Lola Montez : $b An adventuress of the 'fortiesD'Auvergne, Edmund B. (Edmund Basil)
History
Lola Montez : $b An adventuress of the 'forties
D'Auvergne, Edmund B. (Edmund Basil)
Montez, Lola, 1818-1861
It was not in fair fight that Dujarier had fallen. Before even he had been
carried to his grave, with Balzac, Mery, Dumas, and De Girardin as his
pall-bearers, the suspicions of all his friends had been aroused. At Dr.
Verons, the morning of his death, Bertrand showed Dumas his finger-tip
still blackened by the barrel of De Beauvallon's pistol. Would a pistol
which had not been charged with ball leave such a stain? Experts present
said no. The suspicion that De Beauvallon had made doubly sure of killing
his adversary by trying his weapon beforehand ripened in the minds of many
into conviction. How, too, had the Creole spent the early part of the
morning? Why did he not come with his seconds to the Rue Pinon. What was
he doing while Dujarier was awaiting him in the Bois? The affair began to
wear a very sinister complexion. Representations were made to the police.
Enquiries were set on foot, and De Beauvallon and D'Ecquevillez promptly
retired across the Spanish frontier.
Lola had sustained a staggering blow. She was sincerely attached to
Dujarier, who had been more to her than any other man had been. The memory
of her husband was hateful. Liszt had flashed suddenly across her path,
to disappear a few weeks later. Besides, he had given her up of his own
accord. But this man had shared her life for months, had loved her to the
last, had cared for her both as a lover and a husband. In his will he left
her eighteen shares in the Palais Royal Theatre, representing twenty
thousand francs. She referred, years after, and no doubt sincerely, to his
death as a loss that could never be made up to her.
The luxury of grief is allowed in scant measure to those who minister to
the public's amusement. They must dry their tears quickly. Three weeks
after the fatal duel, Lola made her appearance at the Porte-St.-Martin
Theatre, in _La Biche au Bois_. The audience was no less critical than at
the Opera. She was hissed, and with her usual audacity, she exasperated
the public still more by expressing her contempt for them upon the stage.
So ended her career as a _danseuse_ in the French capital.
She lingered on in Paris, notwithstanding, frequenting the society of her
dead lover's friends in accordance with his last wishes. The legacy had
relieved her for the moment of the necessity of earning her living. She
longed to see retribution overtake the man who had robbed her of all that
life held dear. Justice seemed for a time to pursue the slayer with leaden
feet. In July the Royal Court of Paris practically exonerated the seconds,
and De Beauvallon thought it safe to surrender voluntarily. The
explanations he gave as to his movements on the 10th and 11th March did
not, as he had hoped they would, satisfy the authorities. The Court of
Cassation quashed the decision of the lower court, and sent the accused
for trial, on the charge of murder, before the Assize Court of Rouen.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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