Luck came to her very soon, for she had scarcely arrived in the capital when she encountered a young Englishman, Mr. Francis Leigh, an ex-officer of the 10th Hussars. Within a week the two were on such intimate terms that they set up housekeeping together. But the harmony was shattered abruptly by Lola, who, in a jealous fit, one day fired a pistol at her "protector." As this was more than he could be expected to stand, Mr. Leigh, deciding that they could not continue living under the same roof, severed the relationship.
III
In 1845 the Paris of Louis-Philippe was, when Lola resumed her acquaintance with it, a pleasant city in which to live. The star of Baron Haussmann had not yet arisen; and the capital's vulgarisation under the Second Empire had not then begun. John Bull still gave it a wide berth; nor, except for a few stray specimens, were there any hordes of tourists to gape at the "Froggies." Everything was cheap; and most things were nice. Paris really was La ville lumière. Dull care had been given its marching orders. All that was required of a man was that he should be witty, and of a woman that she should be entertaining. The world of the boulevards--with its cafés and restaurants and theatres--was the accepted rallying point of the authors and poets, the painters and musicians, and the lights twinkling in the theatrical and journalistic firmaments, the men in velveteen jackets and peg-top trousers, the women in flounced skirts and shawls and elastic-sided boots. The mode of the moment.
Lola settled down among them, and was given a warm welcome. Among others with whom she was soon on friendly terms was the famous (or, perhaps, it would be better to say, notorious) Alphonsine Plessis. The Lady of the Camelias had a large heart and a wide circle; and Liszt, who was also back in Paris, was to be found among the guests attending her "receptions" at her house on the Boulevard de la Madeleine. Lola, who never cherished rancour, was prepared to let bygones be bygones, and resumed relations with him. But this time they were short lived, for the maestro was already dangling after another charmer, and, as was his habit, left for Weimar without saying farewell. Lola took his defection philosophically. As a matter of fact, she rather welcomed it, for it solved a situation that was fast threatening to become awkward. This was that she herself had now formed an intimacy with somebody else.
Her new acquaintance was Charles Dujarier, a young man of five and twenty, and a journalist of some distinction, being part proprietor and feuilleton editor of La Presse. Lola met him in the friendly atmosphere of a Bohemian café, where formal introductions were not insisted upon. As was the custom in such an atmosphere, the friendship ripened rapidly. Within a week of their first meeting the two set up housekeeping together in the rue Lafitte. Before long there was talk of marriage. But it did not get beyond talk, for Lola had put her head in the matrimonial noose once--in her opinion, once too often--and she had no desire to do so a second time. Apart from this consideration, she was probably well aware that her divorce from the philandering Thomas James had never been completed.