In vain did Ludwig declare that he would part with his crown rather than with the Countess of Landsfeld--for this was one of the titles he had conferred on his favourite. The forces arrayed against him were too strong, and the order of expulsion was at last conceded. It was only, however, when her palace was in flames and surrounded by a howling mob that the dauntless woman deigned to seek refuge in flight, and, disguised as a boy, suffered herself to be escorted to the frontier. Two weeks later Ludwig lost his crown. The remainder of this strange story may be told in a few words. Thrown once more on the world, with a few hastily rescued jewels for all her fortune, Lola Montez resumed her stage life, appearing in London in a drama entitled "Lola Montez: or a Countess for an Hour." Here she made a conquest of a young Life Guardsman, called Heald, who had recently succeeded to an estate worth £5000 a year; and with him she spent a few years, made wretched by continual quarrels, in one of which she stabbed him. When he was "found drowned" at Lisbon she drifted to Paris, and later to the United States, which she toured with a drama entitled "Lola Montez in Bavaria." There she made her third appearance at the altar, with a bridegroom named Hull, whom she divorced as soon as the honeymoon had waned. Thus she carried her restless spirit through a few more years of wandering and growing poverty, until a chance visit to Spurgeon's Tabernacle revolutionised her life. She decided to abandon the stage and to devote the remainder of her days to penitence and good works. But the end was already near. In New York, where she had gone to lecture, she was struck down by paralysis, and a few weeks before she had seen her forty-second birthday she died in a charitable institution, joining fervently in the prayers of the clergyman who was summoned to her death-bed. "When she was near the end, and could not speak," the clergyman says, "I asked her to let me know by a sign whether she was at peace. She fixed her eyes on mine and nodded affirmatively. I do not think I ever saw deeper penitence and humility than in this poor woman." CHAPTER XIV AN EMPRESS AND HER FAVOURITES When Sophie Augusta Frederica of Anhalt-Zerbst was romping on the ramparts or in the streets of Stettin with burghers' children for playmates, he would have been a bold prophet who would have predicted that one day she would be the most splendid figure among Europe's sovereigns, "the only great man in Europe," according to Voltaire, "an angel before whom all men should be silent"; and that, while dazzling Europe by her statesmanship and learning, she would afford more material for scandal than any woman, except perhaps Christina of Sweden, who ever wore a crown.