Lola Montez chose her friends for their disposition, not for their virtue. One of them was George Sand, "the possessor of the largest mind and the smallest foot in Paris." She also became intimate with Alphonsine Plessis, and constantly visited the future "Lady of the Camelias" in her _appartement_ on the Boulevard de la Madeleine. Another _habitue_ there at this period was Lola's old Dresden flame, the Abbe Liszt, who, not confining his attentions to the romanticists, had no compunction about poaching on the preserves of Dumas _fils_, or, for that matter, of anybody else. As for the fair, but frail, Alphonsine, she said quite candidly that she was "perfectly willing to become his mistress, if he wanted it, but was not prepared to share the position." As Liszt had other ideas on the subject, the suggestion came to nothing. Some years afterwards, one of his pupils, an American young woman, Amy Fay, took his measure in a book, _Music-study in Germany_: "Liszt," she wrote, "is the most interesting and striking-looking man imaginable. Tall and slight, with deep-set eyes, shaggy eyebrows and long iron-grey hair which he wears parted in the middle. His mouth turns up at the corners, which gives him a most crafty and Mephistophelean expression when he smiles, and his whole appearance and manner have a sort of Jesuitical elegance and ease." Before she set out on this journey, Lola wrote to an acquaintance: "What makes men and women distinguished is their individuality; and it is for that I will conquer or die!" Of this quality, she had enough and to spare. Her Paris life was hectic; or, as the Boulevardiers put it, _elle faisait la bombe_. Among the tit-bits of gossip served up by a reporter was the following: "Lola is constantly giving tea-parties in her Paris flat. A gentleman who is frequently bidden to them tells us that her masculine guests are restricted to such as have left their wives, and that the feminine guests consist of ladies who have left their husbands." An Englishman whom she met at this time was Savile Morton, a friend of Thackeray and Tennyson. One night when she was giving a supper-party, a fellow-guest, Roger de Beauvoir, happened to read to the company some verses he had written. The hostess, on the grounds of their alleged "coarseness," complained to Morton that she had been insulted. As a result, Morton, being head over ears in love with her, sent de Beauvoir a challenge. Lola, however, having had enough of duels, took care that nothing should come of it; and insisted that an apology should be given and accepted.