ent was so unstable that Ludwig would have
lost his crown, whether she was in the country or not.

It is just as well to remember this.

V

After a few months among them, Lola, tiring of the Swiss cantons,
thought she might as well discover if England, which she had not
visited for six years, could offer any fresh attractions. Accordingly,
resolved to make the experiment, on December 30, 1848, she arrived in
London.

The _Satirist_, hearing the news, suggested that the managers of Drury
Lane and Covent Garden should engage her as a "draw." But she did not
stop in England very long, as she returned to the Continent almost at
once.

In the following spring, she made a second journey to London, and
sailed from Rotterdam. Unknown to her, the passenger list was to have
included another fallen star. This was Metternich, who, with the
riff-raff of Vienna thundering at the doors of his palace, was
preparing to seek sanctuary in England. Thinking, however, that the
times were not altogether propitious, he decided to postpone the
expedition.

"If," he wrote, "the Chartist troubles had not prevented me embarking
yesterday at Rotterdam, I should have reached London this morning in
the company of the Countess of Landsfeld. She sailed by the steamer in
which I was to have travelled. I thank heaven for having preserved me
from such contact!"

All things considered, it is perhaps just as well that the two
refugees did not cross the Channel together. Had they done so, it is
probable that one of them would have found a watery grave.

Metternich had worsted Napoleon, but he found himself worsted by Lola
Montez. On April 9, he wrote from The Hague:

"I have put off my departure for England, because I wished
to know first what was happening in that country as a result
of the Chartists' disturbance. I consider that, for me who
must have absolute rest, it would have been ridiculous to
have arrived in the middle of the agitation."

Louis Napoleon, however, was made of sterner stuff; and it is to his
credit that, as a return for the hospitality extended him, he was
sworn in as a special constable.

CHAPTER XII

A "LEFT-HANDED" MARRIAGE

I

On arriving in London, and (thanks to the bounty of Ludwig) being well
provided with funds, Lola took a house in Half Moon Street,
Piccadilly. There she established something of a _salon_, where she
gave a series of evening receptions. They were not, per