dam for fraud, and had her sent to prison.

She was not disturbed again until the winter of 1929, when an Austrian
"medium," Rudi Schneider, with, to adopt the jargon of his craft, a
"trance-personality" called Olga (who professed to be an incarnation
of Lola Montez), gave some seances in London. The extinguishing of the
lights and the wheezing of a gramophone were followed by the usual
"manifestations." Thus, curtains flapped, books fell off chairs,
tambourines rattled in locked cupboards, and bells jangled, etc. But
Lola Montez herself was too bashful to appear. None the less, a number
of "scientists" (all un-named) afterwards announced that "everything
was very satisfactory."

Thinking that these claims to get into touch with the dead should be
subjected to a more adequate test, Mr. Harry Price, director of the
National Laboratory of Psychical Research, arranged for Rudi
Schneider to give a sample of his powers to a committee of experts. As
a convincing test, Major Hervey de Montmorency (a nephew of the Mr.
Francis Leigh with whom Lola had once lived in Paris) suggested that
the accomplished "Olga" should be asked the name of his uncle (which
was different from his own) and the circumstances under which they had
parted. This was done, and "Olga" promised to give full details at the
next sitting. But the promise was not kept. "She conveniently shelved
every question," says the official report. Altogether, Rudi
Schneider's stock fell.

VI

The body of Lola Montez, Countess of Landsfeld, and Canoness of the
Order of St. Therese, has now been crumbling in the dust of a distant
grave, far from her own kith and kindred, for upwards of seventy
years. Her name, however, will still be remembered when that of other
women who have filled a niche in history will have been forgotten.

Lola Montez was no common adventuress. By her beauty and intelligence
and magnetism she weaved a spell on well nigh all who came within her
radius. Never any member of her sex quite like this one. Had she been
born in the Middle Ages, superstition would have had it that Venus
herself was revisiting the haunts of men in fresh guise. But she would
then probably have perished at the stake, accused of witchcraft by her
political opponents. As it was, even in the year 1848 a sovereign
demanded that a professional exorcist should "drive the devil out of
her."

To present Lola Montez at her true worth, to adjust the balance
between her merits and