LOLA MONTES: AN OLD STORY RETOLD.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXVI, Issue 7926, 31 July 1886, Page 2

LOLA MONTES: AN OLD STORY RETOLD.

Lola Men tea was the public name of a woman who was born of an English or Irish family of respectable rank 5 her real name is believed to have been Eliza Rosanna Gilbert, or Marie Dolores Eliza Rosanna Gilbert. At a very early age the unhappy girl was found to be possessed of the fatal gift of beauty. Her mother, to whose influence the daughter attributed the misfortunes of her after life, was ambitious and unscrupulous. A residence at Bath, and the society of Bath as it then was, gave the opportunity of a ruinous success; and the poor girl ran the short course to destruction with headlong speed. She was married to an old man, ran away with a captain, and was deserted, while yet little more than a child. "What course she took is too notorious. She appeared for a short time on the stage as a dancer (for which degradation her family put on mourning, and issued undertaker's cards to signify that she was dead to them), and then blazed forth the most notorious Paphian in Europe. A POLITICAL POWEK. Were this all, these pages would not have borne her name 5 but Lob Montes, as Bhe now called herself, exhibited some very remarkable qualities. The natural powers of her mind were very considerable; she had a strong will, and a certain grasp of circumstances; her disposition was genero-is, and her sympathies large. These qualities raised the courtezan to a singular She became a political power. She exercised a fascination over Sovereigns and Ministers more widely extended than perhaps had before been possessed by any woman of her class. She was invited from the stage to

the .palace at Dresden; she wps flattered! by Eoyalty at Berlin ,• the good King of Prussia himself offered her refreshments. She was for a short time affianced to a. prince. Paskewitch, the Viceroy of Poland, offered her a dowry of diamonds which duchesses might envy. Her expulsion from Warsaw made her a heroine at St Petersburg. She was betrothed, to an amataur statesman at Pctris; she became a politician, and after his death an active political intriguer. HER BAVARIAN CABEEE. After a period of public notoriety, shebecame the mistresß of the old King of Bavaria. Over this weak but amiablemonarch she exercised an unbounded influence. He created her Countess of " Lansfeldtj endowed her with an estate of £SOOO a year, with feudal rights ' over a population of 2000, ' persona. She ruled the kingdom, and, singular t* say, ruled it with wisdom and ability; had not the revolution driven her from .powershe would probably have established a freeParliament and liberal institutions atMunich. Her audacity confounded the policy alike of the Jesuits and of Metternich. The political Hypatia was, however, sacrificed to the rabble. She fled from. Munich in disguise, and took refuge in Switzerland. As her reign of power atMunich had been the highest point in her singular history, so her fall was complete. TO DEEPER DEPTHS.. Her extravagance had dissipated the treasures lavished on her by the infatuated king; her estates were confiscated—worse than all, her power was gone, and she could hope no more from the flattery of ■statesmen., She became an adventuress of an inferior class. ■ Her intrigues, her marriages, her duels, and horsewhippings made her, for a time a notoriety in London, Paris, and America. Then she sank into deeper and deeper degradation, and lived out the remainder of her ill-spent life in the depths of poverty in New York, a prey to frightful maladies, forlorn, and dependent in her- - last hours on the consolations of a Christian minister, who .'endeavoured to abate theanguish of her remorse. For, like other celebrated favourites, who, with all her personal charms, but without her glimpses of a better human nature, have sacrificed', the dignity of womanhood to a profligate ambition, she upbraided herself n her lastmoments with her wasted life; and then, when all her ambition and vanity had turned to ashes, she understood what it was to have been the toy of men and thescorn of women. ; HER GRAVE. The following is from the New York correspondence of the Philadelphia Press, of Feb. 21:—In Greenwood Cemetery, Brooklyn, is the grave of a famous woman,, atone time said to be the most beautiful in, the world; but it is comparatively neglected. Indeed, few people know of itsexistence, and there are many who deem: Lola Montes to have been an altogether mythical personage. She was an Irish woman. The beautiful city of Limerick: was her birthplace. Her mother was, a Creole of Spanish blood, and her father was an Irish army officer. When they separated, Lola's mother married a Captain. Craig, and went to India, leaving the child with the father of Craig, at Montrose, Scotland. Afterwards Lola was sent to London, and lived for some- years in, tha family of Sir Jasper Nichols, Commander-in-Chiefof . , the Bengal Army. She was sent to Paris and to Bath to be educated with Sir Jasper'sdaughters, and grew to be a girl of singular beauty and rare accomplishments* Upte the age of fourteen years; all: thus plain sailing. . But now Lola's mother cameback from India, and the romance began.. The mother told Lola that she was going to take her to India, to live. .Accordingly ',' preparations for travel were made. Dresseswere purchased and trunks packed. On* day Lola noticed that a portion of the outfit looked very much like a bride's trousseau. She asked her mother what it meant.jbut <ri received an equivocal reply; Then she. went to a Captain James, with whom mother had travelled home from India, asked him. He told her the truth. Her mother had bargained for a large sum of money to make her the wife of Sir Abraham Lumly, a Judge of the Supreme Court in. . India. He Mas sixty years old,'and, having exhausted the pleasures, of the world, hoped to renew his youth by marriage with the young and beautiful girl: That night Lola made a rope of her bed-clothes, and escaped by way of the window. She fled to Captain James, and told him he might have her if he would save her from her mother and. old Lumly. Captain James did not / hesitate to take her at her word. He gave her shelter for the night, and the next day fled with her to Ireland, where his family lived, and there, after a good deal of trouble and annoyance, they were finally married. Captain James and Lola presently went tethe East Indies, where he had the bad taste to desert her and elope with a Mrs Lomer. . Lola did not grieve, but engaged passage Home on the next vessel, and on the voyage made a complete conquest of a young man named Lennox, a member of the illustrious. Scotch family. Her history after that is already given above. I IN AMERICA: HER GENEROSITY. Then, in 1852, Lola came to America, Naturally, she took to lecturing. She narrated, with great power of expression, the most dramatic incidents of her own career, and had crowded houses wherever ;.■■'. she went. She also appeared on the stage as an actress, and travelled as far as California. Her business manager w&s &■ | married man with two children. When they got out to the Pacific coast, Lola, noticed that he seemed unhappy, and, questioning him, fonnd that he was longing to be with his family again, but had not the money to bring them on with. At once she gave him the sum required to bring his wife and children on. A few months later he died. Lola then settled a fine pension on the widow for life, and 1 sent the children to be educated at a seminary at Troy, New York. They weretwo girls. Some years later one of themfell in love with a United States naval! officer. Lola, acting as the girl's guardian,, approved his suit and they were married. They went to England, and Lola did not see them again for some years. - Of their final meeting more anon. In California Lola married a Mr Huil, from whom she was afterwards divorced. Then she went to Australia and lectured, giving all her receipts to the sufferers in the English. Army in the-Crimean war. REPENTANT AND AN AUTHORESS. .jSubsequently she made two tours'of country, and in 1859 settled down to live in this city. Here she wrote and published', her hooks, and she devoted herself largely to works of charity. She professed repent- • ance for the errors of her life, and was received into the communion of the Protestant Episcopal Church. Althoughshe was now.re- , cognised and cordially greeted by people of the best society, many still denounced her for her former erratic course. So it came to pass that in the fall of 1860, walking on Broad way, she met her prottg d, the daughter of her old agent, who had been married to the naval officer. In her usual impulsive way, Lola rushed up to embrace her, but the young woman repulsed her with: " Madam, I do not know you!" " Not. know me? Why, my child. I am Lola Montes!" "Madam," repeated the girl, who owed her all to Lola's charity, " I donot know you. I never spoke to you before: And if you persist in annoying me I will call a policeman." This ingratitude was too much. Poor Lola fell to the ground in a fainting fit. When she was carried home ' it was found that one side of her body was paralysed. A few weeks later she died. The Eev Dr Hawks, of Calvary Church, was at her deathbed, and said she passed . away in the full assurance of Christian JM faith. She was buried on Jan. 19, 1861, Greenwood cemetery, Dr' Hawks performing the service, and a great host of the best, people of New York being in attendance.