But this was not until some time after he had received his abrupt congé from Lola Montez.
Once more, Lola had drawn a blank in the matrimonial market.
IV
With Adrienne Lecouvreur, Lola Montez must often have asked herself, Que faire au monde sans aimer? "Living without loving" had no appeal for her. Hence, she was soon credited (or discredited) with a fresh liaison. This time her choice fell on a German baron, named Kirke, who also happened to be a doctor. There was a special bond between them, for he had come from Munich, and could thus awaken memories and tell her of Ludwig, of Fritz Peissner and the other good comrades of the Alemannia, and of the house in the Barerstrasse where she had once queened it.
"This fourth adventure in matrimony was," says a chronicler, "copiously consummated." An odd choice of words. But, successful or not, it was short-lived. One fine day the baron took his gun with him into the forest. He did not return. "Killed in a shooting accident" (a fairly common occurrence in the Wild West at that period) was the coroner's verdict. As a result, Lola was once more without a masculine protector.
The position was not devoid of an element of danger, for the district swarmed with lawless gangs, to whom a woman living by herself was looked upon as fair prey. But Lola was not disturbed. She had plenty of courage. She knew, too, that the miners had formed themselves into a "guard of honour," and that it would have gone ill with anybody attempting to molest her. If the diggers were rough, they were chivalrous.
In response to a general invitation from the camp, Lola more than once gave an exhibition of her quality as a danseuse. Although the charge for admission was a hundred dollars, the hall where she appeared was always crammed to the doors. She expanded out, too, in other directions; and a picturesque account of her life at this period says that she slept under the stars ("canopy of heaven" was the writer's more poetical way of putting it) and wore woollen underclothing knitted by herself. Another detail declares that she held a "weekly soirée in her cottage, attended by the upper circles of the camp, a court of littérateurs and actors and wanderers"; and that among the regular guests were "two nephews of Victor Hugo, a quartet of cashiered German barons, and a couple of shady French counts." Obviously, a somewhat mixed gathering. For all this, however, the receptions were "merely convivial assemblies, with champagne and other wine, served with cake and fruit ad lib, and everyone smoked. The two Hugo neighbours were always there, as well as a son of Preston Brooks, the South Carolina congressman. A dozen of us looked forward to attending these salons, which we called 'experience-meetings.' Senator William M. Stewart, then a young lawyer in Nevada, said he used to count the days between each. Every song, every story, every scrap of humour or pathos that any of the young men came across would be preserved for the next gathering. Occasionally, our charming hostess would have a little fancy-dress affair at the cottage, and, clad in the fluffy and abbreviated garments she had once worn on the stage, show us that she still remembered her dancing-steps."