Lola Montez and the Poisoned Nom de Plume

by Kit Brennan

  Dr. Koreff prescribed me powders. I took as large a dose as he could recommend, and the empty world fell away. In this way, I lay in my room for the next several days. I don’t remember much except the excruciating agony of coming to consciousness, recalling the senseless catastrophe, and reaching for another dose. Then oblivion again.

  The funeral was held on March 13th, and I was unable to face it. In fact, his mother, too, could not attend, for she was also prostrate with grief—a woman I’d never met. Henri had been hopeful of reconciliation eventually, but now, like everything else, that would never be. The funeral was held at the church of Notre-Dame de Lorette; he was laid in the ground beside his father, as he’d requested, in Montmartre Cemetery. The pallbearers were Alexandre Dumas, Honoré de Balzac, Émile de Girardin, and Joseph Méry—who had laughingly asked us to invite him along on our honeymoon in Spain, that night at Dumas’ dinner party.

  Girardin and Méry had the grace to visit me after the funeral, and they tried to console me as much as they knew how. Henri’s partner was always a taciturn man, very shy, so he sat off in a corner and mopped his brow, quietly mourning, while Méry urged me to think practically.

  “Beauvallon and his second, d’Ecqueville, have fled to Spain,” he told me. “My thought is that they’re waiting it out, letting the scandal die down. Also, they probably wish to avoid paying the usual hefty fine to the widow of a slain opponent—that would be you. But as you weren’t officially married, it’s likely you wouldn’t see that money anyway.”

  I shook my head—what did I care?

  Méry put a comforting arm around me and whispered, “This may sound harsh, my dear, but a mistress is expected to get what she can from her lover while he’s alive. You must look out for yourself now—think of the future.”

  “There is none.”

  “Now, now…”

  The next time Dr. Koreff came, I badgered him for details about my darling’s last morning—what had happened, why had it gone so terribly wrong? You were there, you must have seen…? The toady fellow was a nervous nose-picker: whenever he was forced to talk about something unsavoury, his fingers—and sometimes both hands—would wander to his bulbous protuberance and begin to worry the nostrils, outside and in. He seemed to believe that he was doing it only when no one was looking, but didn’t understand that no one was looking because he had his fingers rammed up, busily digging. Ugh. I kept my eyes turned away and listened intently.

  “Bertrand, one of Dujarier’s seconds, had called me to attend at the field,” he said. “So I came in the carriage with them. The duel was supposed to be at seven o’clock. It was very cold; we waited and waited, Dujarier pacing and shivering. When eight o’clock had come and gone, the other second, de Boigne, announced that—Beauvallon being now an hour late—honour had been served and we could all go home. Dujarier said no, he wouldn’t be called out again and waste another morning: it was now or never, and so he would wait. At half past eight, Beauvallon and d’Ecqueville arrived. No reason for their lateness was given. The seconds again tried to dissuade the men from duelling, but the two principals were determined to go ahead. De Boigne counselled Dujarier to fire immediately after the requisite paces so that Beauvallon would have to return fire at once—those are the rules.”

  I turned back to watch the doctor’s face, intently. His fingers had returned to his lap. “This, Beauvallon did not do. There was a lapse of time—and Dujarier did not turn to the side to reduce the size of himself as target… Perhaps he didn’t know or realize… At any rate, the bullet went straight into his brain. He collapsed, as you saw, and I knew at once that he would soon be a dead man.”

  I began shuddering violently, and requested the doctor to leave. He placed another packet of powders on the table beside the bed, bowing obsequiously but with a kind of fascinated intensity. He seemed at that moment to be loving my misery. I was shocked, and detested him for it. I took a large dose anyway, and soon wished that I hadn’t. The nightmares were appalling, accompanied by violent stomach pains. As I dragged myself out of that particular abyss—almost two days later, the valet, Gabriel, told me—I wondered what on earth the powders contained. And I vowed to stop taking them, come what may. In fact, I threw them out, so that I couldn’t change my mind in the middle of the night, some night when life seemed not worth living—meaning every night just then.

  For my problems, my miseries, were rising exponentially. The fairy musical, La Biche aux Bois, was opening, and though they had put off the first night in respect of the tragedy, the show must go on and I was either in it or out of it, so what was it to be? I needed that dancing engagement—had no idea what I would do for money if I cancelled or withdrew—so I crawled out of bed and into my costume, three days after the funeral. I rehearsed, did my number, then crawled back into bed. When the production opened, I admit, my dancing was uninspired. Strangely, I could barely move, I was physically stiff as well as mentally unsound. Careening around wildly, at one point I nearly fell off the stage—but the audience was cruel, they were terrible to me! As I was finishing, an ugly bald man halfway back in the rows, thin as a post and with an abnormally loud voice, began hissing and calling for me to “Get off!” The gist of it was picked up by others: catcalls, men yelling, “Show us your legs!” I felt like a cornered, caged wild animal! I gave them a frothy glimpse of bare legs through crinolines, then, running directly down to the edge as if I was about to leap in amongst them, I thumbed my nose—directly at the bald one’s glinting dome, and indirectly at everyone else. I hated them at that moment. Hated them all with a passion! More booing, as audience members began stamping in their seats, enjoying the anarchy. I swirled off, retching, into the wings.

  The next morning, a lawyer came to the apartment. Gabriel admitted him, then told me where the man was awaiting me. What now, I thought. Over the lovely walnut table where Henri and I had eaten fine meals and toasted our never-ending love, the lawyer said that Madame Dujarier had contested the new codicil. It had not been witnessed and had therefore been overruled. I was to leave the apartment within six weeks; all of Henri’s considerable fortune, as well as his stocks and shares, were to go to herself and to his sister, while the apartment’s furnishings—as well as his stable of horses—would go to Alexandre Dumas. Madame Dujarier wished me to know that she had an inventory of all objects and financial matters.

  Several weeks went by, I don’t know how. I danced in La Biche—and somehow, nastily, for a lot of Parisians it soon became a risible, almost nightly event to go to the Théâtre de la Porte Sainte-Martin to bait and jeer at Lola Montez. To get her to charge down at the audience and stick out her tongue, or flip them the finger—for I did get worse, as the nights went on. Giddy and dizzy, I didn’t seem to give a rat’s ass! The thin man, leading the pack, was often there, though not always in the same seat. I questioned the house manager one night; he said he didn’t know the fellow, though the man had only one leg and used a crutch. Cochon, I thought—some twisted creep with an axe to grind, and he has to take it out on a grieving, desperate woman. Bastardo.

  Then management fired me. They didn’t approve of the tone of my performance, the manager said. “But you’re a friend of Henri’s,” I protested. “Surely you understand the stress that I’m under.”

  “Frankly, mademoiselle, although it is sad, that is none of my business. My business is the theatre, and you are bringing the play into disrepute.”

  So that was that.

  Meanwhile, the investigation into Henri’s murder remained the scandal of the day, and the newspapers were full of it. Thank God that, at this difficult time, I was told my living expenses would be paid by the courts, since I was to be a main witness for the case when it came to trial. No one knew when that would be, for Beauvallon was still out of the country—hiding, like the bullying coward he truly was.

  At the end of April, I moved out of 39 rue Lafitte: our nest, our world of love-making, our beautiful bedroom with the summer breezes cooling our skins… Wher
e I’d lain beside my darling’s cold, dead body, kissing and drenching with tears his hair, his brow, his beloved hands and—with sickened trepidation—the unmarred left cheek, my own eyes closed so that I wouldn’t see up close the gaping hole, scorched flesh, and the dark, congealed blood on the other side. But I could smell it. Rich and rusty, a sharp, feral scent.

  Sobbing, then, uncontrollably, my ear against the still, white chest with its broken, silent heart…

  All gone.

  *

  Somehow the days went by, one after another. I took a tiny apartment near Montmartre, and spent many hours curled up on the small divan with which it was equipped. A few friends came by—Pier-Angelo, for one, dear man, and he helped me out with rent for the month. George Sand also paid a visit, and I was surprised by this.

  “Darling, I’m devastated,” she told me, sitting beside me and taking my hand. “I was so sure that you were set up for life—and such a man! Such a true gentleman.”

  “Please don’t.”

  “No, of course not, too painful indeed.” She raised my hand and kissed it. “I enjoyed you in La Biche, my dear, and thought you put up an awfully good fight.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “What else can we talk about?” She patted the hand. “Well, let’s see… I’ve been struggling with my own Nélida. To see d’Agoult’s book causing such a fuss in the press is too nauseating, so I’ve embarked upon my own—calling it Lucrezia Floriani. I’m so annoyed with Chopinsky at the moment that I could scream; he’s absolutely mesmerized by that cock-tease daughter of mine. So I’m getting him back.” She flounced up and took a turn round the little room. “He won’t notice anyway; he never does notice things like that, even when it’s staring him straight in the face.”

  “A disguised story of your love affair?”

  “Yes, that’s it.”

  “I wish you all the luck with it.” I didn’t dare tell the celebrated Sand that I’d harboured fictional aspirations of my own. My flashy nom de plume, Lorenzo Milagros, now seemed tawdry and atrocious. Why would I write about nearly true events, in disguise or not? I didn’t wish to relive them, couldn’t stand to think about them. Tragic ends to beautiful love affairs… Diego, by firing squad. Henri, by duelling pistol—why, oh why? And the ghastly thought struck like a hammer blow: is Dumas right? Do I bring the evil eye to any man who dares to link his destiny with mine?

  George could see that I was in no condition to gossip and be diverted. She gave me a series of soft kisses from cheek to cheek, murmuring condolences, and rose to leave.

  “Thank you for coming, Countess Dudevant,” I managed.

  “I’ll be back. I won’t let you sink, Lola; there’s life in you yet. And you know that I’ll always be George to you.”

  After she’d gone, I found a fat packet of cash pushed under my pillow.

  *

  One day in the middle of May, I received another unexpected visitor. I’d been sitting at the little table by the window, toiling over my deplorable story. Having been reminded of it by George’s visit, I bit back my disgust and resolved to try again. Frankly, I wasn’t sure how else to attempt a living in Paris, where I was constrained to remain until the trial had taken place. Perhaps Girardin would take pity on his partner’s fiancée and publish the wretched thing? After La Biche, I didn’t think I’d be hired again as a dancer, or certainly not right away. And my heart wasn’t in it anymore, either. Go stuff it.

  Almost every day, each of the newspapers ran an article connected with Henri’s death. The great public of Paris had been roused to fury, finally, at the ongoing tragedy of illicit duelling between reckless young men. The international papers also expressed their outrage and castigated the French for the senseless crime. Beauvallon’s name was being dragged through the mud, and I deeply approved. I longed for the trial to begin and for the outcome I devoutly desired for the man: death by hanging. It would be unusual for a court to go so far, but this was an unusual case. The cabrón—the hijo de puta!—was still hiding out in Spain, and the public’s uproar was such that the courts were debating whether or not they dared hold the trial in Paris—whenever it finally took place—because they feared crowds and riots. Perhaps they would place it in some smaller town a day’s ride away, so the papers reported.

  In any case, that day in May, there was a knock at the door, and I opened it to Arthur Bertrand, the other of Henri’s seconds during the duel. This was surprising—what could he want with me?—but I asked him in.

  He sat at my table and told me the whole story, or as much of it as he knew. It was a sad, scurrilous tangle of knavery from first to last, the kind of story one would think that only the novelists would write, but no. This tale was true and had murdered my love.

  Henri and his seconds, along with Dr. Koreff, had arrived at the stated time, and waited in the field of the Favourite. Henri drank some cognac from a flask to try to feel warm. Time passed as they paced and shivered; Bertrand told me that Henri had not looked at all well—shivering as if from some ague or worse, and with a green tinge to his cheeks. Snow fell, the temperature dropped. An hour and a half after the stated time, Beauvallon and d’Ecqueville galloped up, cool as could be. Henri’s other second, de Boigne, called that they were much too late and therefore the duel was off. Beauvallon dismounted, scoffing, “I haven’t come here for nothing.”

  The day before, dice had been thrown to decide which set of duelling pistols would be used—the ones Henri had from Dumas, or the two in Beauvallon’s possession. Beauvallon’s had won the toss. On the morning of the duel, Bertrand told me, when these pistols were brought out of their case and examined, he’d noticed that they were warm and had recently been fired, and he called the other on it. D’Ecqueville swore then that he, d’Ecqueville, had simply aired the pistols, thus soiling them slightly—flambage, he said, a bit of powder flashed off—and nothing else. Again de Boigne had tried to dissuade the combatants from duelling, but both shrugged him off.

  Henri and Beauvallon stood back to back, then took thirty paces each, pistols raised in the air. As counselled, when the signal was given, Henri turned and fired immediately, the shot going wide.

  “But then,” Arthur Bertrand said, looking down at his hands and interlocking the fingers, “with his life now quite free of danger, and in legal command of his opponent’s life, Beauvallon took careful aim… Not only that.” Bertrand looked up at me. “He stood in that posture a good forty seconds, as Henri faced him bravely… We thought that he must be simply taunting Henri, and would then fire into the air. Finally de Boigne shouted, ‘Fire, man—fire if you’re going to!’ And Beauvallon did so—deliberately—directly into Dujarier’s face. It was appalling.”

  “Oh, God…”

  “Somehow, Mademoiselle Montez—and I know I should not be speaking to you, but I could not help myself—somehow, as I say, in the trial itself we must ensure that the man’s flagrant lying and ungentlemanly conduct is properly punished.”

  “Yes, indeed.”

  We both sat there, blinking, eyes wet and brows furrowed.

  “I believe it was part of a cool conspiracy,” he added quietly. “That there’s more to the pistols Beauvallon brought with him than meets the eye. I came to ask you—for I’ve heard that you’d been shooting at Lepage’s gallery, sometimes when Beauvallon was there—is there anything that you know about those pistols, that could perhaps shed further light upon what happened and why?”

  “Those pistols? No. The ones that Henri proposed to use belong to Alexandre Dumas—but you say that he lost the toss, the day before…” I thought, then asked, “Where did that happen?”

  “In Dujarier’s office. Late afternoon.”

  “Who made the toss, and checked the coin? Was it d’Ecqueville? Did anyone else see, to verify?”

  Bertrand looked thoughtful. “I did not. And yes, it was d’Ecqueville. I must check with de Boigne, see if he remembers. At the time, it all seemed very gentlemanly and civil. Though Henri did not look
well or happy. Just determined.”

  We were silent again. Then, remembering, I asked, “And who was in the black cabriolet that was also in the field that morning?”

  Bertrand nodded. “We wondered that, too. It drove up a few minutes after the others had arrived. At first we thought it might be police, having caught wind of the duel and come to arrest us… But no. Dr. Koreff mentioned to de Boigne that it was Beauvallon’s other second, who was incapacitated that morning and couldn’t stand, but was there as witness—and then everything else began to tumble ahead and it was forgotten. I’m sorry that I don’t know anything else about it.”

  “It’s quite all right,” I said, but wasn’t so sure.

  “Thank you for your help, Mademoiselle Montez.”

  I wished I could have done more. I thanked him for coming and we shook hands. We would see each other in court.

  Bertrand’s visit underscored my irreparable loss… I felt so alone, had no idea what to do with myself. All the lonely women in mourning—there’s a tribe of them, always, and I had now, once again, become one. Always in waiting, never to see the one for whom one waits. Which reminded me, then, of a lonely amie, one I’d forgotten since the tragedy: Merci. She might be able to offer some small comfort, and hopefully, I could do the same for her.

  *

  I was appalled by what I saw. She came to the door, wrapped only in a flimsy negligée, although it was two in the afternoon. But it wasn’t the negligée that was appalling—it was the state of her. Her arms and legs were stick-thin, the knobs of her joints being the thickest part of them. Her face and head looked like a skull, the hair hanging lank and unwashed.

  She ushered me in and offered me champagne. I turned it down and tried to school my face not to show the astonishment I felt.

  “My dear, I’m so sorry I haven’t come sooner,” I said.

  “Pas de tout, you’ve had such a terrible loss, Lola. I am so sorry for you, and for sweet, sweet Henri… A man among millions…”