do to prevent her from being torn to
pieces by the mob. Her departure was the signal for the pillaging of her
mansion, at which the king looked on--as he thought--incognito. It is
difficult to determine what prompted him to commit so rash an act. Was
it a feeling of relief at having got rid of her--for there was a good
deal of cynicism about that semi-philosophical, semi-mystical
troubadour--or a desire to chew the cud of his vanished happiness?
Whatever may have been the reason, he paid dearly for it, for some one
smashed a looking-glass over his head, and he was carried back to the
palace, unconscious, and bleeding profusely. It was never ascertained
who inflicted the wounds, though there is no doubt that the assailant
knew his victim. Meanwhile Lola Montes had succeeded in slipping away
from her escort, and three hours later she re-entered Munich disguised,
and endeavoured to make her way to the palace. But the latter was
carefully guarded, and for the next month all her attempts in that
direction proved fruitless, though, audacious as she was, she did not
dare stop for a single night in the capital itself. Besides, I do not
believe that a single inhabitant would have given her shelter. Unlike a
good many royal favourites of the past, she had no personal adherents,
no faithful servants who would have stood by her through thick and thin,
because she never treated any one kindly in the days of her prosperity:
she could only bribe; she was incapable of inspiring disinterested
affection among those who were insensible to the spell of her marvellous
beauty."

So far the narrative of my informant. The rest is pretty well known by
everybody. A few years later, she committed bigamy with another English
officer, named Heald, who was drowned at Lisbon about the same time that
her real husband died. Alexandre Dumas was right--she brought ill-luck
to those who attached themselves to her for any length of time, whether
in the guise of lovers or husbands.

These notes about Lola Montes remind me of another woman whom public
opinion would place in the same category, though she vastly differed in
character. I am alluding to Alphonsine Plessis, better known to the
world at large as "La Dame aux Camelias." I frequently met her in the
society of some of my friends between '43 and '47, the year of her
death. Her name was as I have written it, and not Marie or Marguerite
Duplessis, as has been written since.

The world at large, and e