*
And what of those she left behind?
The cruel jibe made after Alexandre Dujarier’s death that her love was a curse echoed eerily through the years. Many of her lovers met premature ends.
George Lennox, the dashing officer who had helped to seal her ruin, was aged only twenty-three when he died of fever in India.
The remainder of King Ludwig’s life was marred by sorrow and illness. His son, King Maximilian, died young and was succeeded by Ludwig’s eighteen-year-old grandson, another Ludwig, who earned himself the soubriquet ‘the Mad’. Alienating the Bavarian people with his eccentricities, he withdrew into a dream world and spent the royal fortune building castles, including the famous Neuschwanstein, before drowning in suspicious circumstances.
Fritz Peissner went to America to become a professor of languages. He commanded a German volunteer brigade in the Civil War and was shot from his horse while riding up the line to encourage his troops. He was thirty-seven and left a wife and three young children.
Aged twenty-eight, George Heald met a slow and agonising death from tuberculosis and chronic ulceration of the bowel.
Patrick Hull suffered a fatal stroke not long after he and Lola parted.
Only Thomas James lived into old age. In his mid-fifties, he met a young woman with whom he had several children and he eventually married her.
It is not clear whether Lola was able to have children. Possibly malaria or the methods advocated in Victorian times to avoid unwanted pregnancy affected her fertility. After her death, numerous young women came forward claiming to be her daughters, but their claims were never validated. In the end, it seems all Lola left behind was her legend. Perhaps her most fitting epitaph is summed up in her dedication to one of her American lectures:
To all men and women of every land
Who are not afraid of themselves,
Who trust so much in their own souls that
They dare to stand up in the might of their
Own individuality
To meet the tidal currents of the world.
* * * *
Thank you for reading this book. I hope you found Lola’s story as fascinating as I do. For those who are interested in reading more about her, a short bibliography follows the details of my other books. Reviews are gold to writers. If you have a few moments to leave a short one on Amazon, that would be wonderful. You might also like to visit my blog - http://harrietsteel.blogspot.co.uk/. There you’ll find all kinds of things from the story of Elizabeth Taylor and a famous pearl (Frocks and Rocks) to an interview with the celebrated author, Joanne Harris. If you would like details of my new releases or the promotions I run from time to time, there’s a Follow by Email option.
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Other Books by Harriet Steel
Trouble in Nuala
When Inspector Shanti de Silva moves with his English wife, Jane, to a new post in the sleepy hill town of Nuala, he anticipates a more restful life than police work in the big city entails. However an arrogant plantation owner with a lonely wife, a crusading lawyer, and a death in suspicious circumstances present him with a riddle that he will need all his experience to solve.
Set on the exotic island of Ceylon in the 1930s, Trouble in Nuala is an entertaining and relaxing mystery spiced with humour and a colourful cast of characters.
City of Dreams
After a whirlwind courtship and marriage to dashing Frenchman Emile Daubigny, Anna, the teenage daughter of a Russian furrier, moves to Paris with her new husband, looking forward to a life of gaiety, love and comfortable affluence.
Married life and the social scene in the most fashionable city on earth is everything Anna hoped it would be, but when Emile vanishes without trace and she is evicted, Anna is forced to discover the city’s poverty-stricken dark side of harsh streets and squalid tenements, where the temptation for a penniless young lady to become a kept woman is overwhelming.
To make matters worse, war with Prussia looms and Anna and the city she loves will both struggle to survive.
Following the Dream
The sequel to City of Dreams continues Anna’s story in the magical city of Paris.
Salvation
A story of spies and star-crossed lovers set in the turbulent reign of Queen Elizabeth I. It is 1586: plagued by religious strife at home and with the Royal Treasury almost exhausted, England holds her breath. When will Philip of Spain launch his Armada?
In this world of suspicion and fear, as the prospect of salvation seems increasingly fragile, three people - aspiring playwright, Tom Goodluck; his married lover, Meg, and Huguenot refugee, Alexandre Lamotte - battle their own demons in their search for happiness.
When an enemy threatens to reveal his illicit affair with Meg, Tom is forced to leave his old life behind him. For a while his future in the burgeoning world of Elizabethan theatre looks bright but then events take a turn that threatens his very existence. His mentor and friend, Alexandre Lamotte, comes to his rescue but Lamotte’s past hides tragedy and a dark secret. In trying to save Tom, he puts everything he has achieved at risk. Meanwhile Meg sets out on a path that will test her mettle to the limit.
Dancing and Other Stories
Profits from this collection of short stories will be donated to WaterAid, a charity working to bring clean water and sanitation to villages in the Third World. The collection takes a light-hearted look at some of the big issues in life: love, hate, friendship, jealousy, revenge and biscuits. It includes the prize-winning story, Dryad, co-authored with bestselling author, Joanne Harris for the BBC’s National Competition, End of Story.
Bibliography
Seymour, Bruce. Lola Montez: A Life. Yale University Press 1996
Montez, Lola. Lectures of Lola Montez, Countess of Landsfeld Including Her Autobiography. (Rudd & Carlton) 1858. (Kessinger Publishing’s Rare Reprints ISBN 1425491243.)
D’Auvergne, Edmund B. Lola Montez. An Adventuress of the Forties. 1909 (Reprinted 2012 ISBN – 10 1486146678)
Goldberg, Isaac. Queen of Hearts. The Passionate Pilgrimage of Lola Montez. New York. John Day 1936
Becoming Lola Page 26