But then the Pictorial Times blew the cover off her lifelong disguise on March 20, accompanied by a cartoon of Lola brandishing a whip. She felt she had to set the record straight with the truth—her version of it—in a letter to the editor that began by shaving two years off her age. She was already deceiving Ludwig, who had thought she was only twenty-two at the time they met, when she was really twenty-six.
My father was a Spanish officer in the service of Don Carlos, my mother a lady of Irish extraction, born at the Havannah, and married for a second time to an Irish gentleman, which I suppose is the cause of my being called Irish and sometimes English, “Betsy Watson, Mrs. James, &, &.”
I beg leave to say that my name is Maria Dolores Porris Montez and I have never changed that name.
Having tantalized Ludwig for months, Lola knew that the king’s desire for her could never be sated if she continued to string him along. But she was also canny enough to recognize when it was time to surrender. The queen left for Franzensbad on June 15, 1847, and on June 17, Ludwig and Lola spent their first, and possibly only, full night together. It may also have been the one time Lola permitted Ludwig to enjoy full sexual intercourse with her.
The very next day, a new man entered her life. On June 18, Lola met a handsome student, twenty-one-year-old Elias “Fritz” Peissner, the son of a bureaucrat. In time, her relationship with Peissner would humiliate the king. But first she embarrassed Ludwig by insisting, as they embarked on their minivacation, that they pay a call on Lieutenant Nüssbammer, who was recuperating after a riding accident. It was an ill-starred holiday all around. At Bad Brückenau, Ludwig’s eldest son, Crown Prince Maximilian, refused to meet Lola, who pitched a fit, crying that it was no way to treat a countess-in-waiting.
After he had enjoyed a taste of paradise, Ludwig found himself on an even tighter leash. Lola continued to tease him, but wriggled her way out of having intercourse with him again. So Ludwig directed his focus elsewhere. By now he had developed a full-blown fetish for her feet, and Lola graciously allowed him to kiss them and to suck on her toes. She also gave the king pieces of flannel that she claimed she had worn beneath her lingerie and instructed Ludwig to wear them next to his own skin.
But on July 20, the couple had a furious argument. Ludwig, having had enough of Lola’s outrageous behavior and incessant demands, walked out on her. Seeing her world crumble before her eyes, Lola became hysterical.
It was Ludwig who caved first, writing a pathetically humble note, conceding that he should not have spoken harshly to Lola and pleading with her to treat him as a friend, as someone who loved her, and not as a servant. He hated always coming last in her world, when he always put her first, and he resented the fact that she reached out to him only when she wanted something.
In Munich, Stieler’s second portrait of Lola went on display, and Ludwig’s fourth volume of poetry was published. It included a poem dedicated
To L***
I believe thee, and when appearances deceive,
Thou art faithful and ever true,
The inner voice betrays me not,
It says: Your loving feeling is right.
Lola continued to hold for ransom her desire to be made a countess, threatening to leave Munich forever if it were not granted, and dramatically packing her coach with (empty) boxes as she prepared to depart. Unaware that she was bluffing, Ludwig panicked and pleaded with her to stay.
Although the king’s confidants insisted that it was not a politically propitious time to ennoble his mistress, on August 25, 1847, Ludwig’s sixty-first birthday, it was Lola who received the present she’d been craving: the title of Countess of Landsfeld. The certificate was mounted in blue velvet with a blue-and-white braided cord leading to the metal box that contained the wax impression of Ludwig’s seal. Opposite the page that bore his signature was Lola’s coat of arms. A different image was depicted in each of the four quadrants of the shield: a sword on a red field; a crowned lion, rampant, on an azure field; also on azure, a silver dolphin; and a pink rose on a white field. The coat of arms was crested with the nine-pointed crown of a countess.
The package was couriered to Lola that morning with a note from Ludwig:
Countess of Landsfeld, for me, my ever dear Lolitta, on my birthday I give myself the gift of giving you your diploma as a countess. I hope it has a good effect on your social situation, but it can’t change the government. Lolitta can’t love, much less esteem a king who doesn’t himself govern, and your Luis wants to be loved by his Lolitta. Enemies, especially your female enemies, will be furious to see you a countess, and it will be that much more necessary for you to be modest and prudent and to avoid all occasions for tumult, to avoid places where there are a lot of people. It’s possible enemies will try to cause disturbances in order to make attempts on your life. Be careful!
Unfortunately, Lola’s ennoblement wasn’t valid until the announcement was published in the Regierungsblatt, the equivalent of the London Gazette (Great Britain’s official newspaper of record), and it was another week before the news was made public. Unaware of this formality, Lola ungratefully laced into Ludwig, accusing him of being ashamed of her. It was hardly the case. The king kissed her portrait twice daily, first thing in the morning and before getting into bed at night. But more important, upon her elevation he immediately increased her monthly allowance to twenty thousand florins, a sum commensurate with being a countess.
Some people believe that once you reach your goals it’s time to set new ones. So the newly minted Countess of Landsfeld turned her sights on Bavaria’s highest honor, the Order of Theresa, which she would later claim was personally presented to her by the queen. Not only did this never happen, but Her Majesty had no interest in ever clapping eyes on Lola. On October 13, 1847, the usually mild-mannered queen wrote to inform her husband that she never could have imagined he would have ennobled his mistress.
I owe it to my honor as a woman—which is dearer to me than life itself—she whom you have raised in rank never—under any circumstances, to see face to face; should she seek to gain admission at court through a promise of yours, you can tell her as a fact—yes, from my mouth: the Queen, the mother of your children, would never receive her.
With typical Victorian-era primness she added,
And now, not one more word written or spoken, of this difficult matter. You will find me as before, cheerful, grateful for every joy you give me, and ever watchfully endeavoring to maintain for you, my Ludwig, the untroubled tranquillity of our home.
Lola nonetheless continued to press her advantage with the king, parlaying her influence into royal appointments for friends, both at court and in the army. Individually they were insignificant, but as an aggregate they made her appear to be the power behind the throne.
Surrounding herself with university students, she now had the gall to take not one, but two young lovers, the twenty-two-year-old Peissner, and a Polish man calling himself Count Eustace Karwowski, who turned out to be a tailor.
Ludwig discovered Lola’s infidelities and had Karwowski deported. When he confronted her about Peissner, she unleashed the full force of her wrath upon him, chasing the king into the street under a hail of curses. The following day, recognizing that she’d gone too far, she sent Ludwig a contrite apology, urging him to return that afternoon “to your always faithful and devoted Lolitta.”
But in January 1848, he learned that Peissner had not left the romantic picture at all and was visiting Lola at all hours. Another quarrel ensued and Ludwig retreated, both physically and emotionally. Lola recklessly added another lover to her collection, a student named Leibinger.
Her coterie formed a loyal opposition, true to Lola and the country. They called themselves the “Alemannia,” and her cadre of Alemannen became her bodyguards and her private spies. But they were creating a rift at the university. Nineteenth-century German university students were extremely conservative and rigid, the opposite of the radical, progressive thinkers at similar academi
es elsewhere in the world. The Catholics and all non-Alemannen at the university called Lola a foreign whore. If a member of the Alemannia showed up for class, the other students would stage a walkout, and the professors refused to teach to an empty lecture hall.
On February 7, the Alemannen were set upon by the other students. Ludwig ordered the bullies to stop and the boys promised to behave, but fighting broke out again that afternoon as well as on the following day. On February 9, 1848, the king dismissed a number of officers whom Lola disliked. Afterward, she was set upon by an outraged mob and found herself in genuine danger. She raced into a church, seeking sanctuary, but the rabble followed her. She was finally rescued by mounted gendarmes who escorted her to the palace.
On February 10, Ludwig shut down the university, which led to further student protests. Two thousand of them marched on the palace, and there were demonstrations outside Lola’s home as well. She stood on her balcony and watched as the police charged into the crowd with bayonets, crying, “Très bien! Très bien!” The burgomaster sent word to the king that the only way that peace could be restored was for Ludwig to order Lola to leave Munich.
At two p.m., Lola sent her own message to her royal paramour to stand firm, but as the afternoon wore on, it became clear that the protestors outnumbered the police three to one. There were now six hundred of them—a citizens’ army.
That evening, the rector of the university handed Ludwig a list of Lola’s felonies. The king’s family and his ministers pleaded with him to dismiss her. For the sake of their children, Queen Therese even went on bended knee before her husband.
That night Ludwig sent Lola a letter urging her to leave until things cooled down.
…I implore you if you ever loved me and if you love me now, leave for one day…. Better that you leave tonight…. I’m afraid for you, and if blood is shed on your behalf, the hatred will increase enormously and your situation will become worse…. The world, you know, is not capable of separating you from me…. Lolitta will always love
Her faithful Luis
Lola returned the note with the messenger: She wasn’t budging.
Finally, within the palace, a compromise was reached. The university would be reopened, because the burghers had appealed to Ludwig.
But on Barerstrasse, Lola remained defiant, even as her exile was being demanded, stepping onto her balcony and shouting, “Here I am! Kill me if you dare!” to the rabble below. They answered her with a barrage of stones. When they missed her, she shouted, “Bad shot!” and, pointing to her heart, shrieked hysterically, “If you want to kill me, here’s where you have to hit!”
Ludwig refused to formally order Lola’s exile, but it was clear that she would have to leave of her own accord in order to avoid any further escalation of unrest. She climbed into her carriage and set out for the palace, but found the garden door locked and a mob surrounding the building. Her coachman then drove her five miles away, and she sent word to Ludwig that she was safe.
After Lola had gone, the crowd that had gathered in front of her house stormed it and began looting until the king arrived and informed them that it was his property they were destroying, and he demanded that they disperse.
Ludwig’s plan was for Lola to flee to Switzerland, where he would eventually meet her. But she tore up the deportation order, and her Alemannen had to calm her down and usher her into the coach for the rail station, where they would board the train for Lindau, the first leg of the journey. Lola scribbled a note to the king en route, telling him her heart was broken, adding that she had no clothes, and had been forced to leave Munich in her pajamas. She assured Ludwig that she was faithful to him until death. She omitted the fact that Peissner was one of her traveling companions.
Rather than continue to Switzerland, Lola remained in Lindau for two weeks, hoping for a reprieve from Ludwig. Meanwhile, he attempted to placate the demonstrators, even as the Prince de Wallerstein, the head of the university, maintained that Lola had been deceiving him. The king claimed that Lola wasn’t responsible for her actions, and that anyone who was against Lola was against him. Ludwig was now convinced, as was Lola, that they were indeed being brought down by a Jesuit conspiracy. He told Wallerstein that if the students went on holiday en masse, he’d be fired.
Ludwig and Lola continued to correspond, and maintained their plans to meet in Lausanne on April 12, but when the king learned that Lola had slept with Peissner on the night of her flight from Munich, he was utterly crushed, writing, “…you have betrayed my love in public and made an enemy of it. Your infidelities have deceived my heart but it forgives you and I repeat: the world is not capable of making me break with you, you alone can do that.” Lola was now a “faithful friend but a faithless lover.”
With a passport issued by Ludwig in the name of Mrs. Bolton, Lola finally departed for Lausanne, as she swore to him that “not one of them is or will be my lover…If you could read my heart, you would see that love without you is no love at all.”
But the king was no longer so quick to believe her, writing the same day,
Very dear Lolitta,
…The decisive moment has arrived. If a student travels with you, or joins you, you will never see me again, you have broken with me. Lolitta, you inspire a love in me as no one ever has before in my life. Never have I done for another what I have done for you. With your love, it would mean nothing to me to break with everything. Much beloved, think of the past 16 months, how your Luis has conducted himself in this time we have known each other. You will never find a heart like mine. Lolitta has the decision.
Unfortunately, he never sent the letter.
Back in England, her stepfather’s former commanding officer Sir Jasper Nicolls, who had been largely responsible for Lola’s upbringing there, gloated over the newspaper clipping from the Times announcing her deportation from Bavaria. He pasted the article in his scrapbook, scribbling beneath it, “What a hold this miserable witch has obtained over this old, adulterous idiot Sovereign. Wretched country to be ruled by such a shameless rogue—but I must remember that Munich is the most abandoned capital in Europe.”
On February 25, Lola arrived in Switzerland. Instead of going to Lausanne, she traveled to Berne after receiving a letter from former flame Robert Peel to rendezvous with him there. In early March, while Ludwig was still pathetically focused on meeting Lola across the border and avenging themselves on their enemies, his advisers were informing him that his position on the throne was fatally weak. The subject of abdication was on the table.
Troops were called into Munich on March 6. The mob warned Ludwig that if he continued to resist their demands, the palace would be torched. At eleven a.m., he capitulated to every request, leading to a two-day period of law and order.
But on March 8, the foolhardy Lola was apprehended in Munich, having sneaked back into the capital disguised as a man. She was taken to police headquarters, where she insisted on seeing the king. On Ludwig’s arrival she once again urged him to flee with her to Switzerland. Instead, she was ushered into a carriage, which departed the city at dawn. The Bavarians lost track of her after the conveyance reached Landsburg.
Ludwig returned to the palace and spent the next few days penning lovesick notes to his mistress. “These three hours talking together with you were worth a year,” and, “I picked out your vest to put on and in the presence of my servants couldn’t resist giving it a kiss.”
On March 15, he was compelled to revoke Lola’s Bavarian citizenship, although she was permitted to retain her title as Countess of Landsfeld. How humiliating it was to write to his beloved Lolitta with the unhappy news, beneath his dignity for an autocrat to have to capitulate to his ministers. Ludwig felt he had betrayed her.
He told the queen on March 16 that he was against abdicating, and wrote as much to Lola the following day. On the eighteenth, it was proposed that he appoint the crown prince as coregent, but the idea fell flat.
On March 19, 1858, Ludwig I of Bavaria abdicated his throne in
the presence of his sons, although, to save face, he had negotiated a palatable deal. He would still retain the form of address “His Majesty, King Ludwig of Bavaria,” as well as his real estate, and he would have an annual income of five hundred thousand florins. But he would have to endure a temporary exile.
He penned his farewell speech and then wrote to Lola to tell her he could meet her in April in Vevey. “God knows when I would have been able to see my Lolitta without this…. I put down the crown, but Lola I could not leave.”
Lola Montez may not have been entirely responsible for the downfall of King Ludwig, but for eighteen months she was the perceived power behind the throne, inspiring him to carry out long-overdue reforms. If he had not given her his heart, soul, and the keys to the kingdom, Ludwig I might have ruled Bavaria until his death, content with the status quo Ultramontane policies of his Jesuit ministers. But the unpalatable combination of the unpopular reforms, the grasping and volatile Lola, and the king’s obsession with her proved fatal for his sovereignty.
Munich’s burghers had threatened that Ludwig would lose his income and risk permanent exile if he visited Lola. The year 1848 had already seen revolutions in other parts of central Europe. He had forfeited his reign, but his kingdom remained. If Ludwig were to quit Bavaria to visit his mistress, his monarchy, too, might be the next to fall.
From Switzerland, where she swanned about with her coterie of male admirers, Lola wrote to Ludwig, asking for money. But the king himself was in financial straits. When he offered her the interest on a bank deposit instead of hard cash, Lola accused him of punishing her. “[I]f you don’t help me I will kill myself and go mad [in that order],” she threatened. “This is what I get for my sacrifices in Munich. I hope this letter will touch your heart.”
Royal Romances: Titillating Tales of Passion and Power in the Palaces of Europe Page 42
