ied the king. 'Your wife!
what am I, then?' said the queen. 'You? well, you are my queen.'[17]

[Footnote 17: Lola Montes was perfectly correct. It was
Frederick IV. of Denmark, only the woman was not an adventuress
like herself, but the Countess Reventlow, whom he had
abducted.--EDITOR.]

"Never mind, whatever my intentions on Leopold's money or affections may
have been, they came to nothing; for before I could get as much as a
peep at him, my money had all been spent, and I was obliged to part
with my clothes first, and then to sing in the streets to get food. I
was taken from Brussels to Warsaw by a man whom I believe to be a
German. He spoke many languages, but he was not very well off himself.
However, he was very kind, and, when we got to Warsaw, managed to get me
an engagement at the Opera. After two or three days, the director told
me that I couldn't dance a bit. I stared him full in the face, and asked
him whether he thought that, if I could dance, I would have come to such
a hole as his theatre. Thereupon he laughed, and said I was a clever
girl for all that, and that he would keep me on for ornament. I didn't
give him the chance for long. I left after about two months, with a
Polish gentleman, who brought me to Paris. The moment I get a nice round
lump sum of money, I am going to carry out my original plan; that is,
trying to hook a prince. I am sick of being told that I can't dance.
They told me so in London, they told me in Warsaw, they told me at the
Porte Saint-Martin where they hissed me. I don't think the men, if left
to themselves, would hiss me; their wives and their daughters put them
up to it: a woman like myself spoils their trade of honest women. I am
only waiting my chance here; for though you are all very nice and
generous and all that kind of thing, it is not what I want."

Shortly after this conversation, the death of Dujarrier and his legacy
to her gave her the chance she had been looking for. She left for
London, I heard, with an Englishman; but I never saw him, so I cannot
say for certain. But, it appears, she did not stay long, because, a
little while after, several Parisians, on their return from Germany,
reported that they had met her at Wiesbaden, at Homburg, and elsewhere,
punting in a small way, not settling down anywhere, and almost
deliberately avoiding both Frenchmen and Englishmen. The rumour went
that her husband was on her track, and that he