As Dujarier's acknowledged mistress, Lola was accepted without demur as one of themselves by the literary and artistic "set" thronging the cafés and salons they frequented. Gautier and Sue, with Claudin and Méry and Dumas, were those habitués of whom she saw most; and Ferdinand Bac (but nobody else) says that she was on intimate terms with the austere M. Guizot.

Gustave Claudin declared that he met Lola Montez in Paris in the spring of 1841. That she made an impression on him is evident from a passage in his Souvenirs: Lola Montez was a charmer. There was something--I do not quite know what--about her appearance that was provocative and voluptuous, and which attracted one. She had a white skin, hair suggestive of the tendrils of honeysuckle, and a mouth that could be compared with a pomegranate. Added to this was a ravishing figure, charming feet, and perfect grace. Unfortunately, as a dancer, she had very little talent.

Towards the year 1845 the author of these notes saw much of her. She wanted him to write her memoirs, and gave him some material for them.... She was born in Seville in 1823, with a French officer for a godfather and (as is the custom in Spain) the city of Seville for a godmother. The adventures of her life were written out by her in an exercise-book. She told me that, at a ball in Calcutta, she had once refused to waltz with a wealthy gentleman who was so encrusted with diamonds that he resembled a snuff-box. When he asked her the reason for refusing to dance, she replied: "Sir, I cannot dance with you because you have hurt my foot." The would-be waltzer was a chiropodist!

Writing, as he did, nearly fifty years after the episode to which he thus refers, Claudin's memory was a little shaky. Thus Lola Montez was born in Limerick in 1818, not, as he says, at Seville in 1823; nor could Claudin have met her in Paris in the spring of 1841, as she had not then left India.

Dujarier, according to Lola, was much impressed by her political acumen, and employed her on "secret service" for the Government, entrusting her as a preliminary with a "mission to St. Petersburg." The story is an obvious concoction, if merely because Dujarier, being little beyond a penny-a-liner hack, had no power to employ anybody on such a task. Still, Lola always stuck to it. Still, it is just possible that she may have gone to Russia at this period, for Nicholas was interested in the art of the ballet, and welcomed foreign exponents of Terpsichore from wherever they came. He was a familiar figure in the green-rooms of his capital. He patronised Taglioni and Elssler, and was always ready to make up any deficit in the box-office receipts. It only meant grinding more out of his army of serfs.




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