A COUNTESS FOR AN HOUR

Evening Star, Issue 19762, 12 January 1928, Page 4

A COUNTESS FOR AN HOUR

THE AMAZING CAREER OF LOLA MONTEZ A CREOLE DANCER’S DAUGHTER. Who was Donna Lola Montez, whose dazzling beauty turned all heads in the middle years of last century; and who was as ready tb box ears or raise a revolution as to intoxicate the senses of men by a glance from her dark eyef From Warsaw to Paris all Europe was racking its ingenuity to answer this question. Some declared that she was a daughter of that much maligned poet, Lord Byron, with -a charwoman lor mother; others, that she was a child of noble birth kidnapped by gipsies. 'To all such speculations and. inquiries she answered, with a, merry laugh: “ There’s no mystery at all. My mother was an Oliver of Castle- Oliver; my father was a Spanish toreador.” But those who knew told a different tale. The extraordinary story is told fully in ‘ Lola Montez,” by Edmund B. d’Auvergne. A SPIRITED LADY. Donna Lola was cradled at Limerick in 1818, the daughter of an army captain called Gilbert and Lola Oliver, a lovely Creole dancer. She had spent her childhood in Scotland, Paris, and Bath, and had signalised her emancipation from the schoolroom by a runaway marriage with a Captain James. Him she had deserted for the arms ot a handsome young soldier, Captain Lennox, who made love to her during a voyage to India, while her “ Gretna Green” husband “drank porter and slept like a boa-constrictor.” Such was the true story of tho mysterious Spanish dancer whose beauty took London by storm at Her Majesty’s Theatre one June night in 1843; and who, to quote a chronicler, “ floated round the stage like a flower swept by tho wind.” But, ravishingly lovely as Donna Lola was, the verdict of London, Paris, and Berlin was that she was no dancer. In Paris she was hissed off tho stage—only to return in a tornado of rage to make faces at her audience, and to fling her silver garters in their faces.

UNCROWNED QUEEN OF BAVARIA. But if Lola was no Taglioni, she had in her face a fortune greater than any twinkling feet could bring. Wherever her wanderings took her she drew lovers to her side as surely as llamo draws the moths. Dujarrier, the handsomest and cleverest young litterateur in Paris, was her slave; and when a rival's bullet ended his life in a duel, she flung herself on his body and covered his dead face with kisses. _At the ■trial of his slayer she rose, a distractingly beautiful and pathetic figure, and electrified the court by declaring: “if Beauvallon wanted satisfaction, I would have fought him myself, for T am a •better shot than poor Dujarrier ever was.” - ~ ,

From Ear is she carried her witcheries and her adventurous spirit to Munich, where, within five days of setting eyes on her. the susceptible Ludwig I, was proudly introducing her to his court as “my best friend.” A month later she had blossomed into the Countess of Landsfeld, with a palace of her own and a pension of 20,000 florins a year; and her portrait was being painted for Ludwig’s famous gallery of beauties. For a. year the Creole dancer’s daughter was the uncrowned Queen of Bavaria, holding her court, banqueting, and making her royal progresses by the side of her lover. “ COUNTESS FOR AN HOUR.”

But such peaceful triumphs did not long satisfy the little firebrand. Nothing short of a real queendom would please her. Revolution was then in the air. Bavaria was clamoring loudly for reforms which Ludwig, with Austria and Rome at his back, sternly resisted. In Lola’s clever hands, however, the King proved a puppet. She induced him to dismiss his Cabinet and to put in its place a Ministry of her own choosing, pledged to reforms. But she had underestimated the forces arrayed against her. ,

In vain the weak-kneed King declared, in answer to the demand that ho should dismiss his mistress, “ t would rather lose my crown.” He had no choice; his palace was surrounded by a howling, blood-thirsty mob bent on destruction. But it was only when the flames were roaring in her oars that Lola, disguised as a boy, made her way unrecognised from the palace. Her brief sovereignty was ever; she had set a whole country on fire with revolution, had lost her lover his crown —and she was satisfied. THE DANCER REFORMS.

The following year she was back in London, drawing curious crowds to see the drama, ‘ Lola Montez, or a Countess for an Hour,’ a stage presentment of the thrilling scenes of which she had been the inspiration and central figure; and it was not long before she had given her hand to a wealthy young Guardsman, Lieutenant Heald, a man ten years her junior. A few years of turbulent life with him, and she was a widow, her husband mysteriously drowned at Lisbon, whither the pair had fled to escape arrest for bigamy. Once more she appeared at the altar—this time with a bridegroom called Hull, whom she left before the honeymoon had,.waned. Thesn followed a few more years of restless roving over the world, from America to Australia, with a crop of adventures. At last, at the eleventh hour,- a chance visit to Spurgeon’s Tabernacle wrought a dramatic revolu tion in her life. She turned her back on the vanities of the world, and her steps into the path of a tardy piety and a belated charity. Too lati, however; for within a year she was struck down by .paralysis, in New York, and the Magdalene’s soul took its flight, sped by prayers in which she joined with her last breath. ,