The Magnificent Montez: From Courtesan to ConvertWyndham, Horace
History
The Magnificent Montez: From Courtesan to Convert
Wyndham, Horace
Montez, Lola, 1818-1861
I had not been here a week before I discovered that there
was a plot existing in the town to get me out of it, and
that the party was the Jesuit Party.... When they saw that
I was not likely to leave them, they tried what bribery
would do; and actually offered me 50,000 fcs. a year if I
would quit Bavaria and promise never to return. This, as you
may imagine, opened my eyes; and, as I indignantly refused
their offer, they have since not left a stone unturned to
get rid of me.... Within this last week a Jesuit professor
of philosophy at the university here, named Lasaulx, was
removed. Thereupon, the party paid and hired a mob to insult
me and break the windows of my house.
... Knowing that your columns are always open to protect
anyone unjustly accused, and more especially when that one
is an unprotected female, makes me rely upon you for the
insertion of this; and I have the honour to subscribe
myself, your obliged servant,
LOLA MONTEZ.
A couple of weeks later Printing House Square was favoured with a
second epistle:
_To the Editor of "The Times."_
MUNICH,
_March 31._
SIR:--In consequence of the numerous reports circulated in
various papers regarding myself and family, I beg of you,
through the medium of your widely circulated journal, to
insert the following:
I was born at Seville in the year 1833; my father was a
Spanish officer in the service of Don Carlos; my mother, a
lady of Irish extraction, born at the Havannah, and married
to an Irish gentleman, which, I suppose, is the cause of my
being called sometimes Irish and sometimes English, and
"Betsy Watson," and "Mrs. James," etc.
I beg leave to say that my name is Maria Dolores Porres
Montez, and I have never changed that name.
As for my theatrical qualifications, I never had the
presumption to think I had any. Circumstances obliged me to
adopt the stage as a profession, which profession I have now
renounced for ever, having become a naturalised Bavarian,
and intending in future making Munich my residence.
Trusting that you will give this insertion, I have the
honour to remain, Sir,
Your obedient servant,
LOLA MONTEZ.
The assumption that she had ever been known as "Betsy Watson" was due
to the fact that she was said at one period to have lived under this
name in Dublin, "protected there by an Irishman of rank and fortune."
With regard to the rest of the letter, this was much the same as the
one she had circulated after her London fiasco. It was very far from
being well founded. Still, she had repeated this story so often that
she had probably come to believe in it herself.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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