Speaker 1: Hey, this is Danish Schwartz, the host of Noble Blood.
Speaker 1: Just a little bit of housekeeping, tiny little announcement before
Speaker 1: we start. I have a new podcast called Hoax. It's
Speaker 1: a very casual podcast with my friend Lizzie Logan, where
Speaker 1: every other week we do a deep dive into a famous,
Speaker 1: historical or not so historical hoax that fascinates one or
Speaker 1: the other of us. It's so much fun to do.
Speaker 1: And if you like Noble Blood and you just want
Speaker 1: to hear me talk in a more casual way, listen
Speaker 1: to Hoax. Hoax exclamation point. We have a lot of
Speaker 1: fun making it. I also have a new book coming
Speaker 1: out in May twenty twenty six. I co wrote this
Speaker 1: book under a pseudonym. It's called The Arcane Arts. I
Speaker 1: co wrote it because we alternate points of view in
Speaker 1: the book. I write the female point of view. My
Speaker 1: co author, my friend Dan, writes the male point of view.
Speaker 1: It's a dark academia sexy thriller. If that's the sort
Speaker 1: of thing you think you might like, look up The
Speaker 1: Arcane Arts by s. D. Coverly. Pre Orders really really help.
Speaker 1: So if the book seems like it's something that would
Speaker 1: interest you, please preorder the book, but as always, just
Speaker 1: thank you for listening to the show and letting me
Speaker 1: make Noble Blood. Let's get into it. Welcome to Noble Blood,
Speaker 1: A production of iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky.
Speaker 1: Listener Discretion advised. Bavaria in the middle of the nineteenth
Speaker 1: century was a country in peril. The King, Ludwig the
Speaker 1: First had once been beloved, but now he was mired
Speaker 1: in a firestorm of controversy. His subjects were furious with him.
Speaker 1: Scandals piled up as rumors swirled that his judgment had
Speaker 1: been compromised, that he was being controlled by shadowy outside forces.
Speaker 1: High ranking officials were dropping like flies, while citizens took
Speaker 1: to the streets in protest. By the middle of the
Speaker 1: eighteen forties, the demonstrations had reached a fever pitch. The cabinet,
Speaker 1: the people, and eventually even the rest of the royal
Speaker 1: family turned against Ludwig. It reached the point where Ludwig
Speaker 1: knew he couldn't continue to rule, at least not without
Speaker 1: undermining the institution of the monarchy itself, and so on
Speaker 1: March twentieth, eighteen forty eight, he abdicated the throne, allowing
Speaker 1: his son Maximilian to become the new King of Bavaria.
Speaker 1: What had caused King Ludwig's remarkable downfall? What had turned
Speaker 1: the people against him? Like any question in history, the
Speaker 1: answer is complicated and layered. But at the heart of
Speaker 1: it all in this case is an exotic dancer whom
Speaker 1: the king had made a countess, a woman named Lola Monte.
Speaker 1: I'm Danish Schwartz and this is noble blood. Lola Montes
Speaker 1: blazed a trail throughout the Western world, rubbing elbows and
Speaker 1: more with some of the greatest minds and most powerful
Speaker 1: men of the era, but her fiery spirit and insatiable
Speaker 1: lust for life turned out to be far too much
Speaker 1: for any one man, even a king, to handle. She
Speaker 1: was a master of reinvention, an opportunist whose motto was
Speaker 1: courage and shuffle the cards. She wasn't actually as she
Speaker 1: claimed until her death from Spain, nor was her real
Speaker 1: name Lola Montes, but for simplicity's sake, we'll call her
Speaker 1: Lola throughout the episode. She was born in Ireland and
Speaker 1: given the name Eliza Rosanna Gilbert. Her birth year was
Speaker 1: most likely Lee eighteen twenty one, although with all things
Speaker 1: Lola Montes, we should take it with a grain of salt.
Speaker 1: Her dad, Edward, was a British officer and her mom
Speaker 1: the illegitimate daughter of a local politician. There were rumors
Speaker 1: that her mom was already pregnant when she got married,
Speaker 1: and that was in addition to the circling allegations that
Speaker 1: Lola's mother and even her grandmother were also illegitimate. Lola
Speaker 1: never stood a chance. She was just born into a
Speaker 1: scandalous life. In eighteen twenty three, the family moved to India,
Speaker 1: where Edward's regiment was dispatched. Tragically, Edward died of cholera
Speaker 1: soon after their arrival. Lola's mother, Elizabeth, a widow at
Speaker 1: only nineteen years old, remarried within the year to Lieutenant
Speaker 1: Patrick Craigie. Craigie was fond of his stepdaughter, but he
Speaker 1: was seriously concerned about her her behavior. A childhood in
Speaker 1: a foreign land with a loving but laid back aya
Speaker 1: or nursemaid was fertile ground for young Lola's spirited nature
Speaker 1: to blossom into problem child territory. At age ten, Lola
Speaker 1: was sent away to live with Craigie's relatives, the idea
Speaker 1: being that sometime in England would groom the foreign wildness
Speaker 1: out of her, but it didn't work. Lola quickly earned
Speaker 1: a reputation as a troublemaker and was bounced from boarding
Speaker 1: school to boarding school, always leaving chaos in her wake.
Speaker 1: By the time Lola was sixteen, her mother was eager
Speaker 1: to marry her off. Elizabeth was an ambitious social climber
Speaker 1: and saw her daughter's marriage as the perfect way to
Speaker 1: elevate both the family's status and also make her daughter
Speaker 1: someone else's problem. Elizabeth showed up at Lola's school at
Speaker 1: this point in Bath and announced her plan. Lola would
Speaker 1: come back to India and marry Sir Abraham Lumley, a
Speaker 1: wealthy and powerful judge. Lola bulked at the union for
Speaker 1: many reasons, not least of which was that Lumley was
Speaker 1: sixty years old. Lola wanted nothing to do with that
Speaker 1: old man. She sought the advice of a young army
Speaker 1: lieutenant named Thomas James, whom her mother had befriended on
Speaker 1: her journey to beth. Lola poured out her heart to
Speaker 1: this visiting stranger, and for the first time, but certainly
Speaker 1: not the last, a man found himself captivated by her
Speaker 1: Lieutenant James was taken with the vibrant young girl and
Speaker 1: decided on the spot that he would be the one
Speaker 1: to save her. That very night, he took Lola to
Speaker 1: his family home in Ireland, where they were married days later.
Speaker 1: Lola's mother was apoplectic. Her carefully devised social climbing had
Speaker 1: ended in complete betrayal, but the marriage was doomed from
Speaker 1: the start. Lola was too young and inexperienced to understand
Speaker 1: what she'd committed to, and had mostly been focused on
Speaker 1: getting out of a bad situation. And here is where
Speaker 1: we q getaway car by Taylor Swift. Thomas James did
Speaker 1: care for his young bride, but they were never really
Speaker 1: a good fit. Lola wrote of her time in Ireland, quote,
Speaker 1: I wished for nothing more intensely than to be abducted
Speaker 1: once more, but this time not by a potential husband,
Speaker 1: but by anything or anyone who could rescue me from
Speaker 1: the deadly monotony of this eternally repetitive life. From these
Speaker 1: cold English faces, no smiles, no friendly glances, no kind words.
Speaker 1: What started as verbal arguments escalated into physical abuse. Things
Speaker 1: improved slightly when the couple returned to India in eighteen
Speaker 1: thirty eight and could enjoy some semblance of a social life,
Speaker 1: but they parted ways five years later. Desperate to leave
Speaker 1: that chapter of her life behind, Lola sailed for London
Speaker 1: a single woman, now with her whole life before her.
Speaker 1: She was never one to be without a man for long.
Speaker 1: Whether that was a matter of convenience or of genuine
Speaker 1: emotion and preference, will never know, although she most likely
Speaker 1: landed somewhere in the middle, regardless of the reasons why exactly.
Speaker 1: Upon her arrival in London, Lola immediately took up with
Speaker 1: a man she met on the ship. Between the money
Speaker 1: she had gotten from both her stepfather and her then
Speaker 1: ex husband, Lola arrived in London with around ten thousand dollars,
Speaker 1: but thanks to her extravagant spending, it didn't last long.
Speaker 1: Neither did that new relationship I alluded to. Now alone
Speaker 1: and broke, Eliza needed a new plan. For a single
Speaker 1: young woman in the eighteen forties, employment opportunities were scarce.
Speaker 1: Lola didn't have the right disposition to be a governess,
Speaker 1: and given her scandalous social life, she probably wouldn't have
Speaker 1: kept a position for too long. Besides, the other option
Speaker 1: was much more appealing to her the stage. Lola started
Speaker 1: her training, but things didn't go perfectly well. Her voice
Speaker 1: was too weak for the theater, and she wasn't naturally
Speaker 1: gifted as a dancer either. But she had one big
Speaker 1: thing going for her. She was beautiful, with a magnetic
Speaker 1: presence and a killer body. Spanish dances were fashionable at
Speaker 1: the time and required much less in the way of technique,
Speaker 1: at least two English audiences. After a few months of
Speaker 1: training and a trip to Spain to study the language
Speaker 1: and customs, Lola reinvented herself completely as someone glamorous and
Speaker 1: quote unquote exotic. She adopted the stage name Lola Montes
Speaker 1: full name Dona Maria Dolores de Pores Emntez. She had
Speaker 1: learned just enough of the language and Spanish customs to
Speaker 1: seem authentic to the casual English observer. She started smoking
Speaker 1: thin black cigars and spun multiple invented gloriously dramatic backstories
Speaker 1: for herself. She was ready to take the world by storm,
Speaker 1: but even Lola herself couldn't have imagined how far she'd go.
Speaker 1: You might be asking yourself why Spanish. At this time,
Speaker 1: Spanish culture was very popular in Europe. It represented passion, mystery, sensuality,
Speaker 1: all the things that other cultures, especially early Victorian England,
Speaker 1: were sorely lacking. Spanish dancers had a reputation for being
Speaker 1: fiery and uninhibited, which coincidentally could provide excellent cover for
Speaker 1: a lack of technical prowess. It was the perfect persona
Speaker 1: for a woman looking to reinvent herself and stand out.
Speaker 1: In eighteen forty three, Lola had her stage debut. She
Speaker 1: went on a press tour where she posed as a
Speaker 1: genuine Spanish woman telling stories in broken English. She charmed
Speaker 1: the press completely. Her reviews were nearly unanimous, although most
Speaker 1: critics did note that she was more style than substance,
Speaker 1: but they didn't seem to mind. But there was one problem.
Speaker 1: She was almost immediately recognized. People began to talk, and
Speaker 1: Lola Montes was outed as Missus James and identified as
Speaker 1: most definitely not being actually Spanish. London was too close
Speaker 1: for Lola. If she wanted to make her new persona stick,
Speaker 1: she needed to put more distance between her old life
Speaker 1: and her new one. It assumed that around this time
Speaker 1: Lola was putting her natural charms to work as a
Speaker 1: means of supporting herself. Whether that was outright sex work
Speaker 1: or just keeping company with wealthy men who showered her
Speaker 1: with gifts, we can't say, but Lola was never shy about,
Speaker 1: let's say, maximizing her assets. Around this time, Lola met
Speaker 1: a rich, elderly German prince who soon found himself entranced
Speaker 1: by the exotic young woman. He gave her money to
Speaker 1: pay off her debts and extended an offhand invitation to
Speaker 1: come visit his court if she were ever in his country.
Speaker 1: That was all the encouragements our girl needed, and she
Speaker 1: headed for the continent. Things didn't go well with the princeling.
Speaker 1: Lola's casual swearing and rejection of royal protocol rubbed everyone
Speaker 1: the wrong way, but Lola kept it moving, still trying
Speaker 1: to get a foothold as a performer. Lola's reception in
Speaker 1: Germany was basically the same as it had been in London.
Speaker 1: Some were entranced by her brash stage presence and gonzo
Speaker 1: performing style, but for most patrons, Lola was the inverse
Speaker 1: of that famous song from a chorus line. She was
Speaker 1: looks ten Dance three Again. Lola's temper also got her
Speaker 1: in trouble. She was almost thrown in prison for hitting
Speaker 1: an officer with a whip while trying to sneak into
Speaker 1: a state visit from Zar Nicholas, the First of Russia.
Speaker 1: Lola incidentally loved a whip and she needed little excuse
Speaker 1: to break it out. But with that, it was time
Speaker 1: for her to move on again. In Poland, Lola found
Speaker 1: new benefactors, including the composer Franz List. More stage time
Speaker 1: brought more mixed reviews and more controversy. Then it was
Speaker 1: on to Paris, where Lola made her stage debut in
Speaker 1: an opera, but that didn't go particularly well either, and
Speaker 1: she soon found herself taken off line ups. People seemed
Speaker 1: to either love her or hate her, with no in between.
Speaker 1: It can't really be a coincidence that the ones who
Speaker 1: loved her were usually predominantly wealthy, powerful men who were
Speaker 1: also happy to bankroll her lifestyle. Through a relationship with
Speaker 1: newspaper owner and drama critic Alexandra Dujarier, Lola was able
Speaker 1: to boost her performing career, and she continued to perform
Speaker 1: to wildly varying reviews. As always, her beauty and stage
Speaker 1: present made up for her lack of real skill. She
Speaker 1: cared deeply for Dujarier and hoped to marry him someday,
Speaker 1: but he was killed in a duel, and Lola found
Speaker 1: herself once more without a protector. She moved from place
Speaker 1: to place and man to man, but no one could
Speaker 1: keep up with her. Finally, in eighteen forty six, Lola
Speaker 1: traveled to Munich, where she bagged her biggest catch yet,
Speaker 1: the King of Bavaria. Ludwig the First was sixty years
Speaker 1: old when he met Lola. I'm guessing the royal title
Speaker 1: made him much more palatable than the sixty year old
Speaker 1: her mother had tried to marry her off to back
Speaker 1: in India. Ludvig at this time was generally popular among
Speaker 1: his subjects. As a ruler, he had little political ability,
Speaker 1: content to leave the government in the hands of others
Speaker 1: while he focused on the arts and on beautiful women.
Speaker 1: For years, his subjects, as well as Queen Terrace, had
Speaker 1: tolerated Ludwig's dalliances, knowing any fling would be short lived
Speaker 1: and result in not much more than a new portrait
Speaker 1: for his gallery. There was no reason to think that
Speaker 1: this Spanish dancer would be any different. They had no
Speaker 1: idea just how different this one would be. Lola and
Speaker 1: Ludwig met in October eighteen forty six. There was a
Speaker 1: rumor that Ludwig asked her in public if her breasts
Speaker 1: were real, and she responded by tearing off enough of
Speaker 1: her garments to prove that they were. Whether or not
Speaker 1: that story is apocryphal, it's undeniable that Ludwig fell under
Speaker 1: her spell, and Lola immediately began to exercise her control.
Speaker 1: She started getting stage time, and audiences were once again
Speaker 1: divided between love her and hate her. What was obvious
Speaker 1: was Ludwig loved her. Within a month, she had a
Speaker 1: yearly allowance of ten thousand florins, five times as much
Speaker 1: as a university professor's salary and nearly twice that of
Speaker 1: a cabinet minister. A couple weeks after that, Ludwig had
Speaker 1: Lola ridden into his will. By December, he had bought
Speaker 1: her a house purchased in her name. This was both
Speaker 1: to keep the money trail clean and to help her
Speaker 1: establish residence. More than anything, Lola wanted Bavarian citizenship as
Speaker 1: well as elevation to nobility, and she wasn't shy about
Speaker 1: letting the king know. Within just days of meeting her
Speaker 1: Ludwig had presented Lola to his ministers. Gentlemen, you have
Speaker 1: the honor to meet my new best friend, he declared,
Speaker 1: Please oblige me by treating her at all times with
Speaker 1: the same respect you have always shown me. But Lola
Speaker 1: immediately recognized the stern men as potential enemies and boldly
Speaker 1: warned King Ludwig that his Jesuit packed government controlled him.
Speaker 1: She singled out Prime Minister Carl von Abel as being
Speaker 1: particularly untrustworthy. Ludwig was stunned she had identified in mere
Speaker 1: weeks what he had been questioning for years. In his eyes,
Speaker 1: that gave Lola enormous credibility. For her part, Lola truly
Speaker 1: believed that she was freeing the king's mind from outdated conventions.
Speaker 1: She saw herself as the people's liberator, symbolizing freedom in
Speaker 1: a new age. Ludwig was deaf to suggestions that she
Speaker 1: was manipulating him. The Jesuits called her the apocalyptic Pore.
Speaker 1: Lola's stubbornness and temper were still on full display, making
Speaker 1: her extremely unpopular among the people. Ludwig was spending astronomical
Speaker 1: amounts of money on her, and despite his attempts to
Speaker 1: rein her in she continued to blow past her allotted allowance.
Speaker 1: She was arrogant and often abusive to anyone who caught
Speaker 1: her at the wrong moment. She was seen with lots
Speaker 1: of other men. She was often scandalously under dressed. Despite
Speaker 1: opponents installing a spy in Lola's household and reporting back
Speaker 1: her ar radic behavior, Ludwig couldn't accept the truth. Despite
Speaker 1: extreme oppositional pressure, Ludwig granted Lola Bavarian citizenship in February
Speaker 1: of eighteen forty seven. The Minister of the Interior resigned
Speaker 1: in protest, and many of his colleagues followed. Suit protests
Speaker 1: erupted all over, including one outside Lola's house, where it
Speaker 1: is rumored that she, in characteristic fashion, flashed her breasts
Speaker 1: at the crowd. Ludwig was becoming a joke to his
Speaker 1: own people. He and Lola followed all the hallmarks of
Speaker 1: a toxic couple. Break up, get back together, cause chaos,
Speaker 1: repeat the cycle. Despite all the drama, on Ludwig's birthday,
Speaker 1: August twenty fifth, eighteen forty seven, Ludwig made Lola the
Speaker 1: Countess of Landsfeld and Baroness of Rosenthal. He wrote her
Speaker 1: a letter asking her to please behave in accordance with
Speaker 1: her new title, essentially begging her not to embarrass him.
Speaker 1: Please please, please, You won't be shocked to know it
Speaker 1: didn't work. Lola's elevation to nobility only increased her appetite
Speaker 1: for power. Her arrogance, her hatred of the Jesuits, her
Speaker 1: blatant greed were all the talk of Europe. Her public
Speaker 1: behavior was increasingly shocking, spitting at a bishop, thrashing a worker,
Speaker 1: smashing a shop window, or breaking her parasol over the
Speaker 1: head of a nobleman who opposed her. On more than
Speaker 1: one occasion, she threatened an angry crowd with her whip,
Speaker 1: pistol or dagger. One of her lovers was a university student,
Speaker 1: and she essentially turned his fraternity, the Alimanon, into her
Speaker 1: own private army. She parted with them, and they worshiped her.
Speaker 1: When Lola set her bulldog on a much respected university
Speaker 1: professor of philosophy who had done her no harm, she
Speaker 1: unwittingly set in motion her own downfall. The students were
Speaker 1: tremendously supportive of the professor. Munich University students revolted, with
Speaker 1: clashes erupting between the Alamanen and the rest of campus
Speaker 1: who hated her. Ludwig closed the university, which only escalated
Speaker 1: the situation. By March eighteen forty eight, pressure was mounting.
Speaker 1: The specter of the French Revolution still hung over Europe
Speaker 1: decades later, and the very real threat of revolution was
Speaker 1: enough to knock some sense into Ludwig. He reopened the
Speaker 1: university and abdicated, leaving his son Maximilian the Second to
Speaker 1: become the new king. Lola fled the country. In less
Speaker 1: than two years, Lola Montes had brought a country to
Speaker 1: its knees and permanently changed the geopolitical landscape. Not bad
Speaker 1: for a random girl from Ireland. Lola Montes found herself
Speaker 1: stripped of the power she had enjoyed and abused as
Speaker 1: King Ludwig's number one mistress. Without her benefactor and protector,
Speaker 1: she was suddenly Bavaria's public enemy number one. Lola fled
Speaker 1: to Switzerland, where she waited for Ludwig to come for her.
Speaker 1: He never did, but Lola didn't spend too much time
Speaker 1: tied up in grief. She dusted herself off and kept
Speaker 1: things moving. She moved to London in eighteen forty eight,
Speaker 1: and you guessed it met another guy, George Held was
Speaker 1: a twenty one year old officer with serious family money,
Speaker 1: as well as an apparent affinity for passionate dancer types.
Speaker 1: The two were married quickly, but soon ran into problems
Speaker 1: Lola's separation from Thomas James. The ex that she had
Speaker 1: left back in India contained terms that prohibited either of
Speaker 1: them from remarrying while the other was still alive. That
Speaker 1: meant that Lola and George had to leave the country
Speaker 1: to escape bigamy charges. The two lived in France and
Speaker 1: Spain for a while, but within two years the marriage
Speaker 1: fell apart. At this point, Lola decided to do what
Speaker 1: so many before her also did, try her luck in America,
Speaker 1: where she was surprisingly successful in rehabilitating her image for
Speaker 1: a time at least. She threw in some acting with
Speaker 1: her dance performances, and her shows sold out across the country.
Speaker 1: At New York's Broadway Theater, she pulled in over four
Speaker 1: thousand dollars in a single week, a box office record
Speaker 1: for that venue. Lola was smart enough to know why
Speaker 1: audiences came. They wanted to see the King's scandalous Mistress,
Speaker 1: the woman famous for her whip and pistol. The notorious
Speaker 1: bedroom adventurer Americans showed up expecting a shameless, talentless royal plaything. Instead,
Speaker 1: they found someone surprisingly refined and tasteful, although she couldn't
Speaker 1: help herself from throwing in some of her old dances
Speaker 1: for good measure. She created a show called Lola Montes
Speaker 1: in Bavaria, where she played four versions of herself. It
Speaker 1: wasn't high art, probably more like a play based on
Speaker 1: the pages of US Weekly, but audiences loved it. That
Speaker 1: legendary temper still made frequent appearing, especially during her dance performances,
Speaker 1: and some audiences would deliberately provoke her just to watch
Speaker 1: the show within a show. During her American sojourn, Lola
Speaker 1: had her own California adventure, which lasted a few years
Speaker 1: and was full of the highs and lows that defined
Speaker 1: her life. Rough crowds heckled her, sometimes chasing her off stage.
Speaker 1: There was another marriage and an attempt at domesticity, but
Speaker 1: her wild past threatened the new guy, and the union
Speaker 1: ultimately fell apart. In eighteen fifty five, Lola sailed to Australia,
Speaker 1: reviving her career by performing for gold miners. As soon
Speaker 1: as she landed in Sydney, she started generating headlines. Her
Speaker 1: notorious spider dance, in which she lifted her skirts high
Speaker 1: enough for a viewers to see that she wasn't wearing underwear,
Speaker 1: caused an uproar. A local newspaper declared her show quote
Speaker 1: utterly subversive to all ideas of public morality, and ticket
Speaker 1: sales tanked. In another town, Lola took the bad press
Speaker 1: into her own hands and attacked a newspaper editor with
Speaker 1: a whip. The editor was actually armed with a whip
Speaker 1: of his own, Lola's reputation having preceded her, and the
Speaker 1: altercation escalated into a full blown fight. The stormy ups
Speaker 1: and downs with the Australian public continued, and after nearly
Speaker 1: a year down under, Lola headed back to the US.
Speaker 1: During the voyage back to San Francisco, her manager went
Speaker 1: overboard and drowned. Given Lola's legendary temper, it's been considered
Speaker 1: if he had any ill timed, unwonted feedback for his client,
Speaker 1: and whether a whip had been involved in his untimely
Speaker 1: accidental demise. Back in America, Lola tried repeatedly to resurrect
Speaker 1: her theatrical career, but nothing really took hold. By this point, ever,
Speaker 1: the reinventor Lola pivoted to image rehabilitation. In eighteen fifty seven,
Speaker 1: she began touring the country giving lectures on what Else
Speaker 1: morality and doing charity work helping vulnerable women. Whether her
Speaker 1: late stage religious awakening was sincere or just another performance
Speaker 1: is up for debate. But Lola brought the same fervor
Speaker 1: to this new chapter that she had to everything else
Speaker 1: she did. By eighteen sixty, advanced syphilis was destroying her body.
Speaker 1: She died on January seventeenth, eighteen sixty one, at just
Speaker 1: thirty nine years old, which seems almost astonishing given how
Speaker 1: much life she had lived. Lola Monte's international scandal is
Speaker 1: buried in Brooklyn's green Wood Cemetery with a headstone that
Speaker 1: reads simply Missus Eliza Gilbert. It's ironic, but ultimately fitting
Speaker 1: that the woman who tore across continents and came dangerously
Speaker 1: close to toppling an empire would be memorialized with her maiden name.
Speaker 1: It's probably for the best, because when it came to Lola,
Speaker 1: the man on her arm would always be the least
Speaker 1: interesting thing about her. Ludwig outlived her by seven years
Speaker 1: after Lola exited his life and he'd transferred governing responsibilities
Speaker 1: to his son, he returned to his truth passions, poetry, art,
Speaker 1: and beautiful young women. He won back the love of
Speaker 1: his former subjects and spent his final years surrounded by
Speaker 1: the beautiful city that he had been instrumental in creating.
Speaker 1: No doubt his thoughts would drift to his adventures with
Speaker 1: the sultry Spanish dancer. If not the one who got away,
Speaker 1: then the one who very nearly carried him away. Lola
Speaker 1: Montes is one of the most intriguing talked about women
Speaker 1: of the mid nineteenth century. An inveterate liar, Lola's biggest
Speaker 1: and longest sustained lie was her reinvention of herself when
Speaker 1: she had returned from India in eighteen forty one, escaping
Speaker 1: a loveless marriage and an ambitious mother. That reinvention changed
Speaker 1: not only her name, but also her destiny. Lola defied
Speaker 1: social norms and blazed her own trail. Chaotic as it was,
Speaker 1: society's reaction to her highlighted just how threatening a sexually
Speaker 1: liberated woman was and still can be to the status quo.
Speaker 1: There have been many books written about her, each exploring
Speaker 1: different facets of her personality. But the best authority, or
Speaker 1: at least the most entertaining one, is Lola herself. Lola's
Speaker 1: autobiography was based on interviews with the writer Charles Chauncey
Speaker 1: Burr and probably contains to be fair more fiction than truth.
Speaker 1: But as Amanda Darling writes in her book Lola Montes quote,
Speaker 1: in a sense, Lola's wild disregard for truth reveals more
Speaker 1: about her character than documented statistics would. Just as the
Speaker 1: psychiatrist of today find the day dreams of his patient
Speaker 1: as significant as sleeping dreams, so Lola's reshaping of her
Speaker 1: past tells us far more than she realized about the
Speaker 1: forces that formed and motivated her. How much truth does
Speaker 1: a woman owe to a world that is set up
Speaker 1: against her? From Lola's autobiography quote what can a woman
Speaker 1: do then? Who cannot take her part? The great misfortune
Speaker 1: that there was too much of her to be held
Speaker 1: within the prescribed and safe limits a lotted to women.
Speaker 1: But there was not enough to enable her to stand
Speaker 1: securely beyond the shelter of conventional rules. At any rate,
Speaker 1: such is the social and moral fabric of the world
Speaker 1: that woman must be content with an exceedingly narrow sphere
Speaker 1: of action, or she must take the worst consequences of
Speaker 1: daring to be an innovator and a heretic. I do
Speaker 1: want to say, on a personal note, I do not
Speaker 1: think Lola Montes is in any way a hero. And
Speaker 1: of course she is wildly self aggrandizing. What she is
Speaker 1: is entertaining, and it's worth looking at the question of
Speaker 1: who she might be in today's world. A diagnosed sociopath,
Speaker 1: a politician, a reality TV star, an influencer, always on
Speaker 1: the verge of getting herself canceled. One thing is certain,
Speaker 1: we wouldn't be able to look away. As Lola herself said, quote,
Speaker 1: even my many enemies must admit I always had a
Speaker 1: flair for living. That is the scandalous story of Lola
Speaker 1: Monte's But keep listening after a sponsor break to hear
Speaker 1: one more scandal in Lola's life. There's one last anecdote
Speaker 1: that showse the strong reaction people always had to Lola Montes.
Speaker 1: Remember Alexandra Dujarier, the newspaper owner and drama critic, that
Speaker 1: Lola mete in Paris. Lola had serious feelings for him,
Speaker 1: and the two had planned to be married at one point,
Speaker 1: though the two had their first fight over whether or
Speaker 1: not Lola should join him at a party Dujarier attended
Speaker 1: alone and, in a drunken state, offended another man. A
Speaker 1: rival journalist with a grudge named Jean de Bauvan de
Speaker 1: Bauvian challenged Dujarier to a duel where Djarier was shot
Speaker 1: and killed. This might be the only time in her
Speaker 1: life where Lola Montes's presence could have actually caused less drama.
Speaker 1: Noble Blood is a production of iHeart Radio and Grim
Speaker 1: and Mild from Aaron Mankey. Noble Blood is hosted by
Speaker 1: me Dana Schwartz, with additional writing and research by Hannah Johnston, Hannahswick,
Speaker 1: Courtney Sender, Amy Hit and Julia Melaney. The show is
Speaker 1: edited and produced by Jesse Funk, with supervising producer rima
Speaker 1: il KLi and executive producers Aaron Manke, Trevor Young, and
Speaker 1: Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.