haps, up to the
old Barerstrasse standard; still, they brought together a number of
the less important "lions," all of whom were only too pleased to
accept invitations.

Among the hangers-on was Frederick Leveson-Gower, a son of Earl
Granville. He had met the great Rachel in Paris and was ecstatic about
her. "Not long after," he says, "I got to know another much less
gifted individual, but who having captivated a King, upset two
Ministries, and brought about a revolution in Bavaria, was entitled to
be looked upon as celebrated. This was Lola Montez."

In his character of what is still oddly dubbed a "man-about-town,"
Serjeant Ballantine was also among those who attended these Half Moon
Street gatherings. "His hostess," he says, "had certain claims to
celebrity. She was, I believe, of Spanish origin, and certainly
possessed that country's style of beauty, with much dash of manner and
an extremely _outre_ fashion of dress." Another occasional visitor was
George Augustus Sala, a mid-Victorian journalist who was responsible
for printing more slipshod inaccuracies than any two members of his
craft put together. He says that he once contemplated writing Lola's
memoirs. He did not, however, get beyond "contemplating." This,
perhaps, was just as well, since he was so ill-equipped for the task
that he imagined she was a sister of Adah Isaacs Menken.

"About this time," he says, "I made the acquaintance, at a little
cigar shop under the pillars in Norreys Street, Regent Street, of an
extremely handsome lady, originally the wife of a solicitor, but who
had been known in London and Paris as a ballet-dancer under the name
of Lola Montez. When I knew her, she had just escaped from Munich,
where she had been too notorious as Countess of Landsfeld. She had
obtained for a time complete mastery over old King Ludwig of Bavaria;
and something like a revolution had been necessary to induce her to
quit the Bavarian capital."

A ridiculous story spread that Lord Brougham (who had witnessed her
ill-starred debut in 1843) wanted to marry her. The fact that there
was already a Lady Brougham in existence did not curb the tongues of
the gossipers. "She refused the honourable Lord," says a French
journalist, "in a manner that redounded to her credit."

Journalists, anxious for "copy," haunted Half Moon Street all day
long. They were never off her doorstep. "Town gossip," declared one of
them, "is in full swing; and the general public are all