The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1852-08-10 00:00:00

LOLA MONTES.

Having been spoken of as a brazen and shameless repro-
bate in a leading article in the New York Times, Lola
Montez has written a long letter in vindication of her
character, which concludes thus :
" What has been my past history ?—why am I a home-
less wanderer in America, in city after city, toiling day
after day, and night after night ? Is it not to gain an
honest livelihood, or acquire a competence ? If I had
been the vile character you would wish to make me appear,
think you that I need have left the shores of abandoned
and gay Europe to acquire money or luxuries ? My
career thus far onward in life, Mr. Raymond, has been
wild, eccentric, and unfortunate—but not guilty in the
light you pretend to show it, and which you would convey
to others for my detriment, so unjustly and so unmanly.
When a mere baby I was taken to an oriental clime, and
there, before 1 had reached the age of eleven years, had
acquired those wild, free, and eccentric habits which have
ever been retained without doing any harm to any one,
and which a mind constituted like yours, little conversant
with the great world, cannot understand or appreciate—
and you would construe the untamed habits and innocent
gaieties of my disposition into evidences of moral guilt.
When I read your article of this morning, I blushed not
for myself, but for you as a responsible editor to the
public, for what you state. When I returned to Enrope,
after a very short time, domestic troubles, of which I was
the victim, forced me to free myself from them, and with
the thoughtless ignorance of a school girl, at the age of
fourteen, I made a most unfortunate marriage with one
wholly unsuited to be my husband and protector, and
with him I returned again to India ; there my husband
died. I returned to Europe, and being without means,
resorted to the stage, and became a danseuse, and years
passed away on my career, in which I was gaining daily
in the public favour, and did not meet with a reproach.
In the pursuit of my professional engagements I danced
at Munich, in Bavaria. The aged King sought my friend-
ship. I gained his confidence, and for three years I used
it for great and noble purposes, and for no mean end.
At the expiration of that time I found myself an exile in
England. I met with one said to have position and
wealth ; he offered me his hand, and we were married.
He was unsuited to my character, and I found myself
disappointed in all my best hopes ; instead of finding a
quiet, domesticated happiness, I found myself the wife of
a dissipated and impoverished spendthrift. I divorced
him, and returned to the stage. Circumstances controlled
my destiny, and led me to leave Europe for America. It
would be strange indeed if. during my prominent public
career in Europe, and while being mixed up in the great
political events of an important kingdom, I had not been
the victim of calumny and slander, and if I had not made
many and powerful enemies. It would be still stranger,
after I became a poor exile and retired to private life, if I
had not been still the victim of calumny, owing to the
influence, as generally and widely extended, of a certain
body ; the more so when I left private life to return to my
profession on the stage. The first night I made my debut
in Paris, after six years, many even in America, who were
present, must remember the scalding bitter tears I shed
on the occasion. I knew well I then saw before me the
long continued persecutions of all kinds that would follow,
first as LolaMontez, then as the Countess of Landsfelt ; but,
alas I 'all the fearful pictures that had passed in my mind,
in a few moments so vividly, were too pale, by far, for the
reality of which I am now the victim. When I left Europe,
sir, I did proudly hope that in this land those attacks
would cease (though I must remark that no European
paper could ever sanction you to use the gross insulting
language you have done to mc), and that while quietly
following my profession, the American press would not
slander me. They have no reason to do so. In many of
the newspapers I have not been abused ; but from others
I have received the most cruel, uncalled for, and constant
abuse—the foremost among them has been your Daily
limes. You, sir, called upon me, a helpless woman, to
make my enemies prove that lam a brazen prostitute.'
You, sir, shall prove that I am ; and I will appeal to a
jury of American men, your own citizens, to make you
prove your words, or make you and your press compen-
sate me, so far as your deep wrong to a woman can be
compensated for, or the American Daily Times will be a
bye-word before the whole world. I give you one more
chance to do justice, and to be a gentleman. Simple
justice is all I ask.

" Publish my letter, and state, as an honest man, that
you have clone me foul wrong in your articles—that you
have written of me under wrong influences, hastily, in
ignorance—and I will forgive you. But if you do not this
simple act of justice, I then will make my appeal for jus-
tice, protection, and redress, to the courts of your own
city, in which I am a stranger. Now take your choice.
I write this letter hastily, and more in sorrow than in
sneer. I use your English words as they come to me,
and the subject is one that no female of delicacy, however
independent and high-spirited, wishes to write about.
But it must be done, and I have finished my part.
~
" U. DE LANSFELDT, LOLA MONTES.