being performed, his latest charmer
accompanied Liszt to the Opera House, and, during an interval, joined
him in the dressing-room of Josef Tichatschek, the tenor. Hearing that
he was there, Wagner was coming to speak to him, "when he saw that his
companion was a painted and bejewelled woman with insolent eyes."
Thereupon, if his biographer is to be trusted, "the composer turned
and fled." Lola had routed "Rienzi."

Musicians will be musicians; and Liszt was no exception. With his love
affairs and his long catalogue of "conquests" in half the capitals of
Europe, he was generally regarded as a Don Juan of the keyboard. It is
said by James Huneker that, on leaving Dresden, Lola joined him in
Constantinople. In her memoirs she says nothing about wandering along
the shores of the Bosphorus in his company. Still, she says a good
deal about Sir Stratford Canning, the British Ambassador, by whom, she
declares, she was given a letter to the Chief Eunuch, admitting her to
the Sultan's harem. But this, like many of her other statements, must
be taken with a generous pinch of salt.

During that memorable summer Liszt was specially invited to Bonn, to
unveil the Beethoven monument that had been erected there. The
ceremony attracted a distinguished gathering, and was witnessed by the
King and Queen of Russia, together with Queen Victoria and Prince
Albert. It was also witnessed by Lola Montez, who accompanied Liszt.
She was promptly recognised by Ignatz Moscheles; and, when they
discovered her presence, the reception committee were so upset that
they had her barred from the hotel in which rooms had been engaged for
the guest of honour. But it took more than this to keep her in the
background. While the speeches were in full swing, she forced her way
into the banquet-hall, and won over the prudish burghers by jumping on
the table and dancing to them.

The Prince Consort was shocked at the "liberty." Frederick William,
however, being more broad-minded, cracked a Teutonic jest.

"Lola is a Lorelei!" he declared, with an appreciative grin, when the
episode was reported to him. "What will she be up to next?"

An inevitable result of Liszt's dalliance with his new Calypso in the
various capitals that they visited together during the months that
followed was to shatter the relations that had existed for years
between himself and Madame d'Agoult. The virtuoso emerged from the
business badly, for the woman he had discarded in summary f