Royal Romances: Titillating Tales of Passion and Power in the Palaces of Europe

by Leslie Carroll

  Although Lola’s affair with Lizst ended unhappily, he provided her with letters of introduction to several of his friends in France, many of whom were among the literary lights of Paris, including Alexandre Dumas père and fils, the respective authors of The Three Musketeers and La Dame aux Camélias; and Lola’s idol of female independence, George Sand. Lola had been in the capital for barely a month when her connections led to a booking at the prestigious Opéra. Once again, the crowd went wild for her beauty, but did not rave about her terpsichorean talents. She fell in love with Alexandre Henri Dujarier, editor of the Parisian newspaper La Presse, and the two planned to marry. Lola, always denying that she had ever been married to a Lieutenant Thomas James, considered herself a bachelorette.

  But after Dujarier, whom she called her one great passion, was killed in a duel, a contretemps that for once had nothing to do with her, Lola left France, done with love forever. Dumas père purportedly said of Lola, “She has the evil eye. She is sure to bring bad luck to anyone who closely links his destiny with hers, for however short a time. You see what happened to Dujarier. If ever she is heard of again it will be in connection with some terrible calamity that has befallen a lover of hers.”

  On October 5, 1846, Lola arrived in Munich with her pug Zampa and her lover of the moment, the junior Robert Peel, son of the former British prime minister. Two days later she was trolling for an engagement at the Royal Theatre. But she may also have been looking to trade up in the romance department.

  Munich and Lola were perfect for each other. William Bennett, who wrote for the New York Herald, claimed, “The number of illegitimate children born in Bavaria is almost the same number as those born in wedlock. The beer is particularly excellent in Bavaria but their morals from the king down to the codger are as bad as they can be.”

  The king was nothing to look at by the time Lola Montez was prepared to seduce the capital with her most famous number, the “Spider Dance,” which, to some, more closely resembled an epileptic fit than a cousin of the tarantella. A vivacious sixty-year-old, with eyes that still twinkled for pretty women, Ludwig nonetheless suffered from a recurring skin rash, and the beholder’s gaze could not avoid being drawn to a prominent cyst on his forehead.

  On October 8, Lola presented herself to Ludwig. How she was able to secure an introduction to the Bavarian sovereign is unknown. It may have come through a mutual acquaintance, a thrice-married German lothario named Heinrich von Maltzahn whom Lola had encountered during her travels in London or Paris.

  Ludwig not only had a passion for dancers in general, but he had fallen victim to the popular mania for all things Spanish and had taught himself the language, there being no native speakers in Bavaria. Consequently, he was eager to meet this exotic woman he had heard so much about. A lurid description of Lola and Ludwig’s first encounter, written years after her death, has Ludwig ogling Lola’s famous chest and inquiring, “Nature or art?” Lola allegedly answered by producing her omnipresent dagger (or grabbing the scissors from Ludwig’s desk) and slicing through her laces, revealing her stunning, and completely natural, bosom. The tall tale is in keeping with the sort of outrageous drama Lola was known for—but it never happened. For one thing, although Ludwig may indeed have been curious about Lola’s poitrine, he was also a cultured gentleman and would not have behaved like a lager lout. Additionally, for anyone who knows about the structure of Victorian-era women’s garments and underpinnings, it would have been nigh impossible, not to mention anticlimactic, for Lola to have tried to saw through (or worse, snip) a tight bodice, a heavily boned corset—that laced in the back—and her chemise before her bare flesh was revealed.

  She made her dancing debut in Munich on October 10, Ludwig’s thirty-sixth wedding anniversary, performing to polite applause during the entr’actes of a comedy prophetically titled Der Verwunschene Prinz—The Enchanted Prince. Although critics spared their praise for her talent and technique, she received high marks for her sultry looks and fiery passion. But only one member of the audience really mattered, and he had indeed become enchanted.

  Ludwig owned a portrait collection of gorgeous women, his Schönheits, or Gallery of Beauties, several of whom, such as the English adventuress Jane Digby, had been his lovers. As soon as the king saw Lola dance, he commissioned the court painter, Joseph Stieler, to immortalize her for his gallery.

  Lola Montez was in Munich for barely a week before she attracted a coterie of admirers, most of whom were young army officers. Maltzahn, too, was hanging about, although young Robert Peel seems to have disappeared altogether. Now she was about to land the biggest fish in Bavaria. Ludwig began visiting her hotel every afternoon or evening, sometimes calling on Lola twice a day, and often remaining so late into the evening that the hotel staff had already locked the doors. When Maltzahn was present, the three of them conversed in French. If Lola and Ludwig were the only ones in the room, they spoke in rudimentary Spanish. It was lucky for Lola that the monarch was just a beginner, because her fluency wasn’t significantly better. When the pair corresponded, the letters were written in fractured Spanish. If Lola didn’t know a word, she wrote it in French. If Ludwig got stuck, aware that Lola spoke no German, he would write it in Italian or Latin.

  Lola danced again on October 14. This time her performance engendered a good deal of hissing. After the leader of the detractors was identified, Ludwig exiled him from Munich, banished to the city of Regensburg.

  Five days after this performance, Lola began to sit for her portrait. Naturally, Ludwig insisted on visiting Stieler’s studio to watch paint dry. During the sitting Lola gave the king a rose, and when he accidentally left it at the atelier, Ludwig sent the artist a note asking for the flower to be couriered to him in a protective bag. By this time the king was composing lovestruck poetry in Spanish to his new flame. “I love you with my life, my eyes, my soul, my body, my heart, all of me. Black hair, blue eyes, graceful form.”

  Lola had scheduled a booking in Augsburg on October 24, but Ludwig, already head over heels in love, pleaded with her not to leave him. Realizing she had the monarch practically eating out of her hand, “No puedo dejar Munic,” she confessed. “I can’t leave Munich.” She canceled her upcoming engagement in Augsburg; her poorly received performance of October 14 was the last time she danced for five years.

  As rumors of Ludwig and Lola’s improper relationship began to swirl, the king confessed his passion to his old friend Heinrich von der Tann.

  What does my dear Tann have to say when I tell him that the sixty-year-old has awakened a passion in a beautiful, intelligent, spirited, good-hearted twenty-two-year-old [Lola had shaved four years off her age] nobly-born woman of the South!…I thought I could no longer feel the passion of love, thought my heart was burned out, thought I was no longer what I had been…. Now I’m not like a man of forty or even…like an amorous boy of twenty; I’m in the grip of passion like never before. Sometimes I couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, my blood boiled feverishly, I was lifted to heaven’s heights, my thoughts became purer, I became a better person. I was happy, I am happy. My life has a new vitality, I’m young again, the world smiles on me.

  On November 1, within a month of Lola’s arrival, Ludwig awarded her an annual pension of a hundred thousand florins (at a time when a university professor’s salary was two thousand florins a year, and a cabinet minister earned six thousand florins). But Lola also availed herself of the king’s wallet to grant financial favors for friends who were down on their luck, including a pair of starving dancers who lacked the money for new ballet slippers.

  However, she made enemies as swiftly as she collected adherents, due to her massive ego and overweening sense of entitlement. The first indication that Lola was becoming too self-important came during the intermission of a concert, when the entire audience saw the king leave his wife sitting in the royal box while he quit it to visit his new paramour. As though she were the sovereign and Ludwig the commoner, Lola did not deign to rise from her chair.
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br />   One of the young men who had attached himself to Lola during her early days in Munich was Artillery Lieutenant Friedrich Nüssbammer. Several people suspected that while she was greedily taking advantage of Ludwig, tantalizing, yet denying him her body, she was bestowing it elsewhere, and Nüssbammer was the likely candidate. Two nights running Lola came looking for the lieutenant at his residence, ringing every doorbell and awakening all the tenants. On the second night, she was told to cease and desist by Nüssbammer’s landlady. The woman shouted, “I’m not deaf, Miss,” and Lola retorted, “I’m not ‘Miss,’ but the King’s mistress.”

  After this incident, the pupils at a Munich girls’ school were exhorted to pray for their “mad king,” so that God would make him see the light and banish his lover.

  Public disturbances such as the one with the landlady did not endear Lola to the local police. And before she came under the king’s protection she had refused to register with the authorities, a policy required of all foreign visitors. When Lola finally agreed to comply, in the box marked “accompanied by,” she wrote “un chien” (a dog), referring to her pug, Zampa. The thirty-seven-year-old chief of police, Johann Nepomuk, Baron von Pechmann, was not amused. After making some inquiries about Lola, he discovered that she had been asked to leave a number of cities, including Berlin, Warsaw, Dresden, and Baden-Baden, as a result of volatile incidents.

  Although Lola’s hair-trigger temper had already instigated several disruptive episodes in Munich, the besotted Ludwig, convinced that his beloved was being unjustly persecuted, ordered Pechmann to cease his inquiries into the doorbell affair. Writing to Baron von der Tann, the monarch confided:

  Lolitta (that’s what I call her) is slandered terribly, has been and will be. A foreign woman who wants to settle in Munich, who’s pretty, whom the king loves, who’s spirited, what more does it take to arouse hatred, lies, and persecution. All that will be defeated, too, firmness will triumph in the end. She is not simply someone who loves me, she is my friend, too. She’s told me that she’ll always speak the truth to me, and she’s already told me a number of things I didn’t enjoy hearing…. She loves me so much. I’m providing for her, but she’s not my kept woman.

  The same day Ludwig had sent Lola to see Pechmann to smooth over the doorbell business, he had added a codicil to his will. Lola would receive the Stieler portrait, one hundred thousand florins as long as she did not marry (Ludwig didn’t know about Lieutenant Thomas James or it would surely have nullified the contract), and an income of twenty-four thousand florins for life, or until she subsequently wed.

  I would not be a man of honor, would be unfeeling if I made no provision for her who gave up everything for me, who has no parents [he obviously didn’t know her mother lived], no brothers or sisters, who has no one in the wide world except me; nonetheless she has made no effort to have me remember her in my last wishes, and I do so totally on my own initiative…. Her friendship has made me purer, better. Therese, my dear, good, noble wife, do not condemn me unjustly.

  All of this largesse came within six weeks of meeting Lola.

  But rumors circulated throughout Bavaria that made Ludwig appear the fool and Lola a whore. It was said that she intended to marry Nüssbammer in order to secure her citizenship. And it was reputed that she was measured for her corsets and other lingerie stark naked, often with her shutters open. The king appeared unconcerned by the gossip. He also ignored the advice dispensed by a previous mistress, Jane Digby, warning him to be more discreet about the contents of his letters to his paramours. But on November 12, 1846, Ludwig was addressing himself to “My dearest Lola” and signing, “Heart of my heart, your Luis.” He wrote often and floridly, sending not only letters, but a daily poem, his modus operandi with previous paramours as well.

  On December 1, Ludwig bought a town home for Lola at Barerstrasse 7, providing the property with its own guard of gendarmes. The purchase was made in Lola’s name, in part to conceal the origin of the money, and in part because as a property owner she could apply for Bavarian citizenship. The generous king also considered buying the house where Lola was staying, plus another plot of land on which to build her a third house. Nothing could be enough for his Lolitta. As far as Lola was concerned, the Barerstrasse house needed a considerable amount of refurbishing. But it took a year to complete the renovation (which included the loan, or gift, of several priceless treasures from the Pinakothek Museum), because of Lola’s willful but typical disregard for the requisite building permits.

  Money slipped through Lola’s hands like sand. No sooner had Ludwig given her an allowance than it was spent and she was in debt, exceeding her hundred-thousand-florin annual income almost immediately. On Christmas Eve, 1846, Ludwig drew up a plan for her monthly expenditure, but it was impossible to tether her. Instead, he fueled the financial fire, lavishing even more money on Lola, with extravagant gifts such as a coach with all the extras, including a pair of blue harnesses for her horses.

  Lola’s new nickname, “the German Pompadour,” which she took as a compliment, only sparked her imagination; how else might she emulate Louis XV’s notorious paramour? A request for her own private chapel and confessor was denied, as no cleric would accept the post. There would be no whitewashing of Lola’s virtue.

  Ludwig deputized their mutual friend Baron von Heideck to keep an eye on Lola’s expenses, and Lola sent him all her bills. However, the baron soon found himself more involved in the couple’s life than he had bargained for, when they began using his regular tea parties as a convenient location for their trysts.

  Bavaria had a constitution, but Ludwig was one of the last true Western European autocrats. Nonetheless, his primary interests were aesthetic and cultural, not political. By the 1840s the king had all but ceded control of his government to a repressive Catholic faction of Jesuits called the Ultramontane, because their primary allegiance was “over the mountains,” to the pope in Rome, rather than to their local sovereign. This party was led by Bavaria’s Minister for the Interior, Karl August von Abel. Though a staunch conservative working for a socially liberal king, Abel, who had held his post for a decade, was Ludwig’s ablest minister.

  Abel and Lola would become bitter enemies, and their mutual hatred would change the fate of the kingdom. As the autumn of 1846 faded into winter, Minister von Abel began to mount an opposition to Lola’s influence on the king. But Ludwig was deaf, both literally and figuratively, to Abel’s warnings that his Lolitta was a temptress who was ruining both him and the monarchy.

  Lola’s other major nemesis, Munich’s chief of police, Baron von Pechmann, also confronted Ludwig directly to inform him that his mistress was generating no end of ill will. Her tantrums and outbursts alienated shopkeepers and citizens. Compelled to do damage control when a confectioner lost much of his Christmas business due to a Lola-engendered incident, the king promoted the man to the post of court chocolatier.

  But even when Lola was inspired to do something beneficial, it backfired. She used her substantial influence with Ludwig to get schoolteachers a pay raise, but before the increase was formally announced, she leaked it to the press, taking credit for it. A backlash ensued when people complained that she wielded too much power over the king.

  Baron von Pechmann had become the indefatigable Inspector Javert to Lola’s Jean Valjean. Determined to unmask her as a fraud, he planted a spy inside her household. Crescentia Ganser wasn’t totally reliable, but she was credible enough, reporting to the chief of police that Lola entertained young men at her home at all hours. Among them was Nüssbammer, whom Lola had repeatedly assured the king was just a good friend.

  Ludwig was devastated by the secret reports the baron had collected. Although he was advised never to see Lola again, he could not bear the prospect. He scribbled a dramatic note to Baron von Heideck.

  Happiness is not for this earth. I was happy here, but now I am thrown down from my heaven. The unbelievable has happened. The years I have yet to live I had hoped to pass in exalted l
ove. It was a dream…. It is over now…. The bearer of this, the wife of the sculptor Ganser, will show you the evidence…. I intend to come to your home about 1:30 today. I think it would be best for Lolitta to meet me there. If I must break with her forever (I fear nothing else is possible), still I want to see her one more time…. The king is ashamed, but the 60-year-old man is not, that tears fill his eyes as he writes this.

  Just one hour ago, happy yet was

  Ludwig

  Heideck had scarcely received the note when Ludwig breathlessly arrived, launching himself into the baron’s arms and weeping, “So there is no more joy for me. I thought I had found a woman to be a friend to me for the rest of my days, someone to fill the empty hours with intimate, spiritual joy and make me forget the troubles of state with quiet inspiration and companionship. I honor and love the queen, but her conversation is simply not adequate for my spirit, and my heart needs feminine society. I’m used to it. I had hoped that I’d found such a woman in Lola, and she betrayed me.”

  At this point in their romance, Ludwig and Lola had yet to consummate their relationship. Lola tantalized; Ludwig pined and worshiped. What the pair had been enjoying were indeed long sessions of stimulating discourse, rather than intercourse. And there is a great deal to be said for the fact that even in broken Spanish, Lola was witty, intelligent, intellectual, and clever enough to keep as cosmopolitan and sexual a man as Ludwig utterly infatuated.

  Heideck supported a clean break with Lola, because seeing her again would only cause the king additional stress. But Ludwig insisted, “I…can’t condemn her without a hearing. I couldn’t live with myself if I did that…. She may be innocent, or at least not so guilty as this woman claims…. Think how persecuted she is, how she and I have already been slandered…. [H]er faithlessness has caused enough pain in the depths of my soul that I don’t want to compound it with self-recrimination because I was unjust to her.”