An Englishman In Paris Part 7

"a.s.surement, je ne le sais pas," quoth Gozlan, "ni vous non plus."

"Ah, par exemple, moi, je le sais."

"He bien, dites alors."

"On lui a donne la croix parceque il n'en avait pas."

It was the most childish of all tricks, but Gozlan laughed at it, and, when he wrote his piece, remembered it. He amplified the very small joke, and, on the first night of his play, the house went into convulsions over it.

Major Fraser's kindness and gentleness extended to all men--except to professional politicians, and those, from the highest to the lowest, he detested and despised. He rarely spoke on the subject of politics, but when he did every one sat listening with the raptest attention; for he was a perfect mine of facts, which he marshalled with consummate ability in order to show that government by party was of all idiotic inst.i.tutions the most idiotic. But his knowledge of political history was as nothing to his familiarity with the social inst.i.tutions of every civilized country and of every period. Curiously enough, the whole of his library in his own apartment did not exceed two or three scores of volumes. His memory was something prodigious, and even men like Dumas and Balzac confessed themselves his inferiors in that respect. The mere mention of the most trifling subject sufficed to set it in motion, and the listeners were treated to a "magazine article worth fifty centimes la ligne au moins," as Dumas put it. But the major could never be induced to write one. Strange to say, he often used to hint that his was no mere book-knowledge. "Of course, it is perfectly ridiculous," he remarked with a strange smile, "but every now and again I feel as if all this did not come to me through reading, but from personal experience.

At times I become almost convinced that I lived with Nero, that I knew Dante personally, and so forth."

When Major Fraser died, not a single letter was found in his apartment giving a clue to his antecedents. Merely a file of receipts, and a sc.r.a.p of paper attached to one--the receipt of the funeral company for his grave, and expenses of his burial. The memorandum gave instructions to advertise his demise for a week in the _Journal des Debats_, the money for which would be found in the drawer of his dressing-table. His clothes and furniture were to be sold, and the proceeds to be given to the Paris poor. "I do not charge any one with this particular duty," the doc.u.ment went on; "I have so many friends, every one of whom will be ready to carry out my last wishes."

Another "mystery," though far less interesting than Major Fraser, was the Persian gentleman whom one met everywhere, at the Opera, at the Bois de Boulogne, at the concerts of the Conservatoire, etc. Though invariably polite and smiling, he never spoke to any one. For ten years, the occupant of the stall next to his at the Opera had never heard him utter a syllable. He always wore a long white silk petticoat, a splendidly embroidered coat over that, and a conical Astrakan cap. He was always alone; and though every one knew where he lived, in the Pa.s.sage de l'Opera, no one had ever set foot in his apartment. As a matter of course, all sorts of legends were current about him. According to some, he had occupied a high position in his own country, from which he had voluntarily exiled himself, owing to his detestation of Eastern habits; according to others, he was simply a dealer in Indian shawls, who had made a fortune. A third group, the spiteful ones, maintained that he sold dates and pastilles, and that the reason why he did not speak was because he was dumb, though not deaf. He died during the Second Empire, very much respected in the neighbourhood, for he had been very charitable.

Towards the middle of the forties the Pa.s.sage de l'Opera began to lose some of its prestige as a lounge. The outside stockjobbers, whom the police had driven from the Boulevards and the steps of Tortoni, migrated thither, and the galleries that had resounded with the sweet warblings--in a very low key--of the clients of Bernard Latte, the publisher of Donizetti's operas, were made hideous and unbearable with the jostling and bellowing of the money-spinners. Bernard Latte himself was at last compelled to migrate.

In the house the ground-floor of which was occupied by Tortoni, and which was far different in aspect from what it is now, lived Louis Blanc. Toward nine in the morning he came down for his cup of cafe au lait. It was the first cup of coffee of the day served in the establishment. I was never on terms of intimacy with Blanc, and least of all then, for I shared with Major Fraser a dislike to politic-mongers, and, rightly or wrongly, I have always considered the author of "L'Histoire de Dix Ans" as such. Though Louis Blanc was three or four and thirty then, he looked like a boy of seventeen--a fact not altogether owing to his diminutive stature, though he was one of the smallest men, if not the smallest man, I ever saw. Of course I mean a man not absolutely a dwarf. I have been a.s.sured, however, that he was a giant compared to Don Martinoz Garay, Duke of Altamira, and Marquis of Astorga, a Spanish statesman, who died about the early part of the twenties. These notes do not extend beyond the fall of the Commune, and it was only after that event that I met M. Blanc once or twice in his old haunts. Hence my few recollections of him had better be jotted down here. They are not important. The man, though but sixty, and apparently not in bad health, looked _desillusionne_. They were, no doubt, the most trying years to the Third Republic, but M. Blanc must have perceived well enough that, granting all the existing difficulties, the men at the head of affairs were not the Republicans of his dreams. He had, moreover, suffered severe losses; all his important doc.u.ments, such as the correspondence between him and George Sand and Louis-Napoleon while the latter was at Ham, and other equally valuable matter, had been destroyed at the fire of the Northern Goods Station at La Villette, a fire kindled by the Communists. He was dressed almost in the fas.h.i.+on of the forties, a wide-skirted, long, brown frock coat, a s.h.i.+rt innocent of starch, and a broad-brimmed hat. A few years later, he founded a paper, _L'Homme-Libre_, the offices of which were in the Rue Grange-Bateliere.

The concern was financed by a Polish gentleman. Blanc gave his readers to understand that he would speak out plainly about persons and things, whether past or present; that he would advance nothing except on doc.u.mentary proofs; but that, whether he did or not, he would not be badgered into giving or accepting challenges in defence of his writings.

"I am, first of all, too old," he said; "but if I were young again, I should not repeat my folly of '47, when I wanted to fight with Eugene Pelletan on account of a woman whose virtue, provided she had any, could make no difference to either of us. It does not matter to me that we were not the only preux chevaliers of that period, ready to do battle for or against the charms of a woman whose remains had crumbled to dust by then."[14]

[Footnote 14: M. Eugene Pelletan, the father of M. Camille Pelletan, the editor of _La Justice_, and first lieutenant to M. Clemenceau, having severely criticized some pa.s.sages in M.

Blanc's "Histoire de la Revolution," relating to Marie-Antoinette, the author quoted a pa.s.sage of Madame Campan's "Memoires" in support of his writings. The critic refused to admit the conclusiveness of the proof, whereupon M.

Blanc appealed to the Societe des Gens de Lettres, which, on the summing up of M. Taxile Delord, gave a verdict in his favour. M. Pelletan declined to submit to the verdict, as he had refused to admit the jurisdiction, of the tribunal. M.

Blanc, who had at first scouted all idea of a duel, considered himself obliged to resort to this means of obtaining satisfaction, seeing that M. Pelletan stoutly maintained his opinion. A meeting had been arranged when the Revolution of '48 broke out. The opponents having both gone to the Hotel-de-Ville, met by accident at the entrance, and fell into one another's arms. "Thank Heaven!" exclaimed Thiers, when he heard of it. "If Pelletan had killed Blanc, I should have been the smallest man in France."

M. Blanc's allusion to other "preux chevaliers" aimed particularly at M. Cousin, who, having become a minister against his will, resumed with a sigh of relief his studies under the Second Empire. He was especially fond of the seventeenth century, and all at once he, who had scarcely ever noticed a pretty woman, became violently smitten with the d.u.c.h.esse de Longueville, who had been in her grave for nearly two centuries. He positively invested her with every perfection, moral and mental; unfortunately, he could not invest her with a shapely bust, the evidence being too overwhelmingly against her having been adorned that way. One day some one showed him a portrait of the sister of the "grand Conde," in which she was amply provided with the charms the absence of which M. Cousin regretted. He wrote a special chapter on the subject, and was well-nigh challenging all his contradictors.--EDITOR.]

M. Blanc's boast that he would advance nothing except on proof positive was not an idle one, as his contributors found out to their cost. Every afternoon, at three, he arrived at the office to read the paper in proof from the first line to the last. Not the slightest inaccuracy was allowed to pa.s.s. Kind as he was, his reporters' lives became a burden.

One of the latter told me a story which, though it ill.u.s.trates the ridiculousness of M. Blanc's scruples when carried too far, is none the less valuable. A dog had been run over on the Boulevards, and the reporter, with a hankering after the realistic method, had endeavored to reproduce onomatopoeically the sounds uttered by the animal in pain.

"Are you quite sure, monsieur, about your sounds?" asked Blanc.

"Of course, I am as sure as a non-scientific man can be," was the answer.

"Then strike them out; one ought to be scientifically sure. By-the-by, I see you have made use of the word 'howl' (_hurler_). Unless I am mistaken, a dog when in pain yelps (_glapit_). Please alter it."

On another occasion, on going through the advertis.e.m.e.nts, he found a new one relating to a cough mixture, setting forth its virtues in the most glowing terms. Immediately the advertis.e.m.e.nt canva.s.ser was sent for, M.

Blanc having refused to farm out that department to an agency, as is frequently done in Paris, in order to retain the absolute control over it.

"Monsieur, I see that you have a new advertis.e.m.e.nt, and it seems to me a profitable one; still, before inserting it, I should like to be certain that the medicine does all it professes to do. Can you personally vouch for its efficiency?"

"Mon Dieu, monsieur, I believe it does all it professes to do, but you can scarcely expect me to run the risk of bronchitis in order to test it upon myself!"

"Heaven forbid that I should be so exacting and indifferent to other people's health, but until you can bring me some one who has been cured, we will not insert it."

Let me come back for a moment to that sentence of Louis Blanc, about the practice of duelling, in connection with one of the most tragic affairs of that kind within my recollection. I am alluding to the Dujarrier-Beauvallon duel. I have been in the habit for years, whenever an important meeting took place in France, to read every shade of English opinion on the subject; and while recognizing the elevated sentiments of the writers, I have no hesitation in saying that not a single one knew what he was writing about. They could not grasp the fact that for a man of social standing to refuse a challenge or to refrain from sending one, save under very exceptional circ.u.mstances, was tantamount to courting social death. They knew not that every door would henceforth be closed against him; that his wife's best friends would cease to call upon her, by direction of their husbands; that his children at school would be shunned by their comrades; that no young man of equal position to his, were he ever so much in love with his daughter, would ask her to become his wife, that no parents would allow their daughter to marry his son. That is what backing out of a duel meant years ago; that is what it still means to-day--of course, I repeat, with certain cla.s.ses. Is it surprising, then, that with such a prospect facing him, a man should risk death rather than become a pariah? Would the English leader-writer, if he be a man of worth, like to enter his club-room without a hand held out to welcome him from those with whom he was but a few weeks ago on the most friendly footing, without a voice to give him the time of day? I think not; and that is what would happen if he were a Frenchman who neglected to ask satisfaction for even an imaginary insult.

I knew M. Dujarrier, the general manager of _La Presse_, and feel convinced that he was not a bit more quarrelsome or eager "to go out"

than Louis Blanc. It is, moreover, certain that he felt his inferiority, both as a swordsman and as a marksman, to such a practised shot and fencer as M. de Beauvallon; and well he might, seeing that subsequent evidence proved that he, Dujarrier, had never handled either weapon. Yet he not only strenuously opposed all attempts on the part of his friends to effect a reconciliation, but would not afford a hint to his adversary of his want of skill, lest the latter should make him a present of his life. The present would not have been worth accepting. It would have been a Nessus-s.h.i.+rt, and caused the moral death of the recipient.

Consequently, Dujarrier literally went like a lamb to the slaughter rather than be branded as a coward, and he made no secret of his contemplated sacrifice. "I have no alternative but to fight," he said, two days before the meeting, to Alexandre Dumas, who taxed all his own ingenuity, and that of his son, to prevent, at any rate, a fatal issue.

The only way to effect this, according to the very logical reasoning of the two Dumases, was to induce Dujarrier, who, as the offended party, had the choice of weapons, to choose the sword. They counted upon the generosity of Beauvallon, who, as a gentleman, on discovering his adversary's utter lack of skill, would disarm, or inflict a slight wound on him. Unfortunately, young Dumas, with the best intentions, unburthened himself to that effect among those most interested in the affair, namely, the staffs of _La Presse_ and _Le Globe_. These two journals were literally at daggers drawn, and some writers connected with the latter went hinting, if not saying openly, that Dujarrier was already showing the white feather. Whether Dujarrier heard of the comments in that shape, or whether he instinctively guessed what they would be, has never been clearly made out, but it is certain that from that moment he insisted upon the use of pistols. "I do not intend my adversary to show me the slightest favour, either by disarming me or by wounding me in the arm or leg. I mean to have a serious encounter," he said. Young Dumas, frightened perhaps at his want of reticence in the matter, begged his father to go and see Grisier,[15] and claim his intervention. Alexandre Dumas, than whom no stauncher friend ever existed who would have willingly risked his own life to save that of Dujarrier, had to decline the mission suggested by his son. "I cannot do it," he said; "the first and foremost thing is to safeguard Dujarrier's reputation, which is the more precious because it is his first duel."

[Footnote 15: The great fencing-master, whom Dumas immortalized in his "Maitre d'Armes."--EDITOR.]

"His first duel,"--here is the key-note to the whole of the proceedings as far as Dujarrier and his personal friends were concerned. Had Dujarrier been in the position of the editor of his paper, emile de Girardin,--had he been out before and killed or severely wounded his man, as the latter killed Armand Carrel nine years before,--he might have openly announced his determination "never to go out again" under no matter what provocation. Unfortunately, Dujarrier was not in that position; in fact, it is no exaggeration to say that Dujarrier paid the penalty of M. de Girardin's decision. A great deal of mawkish sentiment has been wasted upon the tragic fate of Armand Carrel; in reality, he had what he deserved, albeit that no one more than M. de Girardin himself regretted his untimely end. Most writers will tell one that Carrel fell a victim to his political opinions; nothing is farther from the truth. Armand Carrel fell a victim to a "question of shop" of which he allowed himself, though perhaps not deliberately, to become the champion. After many attempts, more or less successful, in the way of popular journalism, M. de Girardin, in 1836, started _La Presse_, a serious journal of the same size as the then existing ones, but at half the subscription of the latter, all of which absolutely banded at once against him. Armand Carrel, who was a soldier, and a valiant soldier, a writer of talent, and a gentleman to boot, ought to have stood aloof from that kind of polemics. emile de Girardin was not the likely man to submit to open or implied insult. His best, albeit his least-known book, "emile," which is as it were an autobiography, had given the measure of his thoughts on the subject of duelling. "emile" goes into society as a soldier would go into an enemy's country. Not that he is by nature cruel or bloodthirsty, but he knows that, to hold his own, he must be always ready, not only for defence, but for attack.

"The secret one is bound to preserve with regard to the preparations for a meeting, and those preparations themselves are simply horrible. The care, the precautions to be taken, the secret which is not to leak out, all these are very like the preparations for a crime," he says.

"Nevertheless," he goes on, "the horror of all this disappears, when the man, impelled by hatred or resentment, is thirsting for revenge; but when the heart is absolutely without gall, and when the imagination is still subject to all the softer emotions, then, in order not to recoil with fear at the ever horrible idea of a duel, a man must be imbued with all the force of a prejudice which resists the very laws that condemn it."

It was under the latter circ.u.mstances that M. de Girardin confronted his adversary. The two men had probably never exchanged a word with one another, they felt no personal animosity; nay, more, the duel was not an _inevitable_ one; and yet it cost one man his life, and burthened the other with lifelong regrets.

Had the issue been different, _La Presse_ would probably have disappeared, and all recrimination ceased. As it was, unable to goad M.

de Girardin into a reversal of his decision "never to go out again," and that in spite of nine years of direct insult from a so-called political party, of every kind of quasi-legal vexation, M. de Beauvallon const.i.tuted himself a second Armand Carrel, selecting Dujarrier as his victim, the chief not being available. But here all resemblance to Armand Carrel ceased, and the law itself was anxious to mark the difference. In the one case it had been set at nought by two men of undoubted courage and undoubted honour, meeting upon equal terms; in the other, it was proved that, not content with Dujarrier's well-known inferiority, De Beauvallon's pistols had been tried before the encounter. The court could take no cognizance of this, but it marked its disapproval by sentencing Beauvallon to eight years', and one of his seconds, M. d'Ecquevilley, to ten years' imprisonment for perjury. Both had declared on oath that the pistols had not been tried. The Dujarrier duel caused a deep and painful sensation. I have dwelt upon it at greater length than was absolutely necessary, because it inspired me with a resolution from which I have never departed since. I was twenty-seven at the time, and, owing to circ.u.mstances which I need not relate here, foresaw that the greater part of my life would be spent in France. I am neither more courageous nor more cowardly than most persons, but I objected to be shot down like a mad dog on the most futile pretext because some one happened to have a grudge against me. To have declined "to go out" on the score of my nationality would not have met the case in the conditions in which I was living, so from that moment I became an a.s.siduous client at Gosset's shooting-gallery, and took fencing lessons of Grisier. I do not know that I became very formidable with either weapon, only sufficiently skilled not to be altogether defenceless. I took care at the same time to let it go forth that a duel to me not only meant one or both parties so severely wounded as not to be able to continue the struggle, but the resumption of the combat, when he or they had recovered, until one was killed. Of course, it implied that I would only go out for a sufficiently weighty reason, but that, if compelled to do so for a trifling one, I would still adhere to my original resolution. Only once, more than twelve years afterwards, I had a quarrel fastened upon me, arising out of the excitement consequent upon the attempt of Orsini. I was the offended party, and, as such, could dictate the conditions of the meeting. I declined to modify in the least the rules I had laid down for my own guidance, and stated as much to those who were to act for me--General Fleury and Alexandre Dumas. My adversary's friends refused to accept the terms. I was never molested afterwards, though an Englishman had not always a pleasant life of it, even under the Second Empire.

In connection with Dujarrier's duel, I may say a few words here of that quasi-wonderful woman, Lola Montes. I say "quasi," because really there was nothing wonderful about her, except perhaps her beauty and her consummate impudence. She had not a sc.r.a.p of talent of any kind; education she had none, for, whether she spoke in English, French, or Spanish, grammatical errors abounded, and her expressions were always those of a pretentious housemaid, unless they were those of an excited fishwife. She told me that she had been at a boarding-school in Bath, and that she was a native of Limerick, but that when quite a child she was taken to Seville by her parents. Her father, according to her account, was a Spaniard, her mother a Creole. "But I scandalized every one at school, and would not learn." I could quite believe that; what I could not believe was that a girl of her quick powers--for she undoubtedly possessed those--could have spent, however short a time in the society of decent girls of her own age, let alone of presumedly refined school-mistresses, without having acquired some elementary notions of manner and address. Her gait and carriage were those of a d.u.c.h.ess, for she was naturally graceful, but the moment she opened her lips, the illusion vanished--at least to me; for I am bound to admit that men of far higher intellectual attainments than mine, and familiar with very good society, raved and kept raving about her, though all those defects could not have failed to strike them as they had struck me. I take it that it must have been her beauty, for, though not devoid of wit, her wit was that of the pot-house, which would not have been tolerated in the smoking-room of a club in the small hours.

When Dujarrier was carried home dying to the Rue Lafitte, a woman flung herself on the body and covered his face with kisses. That woman was Lola Montes. In his will he left her eighteen shares in the Palais-Royal Theatre, amounting in value to about 20,000 francs. She insisted afterwards in appearing as a witness at the trial in Rouen, although her evidence threw not the slightest light upon the matter. She wanted to create a sensation; and she accomplished her aim. I was there, and though the court was crowded with men occupying the foremost ranks in literature, art, and Paris society, no one attracted the attention she did. Even the sober president and a.s.sessors sat staring at her open-mouthed when she took her stand behind the little rail which does duty for a witness-box in France. She was dressed in mourning--not the deepest, but soft ma.s.ses of silk and lace--and when she lifted her veil and took off her glove to take the prescribed oath, a murmur of admiration ran through the court. That is why she had undertaken the journey to Rouen, and verily she had her reward.

It was on that occasion that I became acquainted, though quite by accident, with the young man who, ten or eleven years later, was to leap into fame all of a sudden with one novel. I have already said that the court was very crowded, and next to me was standing a tall, strapping fellow, somewhat younger than myself, whom, at the first glance, one would have taken to be an English country gentleman or well-to-do farmer's son. Such mistakes are easily made in Normandy. When Lola Montes came forward to give her evidence, some one on the other side of him remarked that she looked like the heroine of a novel.

"Yes," he replied; "but the heroines of the real novels enacted in everyday life do not always look like that."

Then he turned to me, having seen me speak to several people from Paris and in company of Alexandre Dumas and Berryer, whom everybody knew. He asked me some particulars about Lola Montes, which I gave him. I found him exceedingly well-informed. We chatted for a while. When he left he handed me his card, and hoped that we should see one another again. The card bore the simple superscription of "Gustave Flaubert." I was told during the evening that he was the son of a local physician of note.

Twelve years later the whole of France rang with his name. He had written "Madame Bovary," and laid the foundation of what subsequently became the ultra-realistic school of French fiction.

To return for a moment to Lola Montes. The trial was really the starting-point of her notoriety, for, in spite of her beauty, she had been at one time reduced to sing in the streets in Brussels. That was after she had fled from Calcutta, whither her first husband, a captain or lieutenant James, in the service of the East India Company, had taken her. She landed at Southampton, and, during her journey to London, managed to ingratiate herself with an English n.o.bleman, by pretending that she was the wife a Spanish soldier who had been shot by the Carlists. She told me all this herself, because she was not in the least reticent about her scheming, especially after her scheming had failed.

She would, however, not divulge the name of her travelling companion, who tried to befriend her by introducing her to some of his acquaintances, with the view of obtaining singing lessons for her. "But I did not make my expenses, because you English are so very moral and my patron was suspected of not giving himself all that trouble for nothing.

Besides, they managed to ferret out that I was not the widow of a Spanish officer, but the wife of an English one; and then, as you may imagine, it was all up. I got, however, an engagement at the Opera House in the ballet, but not for long; of course, I could not dance much, but I could dance as well as half your wooden ugly women that were there.

But they told tales about me, and the manager dismissed me."[16]

[Footnote 16: The English n.o.bleman must have been Lord Malmesbury, who alludes to her as follows: "This was a most remarkable woman, and may be said by her conduct at Munich to have set fire to the magazine of revolution, which was ready to burst forth all over Europe, and which made the year 1848 memorable. I made her acquaintance by accident, as I was going up to London from Heron Court, in the railway. The Consul at Southampton asked me to take charge of a Spanish lady who had been recommended to his care, and who had just landed. I consented to do this, and was introduced by him to a remarkably handsome person, who was in deep mourning, and who appeared to be in great distress. As we were alone in the carriage, she, of her own accord, informed me, in bad English, that she was the widow of Don Diego Leon, who had lately been shot by the Carlists after he was taken prisoner, and that she was going to London to sell some Spanish property that she possessed, and give lessons in singing, as she was very poor. On arriving in London she took some lodgings, and came to my house to a little concert which I gave, and sang some Spanish ballads. Her accent was foreign, and she had all the appearance of being what she pretended to be. She sold different things, such as veils, etc., to the party present, and received a good deal of patronage. Eventually she took an engagement for the ballet at the Opera House, but her dancing was very inferior. At last she was recognized as an impostor, her real name being Mrs. James, and Irish by extraction, and had married an officer in India.

Her engagement at the Opera was cancelled, she left the country, and retired to Munich. She was a very violent woman, and actually struck one of the Bavarian generals as he was reviewing the troops. The king became perfectly infatuated with her beauty and cleverness, and gave her large sums of money, with a t.i.tle, which she afterwards bore when she returned to England." ("Memoirs of an Ex-minister," by the Earl of Malmesbury.)

Lord Malmesbury is wrong in nearly every particular which he has got from hearsay. Lola Montes did not retire to Munich after her engagement at the Opera House had been cancelled, but to Brussels, and from there to Warsaw. Nor did she play the all-important part in the Bavarian riots or revolution he ascribes to her. The author of these notes has most of the particulars of Lola Montes' career previous to her appearance in Munich from her own lips, and, as he has already said, she was not in the least reticent about her scheming, especially when her scheming had failed. For the story of the events at Munich, I gather inferentially from his notes that he is indebted to Karl von Abel, King Ludwig's ultramontane minister, who came afterwards to Paris, and who, if I mistake not, was the father or the uncle of Herr von Abel, the Berlin correspondent of the _Times_, some fourteen or fifteen years ago.--EDITOR.]

She fostered no illusions with regard to her ch.o.r.egraphic talents; in fact, she fostered no illusions about anything, and her candour was the best trait in her character. She had failed as a dancer in Warsaw, whither she had gone from London, by way of Brussels. In the Belgian capital, according to her own story, she had been obliged to sing in the streets to keep from starvation. I asked her why she had not come from London to Paris, "where for a woman of her attractions, and not hampered by many scruples," as I pointed out to her, "there were many more resources than elsewhere." The answer was so characteristic of the daring adventuress, who, notwithstanding her impecuniosity, flew at the highest game to be had, that I transcribe it in full. I am often reluctant to trust to my memory: in this instance I may; I remember every word of it. This almost illiterate schemer, who probably had not the remotest notion of geography, of history, had pretty well "the Almanach de Gotha" by heart, and seemed to guess instinctively at things which said Almanach carefully abstained from mentioning, namely, the good understanding or the reverse between the married royal couples of Europe, etc.

"Why did I not come to Paris!" she replied. "What was the good of coming to Paris where there was a king, bourgeois to his finger-nails, tight-fisted besides, and notoriously the most moral and best father all the world over; with princes who were nearly as much married as their dad, and with those who were single far away? What was the good of coming to a town where you could not bear the t.i.tle of 'la maitresse du prince' without the risk of being taken to the frontier between two gendarmes, where you could not have squeezed a thousand louis out of any of the royal sons for the life of you? What was the good of trying to get a count, where the wife of a grocer or a shoemaker might have objected to your presence at a ball, on the ground of your being an immoral person? No, I really meant to make my way to the Hague. I had heard that William II. whacked his wife like any drunken labourer, so that his sons had to interfere every now and then. I had heard this in Calcutta, and from folk who were likely to know. But as I thought that I might have the succession of the whacks, as well as of the lord, I wanted to try my chance at Brussels first; besides, I hadn't much money."

"But King Leopold is married, and lives very happily with his wife," I interrupted.

"Of course he does--they all do," was the answer; "mais ca n'empeche pas les sentiments, does it?" I am very ignorant, and haven't a bit of memory, but I once heard a story about a Danish or Swedish king--I do not know the difference--who married an adventuress like myself, though the queen and the mother of his heir was alive. He committed bigamy, but kings and queens may do things we mayn't. One day, he and his lawful wife were at one of their country seats, and, leaning out of the window, when a carriage pa.s.sed with a good-looking woman in it, 'Who is this lady?' asked the queen. 'That's my wife,' replied the king. 'Your wife!

what am I, then?' said the queen. 'You? well, you are my queen.'[17]

[Footnote 17: Lola Montes was perfectly correct. It was Frederick IV. of Denmark, only the woman was not an adventuress like herself, but the Countess Reventlow, whom he had abducted.--EDITOR.]

"Never mind, whatever my intentions on Leopold's money or affections may have been, they came to nothing; for before I could get as much as a peep at him, my money had all been spent, and I was obliged to part with my clothes first, and then to sing in the streets to get food. I was taken from Brussels to Warsaw by a man whom I believe to be a German. He spoke many languages, but he was not very well off himself.