic and illiberal of the Jesuits. Through the influence of his ministers the natural liberality of the King was perpetually thwarted; and the Government degenerated into a petty tyranny, where priestly influence was sucking out the very life-blood of the people."

More than something of a doctrinaire, her observations on "Romanism"

(which she dubbed "an abyss of superst.i.tion and moral pollution") might have fallen from the lips of a hot-gospeller of to-day. "Who," she asked her hearers, "shall compute the stupefying and brutalizing effects of such religion? Who will dare tell me that this terrible Church does not lie upon the bosom of the present time like a vast, unwieldy, and offensive corpse? America does not yet recognise how much she owes to the Protestant principle. It is that principle which has given the world the four greatest facts of modern times--steamboats, railroads, telegraphs, and the American Republic."

This somewhat novel definition of "the four greatest facts of modern times" was received with rapture by its hearers.

Despite certain jeers from some of the reviewers, the lectures continued to attract the public. The novelty of Lola Montez at the rostrum drew large audiences everywhere; and she had no difficulty in arranging a long tour. Feeling, when it came to an end, that a similar measure of success might be secured on the other side of the Atlantic, she resolved to visit England.

Just before leaving America for this purpose, she wrote to a one-time Munich acquaintance, who was then editing a New York magazine:

YORKVILLE,

_August 20, 1858._

MY DEAR MR. LELAND,

I wish to thank you for the very kind notice you gave in your interesting magazine of my first book, and I have requested Messrs. d.i.c.k and Fitzgerald, my publishers, to send to your private address a copy of my _Arts of Beauty_.

I hope, as a _critique_, it will be found "not wanting" (I do not mean not wanted).

Will you give my best and kindest regards to our friend Caxton; and, with the hope of hearing from you before I leave for Europe, which will be in a couple of months, I remain, far or near, your friend,

LOLA MONTEZ.

Of course, there was a postscript:

"The subject of my lectures in Europe will be on America.

This should prove attractive."

Another letter suggests that an appointment with Leland had not been kept:

I should have much liked to have seen you before my departure for Ireland on Tuesday by Pacific, but I cannot control circ.u.mstances, you know; and therefore all I ask you until my return next July is a "place in your memory."

Maybe, I shall write to you, or, maybe, not. But, whatever is, be sure that _You_ will not be forgotten by Yrs.

LOLA MONTEZ.

Again the inevitable postscript:

"Give my best and kindest regards to _our friend_. Tell him I shall certainly manage to fill his columns with plenty more newspaper lectures."

According to himself, Lola looked upon the young American with something more than mere friends.h.i.+p. "Once," he says, in his reminiscences, "she proposed to make a bolt with me to Europe, which I declined. The secret of my influence," he adds smugly, "was that I always treated her with respect, and never made love."

III

It was at the end of November, 1858, that Lola landed once more in the United Kingdom. She began her campaign there in Dublin, where, twenty-four years earlier, she had lived as a young bride, danced at the Castle, and flirted with the Viceroy's aides-de-camp. During the interval a crowded chapter, and one full of colour and life and movement, had been written.

All being in readiness, the public were duly informed of her plans by an advertis.e.m.e.nt:

MADAME LOLA MONTEZ, COUNTESS OF LANDSFELD, will give a Lecture on "America and its People," at the Round Room, Rotundo, on Wednesday evening, December 8. Reserved seats, 3s.; unreserved, 2s. 6d.

The debut would appear to have been highly successful. "The announcement of the lecture," said a report the next morning, "created a degree of interest almost unparalleled among the Dublin public. The platform was regularly carried by a throng of admirers, giving Madame Lola Montez barely s.p.a.ce to reach her desk. She was listened to with enraptured attention and warm manifestations of approval"; and "very properly, an ill-bred fellow, who exclaimed, 'hee-haw' at regular intervals, was loudly hissed."

[Ill.u.s.tration: _"Lectures and Life." From stage to platform_]

For some reason or other, Lola was constantly embroiled with journalists. Thus, during this Dublin visit she had a pa.s.sage at arms with one of them, who had published some damaging criticisms about her life in Paris. Thereupon, she wrote an angry letter to the editor of the _Daily Express_. As, however, she was alluding to events that had taken place nearly fifteen years earlier, her memory was somewhat at fault. Thus, she insisted that, when Dujarier met his death, she was living in the house of a Dr. and Mrs. Azan; and also that "the good Queen of Bavaria wept bitterly when she left Munich."

But, if Lola Montez was not very reliable, the editor of the _Dublin Daily Express_ was similarly slipshod in his comments. "It is now," he declared, "well established that Lola Montez was born in 1824, her father being the son of a baronet."

Crossing from Ireland to England, Lola, prior to appearing in London, undertook a tour in the provinces. On January 8, 1859, she appeared at the Free Trade Hall, Manchester, where her subject was "Portraits of English and American Character." This went down very well, although, to her disappointment, John Bright declined to take the chair. At Liverpool, however, "the public went almost wild with excitement"; and, as a result, her share of the box-office receipts was 250. But, although she attracted the mob, she managed to upset the susceptibilities of the critics. "Some of Madam's allusions," declared a shocked hearer, "were in questionable taste, and, as she delivered her address, the epithet 'coa.r.s.e' fell from several members of the audience."

A visit to Chester, which followed the Liverpool one, was marked by an unfortunate incident: