romised her before the
world. Her enemies assailed her, not because her deeds were
bad, but because they knew of no other means to destroy her
influence."

Although too modest to acknowledge it, this passage is obviously the
Rev. Chauncey Burr verbatim.

An offer to serialise part of the "autobiography" in the columns of
_Le Figaro_ was accepted. In correcting the proofs, Lola still clung
to the earlier account that had already done service in the "memoirs"
contributed to _Le Pays_. But she embellished it with fresh
embroideries. Thus, to keep up the Spanish connection, she now claimed
as her aunts the Marquise de Pavestra and the Marquise de
Villa-Palana, together with an equally imaginary Uncle Juan; and she
also, for the first time, gave her schoolgirl friend, Fanny Nicholls,
a sister Valerie.

The "autobiography" had originally been accepted for _Le Pays_ by
Antenon Joly. When, however, shortly afterwards, MM. de la Gueronniere
and de Lamartine acquired the journal, they repudiated the contract.
Hence, its transfer to _Le Figaro_. But this organ also developed a
sudden queasiness, and, after the first few instalments had appeared,
declined to print the remainder, on the grounds that they were "too
scandalous." Some time afterwards, Eugene de Mirecourt, thinking he
had a bargain, secured the interrupted portions and made them the
basis of a chapter on Lola Montez in his _Les Contemporains_. This
chapter is marked throughout by severe disapproval. Thus, it begins:

"The woman who revives in the nineteenth century the scandals of
Jeanne Vaubernier belongs to our gallery, and the abject materialism
accompanying her misconduct will be revealed in the pages that
follow."

De Mirecourt was not too happy in his self-appointed task. Like
everything else from his pen, the entire section is distinctly
imaginative. Thus, he declares that Lola, while living in Madrid, was
"supported by five or six great English lords"; and, among other
amorous incidents, says that a Brahmin priest fell in love with her;
that she conducted a "scandalous intrigue" with a young French
diplomat who was carrying despatches to the Emperor of China; and that
her husband, Lieutenant James, once intercepted a tender passage
between herself and a rajah. Further embroideries assert that Lola's
father was the son of a Lady Gilbert, and that her mother was the
daughter of a "Moorish warrior who abjured paganism." To this
rigmarole he a