Among the hangers-on was Frederick Leveson-Gower, a son of Earl Granville. He had met the great Rachel in Paris and was ecstatic about her. "Not long after," he says, "I got to know another much less gifted individual, but who having captivated a King, upset two Ministries, and brought about a revolution in Bavaria, was entitled to be looked upon as celebrated. This was Lola Montez." In his character of what is still oddly dubbed a "man-about-town," Serjeant Ballantine was also among those who attended these Half Moon Street gatherings. "His hostess," he says, "had certain claims to celebrity. She was, I believe, of Spanish origin, and certainly possessed that country's style of beauty, with much dash of manner and an extremely _outre_ fashion of dress." Another occasional visitor was George Augustus Sala, a mid-Victorian journalist who was responsible for printing more slipshod inaccuracies than any two members of his craft put together. He says that he once contemplated writing Lola's memoirs. He did not, however, get beyond "contemplating." This, perhaps, was just as well, since he was so ill-equipped for the task that he imagined she was a sister of Adah Isaacs Menken. "About this time," he says, "I made the acquaintance, at a little cigar shop under the pillars in Norreys Street, Regent Street, of an extremely handsome lady, originally the wife of a solicitor, but who had been known in London and Paris as a ballet-dancer under the name of Lola Montez. When I knew her, she had just escaped from Munich, where she had been too notorious as Countess of Landsfeld. She had obtained for a time complete mastery over old King Ludwig of Bavaria; and something like a revolution had been necessary to induce her to quit the Bavarian capital." A ridiculous story spread that Lord Brougham (who had witnessed her ill-starred debut in 1843) wanted to marry her. The fact that there was already a Lady Brougham in existence did not curb the tongues of the gossipers. "She refused the honourable Lord," says a French journalist, "in a manner that redounded to her credit." Journalists, anxious for "copy," haunted Half Moon Street all day long. They were never off her doorstep. "Town gossip," declared one of them, "is in full swing; and the general public are all agog to catch a glimpse of the latest 'lioness.' Lola Montez is on every lip and in everybody's eye. She is causing an even bigger sensation than that inspired by the Swedish Nightingale, Madame Jenny Lind." Notwithstanding the ill-success of a former attempt to exploit her personality behind the footlights, Mrs. Keeley produced a sketch at the Haymarket written "round" Lola Montez. This, slung together by Stirling Coyne, was called: _Pas de Fascination_. The scene was laid in "Neverask-_where_"; and among the characters were "Prince Dunbrownski," "Count Muffenuff," and "General von Bolte." It scarcely sounds rib-rending.