LOLA MONTEZ
UNIFORM LIBRARY EDITION OF THE WORKS OF GUY DE MAUPASSANT, newlytranslated into English by Marjorie Laurie.
Volume 1. BEL-AMI.
“Bel-Ami” is an extraordinarily fine full-length portrait of anunscrupulous rascal who exploits his success with women for thefurtherance of his ambitions. The book simmers with humorousobservations, and, as a satire on politics and journalism, is no lessbiting because it is not bitter.
Volume 2. A LIFE.
This story of a woman’s life, harrowed first by the faithlessness ofher husband and later by the worthlessness of her son, has beendescribed as one of the saddest books that has ever been written; itis remorseless in its utter truthfulness.
Volume 3. “BOULE DE SUIF” and other Short Stories.
A story of the part played by a little French prostitute in anincident of the war of 1870. It was published in a collection of talesby distinguished French writers of the day, and was so clearly the gemof the collection that it established the Author at once as a master.
Volume 4. THE HOUSE OF TELLIER.
LOLA MONTEZ.
Countess of Landsfeld
LOLA MONTEZ
AN ADVENTURESS OF THE ’FORTIES
BY
EDMUND B. d’AUVERGNE
ILLUSTRATED
LONDON
T. WERNER LAURIE, LTD.
30 NEW BRIDGE STREET, E.C.4
First Printed April 1909
Second Edition, December 1909
Third Impression, November 1924
Fourth Impression, February 1925
Printed in Great Britain by
Fox, Jones & Co., at the Kemp Hall Press, Oxford, England
PREFACE
The story of a brave and beautiful woman, whose fame filled Europe andAmerica within the memory of our parents, seems to be worth telling. Thehuman note in history is never more thrilling than when it is struck inthe key of love. In what were perhaps more virile ages, the great ones ofthe earth frankly acknowledged the irresistible power of passion and thesupreme desirability of beauty. Their followers thought none the less ofthem for being sons of Adam. Lola Montez was the last of that long andillustrious line of women, reaching back beyond Cleopatra and Aspasia,before whom kings bent in homage, and by whose personality they openlyconfess themselves to be swayed. Since her time man has thrown off thespell of woman’s beauty, and seems to dread still more the competition ofher intellect.
Lola Montez, some think, came a century too late; “in the eighteenthcentury,” said Claudin, “she would have played a great part.” The part sheplayed was, at all events, stirring and strange enough. The mostspiritually and æsthetically minded sovereign in[Pg vi] Europe worshipped her asa goddess; geniuses of coar