VINO GRAPES VALENCIA SPAIN

THE CHARM OF ANDALUSIA

 

LEANDRO DE BOURBON: RECOGNITION FOR AN EXTRAMARITAL CHILD OF KING ALFONSO XIII

Stage and silent screen actress Carmen Ruiz Moragas was known to be the Mistress of King Alfonso III of Spain. Carmen had two children with him. One of them, son Leandro Ruiz Moragas, who was born in 1929, sued to be allowed to use the surname Bourbon which is the surname of the Spanish Royal family.  (I know it's difficult to know considering all the titles and changes in titles .) He waged quite a campaign including writing a couple books and eventually was granted what he wanted. By then his sister was deceased so the name was only his to use.

First, his books are in Spanish. There is a French edition.

This one is a biography.  

The title in Spanish is Alfonso XIII Vista Por Su Hijo. 

In English that is Alfonso XIII Seen By His Son

I was unable to read this book.

 

This one is called El Bastardo Real in Spanish

In English that is The Royal Bastard.

Again, I was unable to read this book.

According to Spanish language Wikipedia, Alfonso was ten years old when he was told who his father was and his education was paid for with money set aside by his father for that purpose. However, it was a private rather than public acknowledgement.  In 2002 he filed to have his parentage recognized and on the basis that the King's name appeared on his original birth certificate, he was grated in 2003 to use the surname Bourbon Ruiz. No DNA test was required.  There were some disputes over if he also deserved a title and to be called Royal Highness or if he or his children should be in line for the throne of Spain.  Suffice to say, there was no need, even if he was calculated to be 10th in line, as the legitimate heirs were in place.  However, Leandro's children are also allowed to use the Bourbon surname.  Both Leandro and his sister had children and he is known to have grandchildren as well. He died in 2016.

HOTEL MADRID

THE MAN HIMSELF - KING ALPHONSE III OF SPAIN

ALFONSO III, KING OF SPAIN

Image from NNDB web site

Born in 1886 in Madrid, died 1941 and buried in El Escorial, also in Madrid, this lothario who reigned from 1886 (with his mother in charge) until his abdication in 1931, was called unstable - depressed - immature but maybe he was one more Royal in an arranged marriage trying to do his duty but also finding some happiness. Was the last arranged marriage for a European Royal that of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer?

CARMEN RUIZ MORAGAS : SECOND ACKNOWLEDGED MISTRESS OF KING ALFONSO XII : EIGHT YEARS AS LOVERS - LUXURY and VOLATILITY

 

CARMEN RUIS MORGAS

1898 - 1936

 

Image from Wikipedia

Carmen Ruis Morgas was an actress who became more famous as Mistress to the King of Spain than she did her successful acting career. Born in Madrid in an upper middle class family, she began acting at about the age of 20 and was successful on the Spanish stage as well as appearing in Silent Films. She was married in 1919 at about the age of 21 to a bullfighter named Rodolfo Gaona, but the marriage didn't last long - about a year..

This Spanish language article from SPANISH edition of VANITY FAIR magazine, published in 2018, suggests that Carmen was a liberated woman, a feminist, and one who dared break rules large and small. (Therefor not at all like her more private Mistress predecessor, Melanie.) But then what threat could Melanie De Gaufridy De Dortan have been to the Queen since her relationship with the King, Alfonso XII, as evidenced by the birth of their son, Roger, was before his marriage. It depends on if you believe that the relationship continued for some time during his marriage.

REVISTA VANITY FAIR SPAIN; CARMEN MORAGES ALFONSO XII's LOVER - ACTRESS FEMINIST (I've hit the Google Translate option to put it into English and note that the translation isn't perfect.)  I enjoy that Carmen is called a Lover rather than a Mistress. 

The author of this article Pilar Eyre is also the author of a book on Carmen in Spanish Language: It's called CARMEN THE REBEL and no I didn't read it. She says eight years went by before the Queen came face to face with Carmen, and then at the theatre.

Carmen sounds like a spitfire. EXCERPT: She is one of the most distorted figures of her time, a beautiful creature, a charismatic actress who rebelled against her condition as a woman, against her role as submissive wife, illegitimate daughter and lover, with episodes in her life as dark as her marriage to a famous bullfighter, whose most intimate details could be followed punctually in the uncensored newspapers, devoured by a public eager for strong emotions.

"As long as you can't really be, I want to have you to live like a queen," he said, and he, with a lot of money and authority, made it possible.

EXCERPT : They were eight years of romanticism, luxury and splendor, dream trips, a magnificent mansion adorned with the barbarian pageantry of the czar's furniture, a cook on loan from the Duke of Alba, a jeweler full of Cartier jewels... But they were also eight years of anguish due to the social and political vicissitudes of the time they had to live, also full of the jealousy and arguments of two exalted and stormy temperaments. .... Carmen became republican *** …. she died screaming Aflonso!  Alfonso! 

***

Carmen died a painful death of uterine cancer at only thirty-nine years old and her funeral was apparently only attended by her friends from the theatre.  Therefore, she became infamous.

*** for the people

ALPHONSO III's FATHERING.

1905 : Roger - with Melanie De Gaufridy De Dortan married to her husband.

1906 : Alfonso Pio Cristino Eduardo, Prince o Asturias  - with wife Victoria Eugenia of Battenberg

1908 : Jaime Luitpold Isabelino Enrique - with wife Victoria Eugenia of Battenberg

1909 : Beatriz Isabel Federica Alfonsa Eugenia - with wife Victoria Eugenia of Battenberg

1910 : Fernando (stillborn) - with wife Victoria Eugenia of Battenberg

1911 : Maria Christina Teresa Alejanra - with wife Victoria Eugenia of Battenberg

1913 : Juan Carlos Teresa Silvestre Alfonso - with wife Victoria Eugenia of Battenberg

           (the Father of Juan Carlos who became King and abdicated in recent years)

1914 : Gonzolo Manuel Maria Bernardo - with wife Victoria Eugenia of Battenberg

BIG GAP HERE

1929 : Leanodro Alfonso Ruiz Moragus - with Mistress Carmen Ruiz Moragas

____ : Ana Maria Teresa Ruiz Moragas - with Mistress Carmen Ruiz Moragas

NOTE that he abdicated in 1931

NOTE that she died in 1936, leaving two children

NOTE that Alfonso died in 1941

According to Spanish language Wikipedia, Carmen moved on from the King and had another man in her life Juan Chabas, from 1929 to 1936. Once again I see that there is potentially some misinformation about this woman.  While she did not have more children, this would suggest that she was seeing Chabas, who she did not marry, during the time that Leanodro was born. Her last words as reported by author Pllar Eyre would indicate that the King was her true love. Chabas was a republican poet, novelist, journalist - an all around writer - and also a theater critic.

C 2021

Research for this post included numerous genealogy sites and encyclopedia. Again, there is some speculations.

DREAMS OF OLD SPAIN

 

MELANIE DE GAUFRIDY DE DORTAN : THE FIRST MISTRESS OF ALFONSO XIII de BOURBON of SPAIN

BERTHE MARIE MELANIE DE GAUFRIDY de DORTAN

"MELANIE" 

(1876-1937)

Our Mistress of the Month, Melanie de Gaufridy de Dorton was born in 1876 as a French woman in a family entwined with French history.  According to the web site Anciennes familes de Provence, her family was so important that their records go back into the 1600's. Other genealogy sites suggest the families she sprung from were in place as aristocracy further back into Medieval times. Melanie's family is intermarried with others who appear in The Peerage and can be found in European countries other than France as members of the gentry. And so, like other Mistresses we have learned about, while not Royal, she came from a distinguished background and, as was expected, she made a marriage with a notable man.

Melanie married her husband, Philippe de Vilmorin, a famous Botanist and Horticulturist who collected rare plants and began two arboretums that still exist, one in France and another in Belgium, and they had four children. Then she had a son in 1905 who was fathered by the King Alfonso XIII, and she named that son Roger Leveque de Vilmorin. 

However, as the King married his wife on the 31st of May in 1906, he was unmarried at the time. It was she who was already married. Would he have considered marrying her if she were not? Another thing.  He was born in 1886 so this relationship was with an older woman. Older and married and no divorce for Catholics...

It would seem that the King was not one to be faithful to his wife, Princess Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg; You know that name and you know this ties the Spanish royal family into the British Royal family and to many Royal families in Europe.  She knew he already had this child when she married him.

There are rumors that other or more children born by Melanie were actually the King's. According to various sources which I can't judge for authenticity, the King was also known to have children with other women he could not marry. The other known Mistress, actress Carmen Ruiz Moragas had two children with him. He is also supposed to have fathered children with maids or nanny's. These children have been referred to in Spain and France as "Royal Bastards." Although that sounds like swearing, in fact this was the correct term for illegitimate children. So for him seven children with Princess Victoria Eugenie and one with Melanie and two with Carmen? Another one or two?

Was the King always a man on the prowl? Was he romantic? Seductive? Could a woman say no and make him go away? Did he feel he had the right as King to fool around? (Probably!)  One thing for sure is that these people lived long before media attention could out them for their personal decisions. Now if you're Royal it's most difficult to be discreet.

I don't have exact answers for you. Walls of silence were long ago put up around the King and Queen of Spain. Books about the King and the family that I was able to find don't mention Melanie. However, it would seem that his own father also had Mistresses and extramatrimonial children.

Roger was born in 1905 when Melanie was about twenty-nine years old. The King was barely out of his teens. It seems the birth falls into that Open Secret category. Since Melanie's parents were Roger de Gaufridy de Dorton and Adelaide de Veronnet ,the de implying ownership of the town, Melanie named her son with the King after her father. 

Did her husband know of the relationship between his wife and the King and that the child was not his? Well, they had another child after this, so they stayed married. All of this is just so Old School Aristocrat.  Affairs are tolerated, if not encouraged, because it's just too much to break up the financial agreements and family. (Divorce is just too modern.) After all it's rather an honor that the Royal himself is interested in your wife. And what about the children? They need their mother. As the mother of six, Melanie de Gaufridy de Dorton is one of the most fruitful Mistresses ever profiled here at Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot. Today she has many descendants - grandchildren and great grandchildren.

King Alfonso XIII was also quite fruitful. This is where the various genealogy sites are not in agreement. It would seem he totaled 10 children - or was that twelve? Did his wife suffer or did she go about her business thinking "it is what it is"? 

Your guess is as good as mine.

C 2021 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot

All Rights Reserved Including International and Internet Rights

Research for this months posts include items linked to and mentioned, as well as many genealogy sites,encyclopedias.,and articles, some of which were repetitive. 

COMING UP : TWO ACKNOWLEDGED MISTRESSES OF A SPANISH KING

In the English speaking world, and I hate to say this, even with so many Hispanic immigrants to the United States, even with some parts of what is now the United States having had Spanish or Mexican settlements before they were the states we know now, it's as if the Spanish world does not exist. We rarely seem to get news out of Central American or any of South America on main stream media other than the incoming illegal immigrants or a major crisis. I also find the information I need for MISTRESS MANIFESTO BLOGSPOT hard to get. 

One of the Spanish language publications I enjoy paging through when I go to the library is Hola Magazine where royals and aristocrats are the celebrities. In that publication they are often photographed in splendid clothing in their gorgeous houses. It would seem that in the Latin world there is still great interest in people of nobility and how they live. 

In May of 2015, our Mistress of the Month was Marita Lorenz who was the Mistress of Fidel Castro (Cuba) and then General Marcos Peres Jimenes; She was a European born daughter of a ship captain based in New York. She turned into a CIA collaborator after having a very difficult time with Castro in particular and men in general. Other than that I have barely touched on Latin culture or people living in it or coming from it. However, I've long wanted to include modern Spanish Mistresses (or Mistresses in Spain).

I'm aware of what's happened with more recent King Juan Carlos I, who abdicated so that his son Felipe VI could take over. Felipe's role has been extremely public. That story is all over the media. Alphonso XII de Bourbon of Spain was the father of  King Juan Carlos and the grandfather of King Felipe VI. It would seem that there has been a tradition of fathering extramatrimonial children for generations in the family.

Despite that, the Spanish macho culture seems to have higher expectations of women for loyalty and faithfulness than for the men. There has been a tradition of Mistresses in Spain despite the  influence of Catholic culture which emphasizes the family and women as the nurturers whose main job is to raise the children. Wives are expected to be faithful and loyal to their husbands and to be with only one man in a life time or the loss of their reputation could be devastating. I believe there is still an emphasis on virginity until marriage for women in Latin culture. Men - not so much. (What's happening in gangs here in the United States is an aberration but that's another story.) 

There has been a tradition of the Wife with the Big House and the Mistress with the Little House which is more civilized than abandoning a woman who might otherwise be put out. Of course we are talking about men who can afford to support two families. In macho culture women remain in traditional roles, though there have been rapid changes in recent years, that was not the case in the late 19th and early 20th century.  

Check back with me tomorrow when I'll begin with our Mistress of the Month!

Missy

ARE THE FRENCH SEXIER? OR IS THAT JUST A STEREOTYPE? ARE THEY REALLY MISTRESS TOLERANT?

December is the month that closes the year, a month that goes fast, especially if you're a social being.  I tend to get more creative in choosing my subjects for this month, knowing that my mistress-interested readers will still check in, but others will be too busy to read MISTRESS MANIFESTO BLOGSPOT and choose to catch up some time in January.

This December I want to devote some time to a stereotype, of France - and the French, that their sensibility is simply sexier than ours, and that the acceptance of Mistresses is part of their more sensible attitudes about sexuality.  Is this true?  Still true?  Are they a bit crazy or do we have a lot to learn from them?

Over the last several years I've featured a number of French Mistresses or Mistressing that happened to take place in France, or French subjects.  The whole time I've been desperate to feature some Spanish Mistresses, some Hispanic Mistresses, and to discuss what happens in Spain, but comparatively little is available to read or research on that subject published in English, in the United States.

As an American I no doubt was effected by "puritanism" as well as the conservatism of my upbringing in which sex was not only expected to happen within marriage, but was not discussed; I and my peers were raised to be ignorant, had to get our own information; some depended upon and were wrongly informed by romance novels. Two of my high school friends shared one prescription of the Pill, each taking it every other day!

Sex was also the way into marriage for many of my peers, especially when after some time with one partner there occurred a pregnancy. Now - no longer does sex mean that a couple is serious and exclusive and on their way to a life time of togetherness. Now there are many more ways to define one's sexuality such as "fluid."

Reading over the acceptance of sex outside marriage in France, as well as men having Mistresses in France, I learned that it's considered to be OK so long as it does not hurt the FAMILY (this meaning the extended family, not just the nuclear family) and it's thought that having affairs - or Mistresses - PRESERVES MARRIAGE. This is something that I've come to believe is true. Is it American (or Protestant?) to choose a separation or divorce over the discovery that at least one partner has been unfaithful?  

Therefore, while I get cozy with music to set the mood and settle in with my cell phone researching articles, magazines, and books, I ask you to contemplate this question with me. I'll feature a series of articles for you to link to with some excerpts to get that going.

As always you can comment, with ideas, suggestions, personal experiences, and the like.  Pkease Read my Comments Policy in Pages!

WARM HOLIDAYS,

Missy

SUGGESTIONS NEEDED! SPANISH MISTRESSES! KEPT SPANISH MEN?

I would love my readers to leave the names of SPANISH (or "Hispanic") Mistresses, including women in Spain, Mexico, Central and South America, preferable with references to articles or books about these people. This is a subject that is sadly neglected at Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot. Now, there may be some literature out there published in Spanish that I can't read without a translator, but if the work is on Google Books, that might work!  Another option might be books read on YouTube videos, or YouTube Documentaries.

When I look at my stats and see the countries that my readers are coming from, well, I just know there are many people reading (perhaps secretly) in Spain and Spanish speaking countries!

Missy

MISIA SERT : THREE MARRIAGES - THIRD TO TO JOSE MARIA SERT : THE ACCOMMODATION OF A YOUNGER WIFE

  

MISIA SERT: Perhaps you have heard this woman's name because fashion designer CoCo Chanel, once a mistress herself, and Misia were great friends. Misia is called Gabrielle Chanel's "Confidant." And Chanel - the company, in 2015, introduced a new perfume named after her, Misia. Like Chanel, Misia went to a convent school for some time.  Unlike Chanel she was surrounded by high society and the fine arts from childhood, her family knowing Liszt, Wagner, and Von Bulow.

MISIA SERT 

Maria Zofia Olga Zenajda Godebska 

30 March 1872 – 15 October 1950
                 The year of her birth is uncertain

Misia Sert became a famous and well loved patron of writers, artists, and dancers, especially in Paris, but this woman who was a gifted pianist,  was also a muse, modeling for so many works of art by now famous and respect artists such as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Renoir.  She was born into an aristocratic ethnically Polish family with ties to Saint Petersburg that left Russia for ex-patriot life in France. Her father was a sculptor who was unfaithful to her mother, and her mother died when she was born and so Misia was raised by relatives. Her sculptor father had mistresses. Still, she was presented at the Court Ball and met the Queen of Belgium - a friend of a grandmother's. 

She used the 300,000 franks in gold that she received along with diamonds from her mother-in-law on lingerie, all at one store, and settled in Paris. She was married for the first time young. She was just a bit over 15 years old when they married.

Her patronage of the arts was first supported by that well to do half-Jewish first husband whom she knew from childhood as a family friend, Thadee Natanson. (She herself was a quarter Jewish.) The young couple were involved with the literary social scene as he and his brothers published a literary magazine, Le Review Blanche, which featured writers such as Colette. The artists and composers she name drops in her memoir such as Picasso and Debussy were in their twenties when she was in her teens.  She became a "snobinette."

One thing about Misia that perhaps had a profound effect on her life: She found childbirth and everything connected to it gross.  Perhaps because her mother died after having her? Clearly she avoided the fate typical of being a woman because, despite three marriages, she remained childless.  And her childlessness would be used against her to end her third marriage to the man whose name she carried, Spanish sculptor and artist Jose Maria Sert.

Her relationship with Thadee Natanson was not based on passion but it was good while it lasted. And was soon enough challenged.

One day while out shopping, Alfred Edwards, 30 years older than Misia, and the owner of Theatre de Paris and lots else, saw her and became obsessed. He plotted for a way to remove her husband from Paris. Edwards was rude and crude and yet he courted her with enormous bouquets and foisted endless attention - when he could find her - and Howard Hughes-like, had her followed. 

The literary magazine was respected but Natanson and his brother had sunk a fortune into it. The young couple were social but Natanson's weak spot was that he needed money.  Edwards offered Natansan the opportunity of a lifetime, to be the Director of a virgin coal mine in Koloschvar, Hungary.  Bye Bye Thadee.  In her memoir she seems to portray the courtship as whirlwind. Actually it took four years for the marriage to end. She was still a very young woman. Misia said Thadee kept encouraging her to make an arrangement with Edwards, as if he wanted her to be his boss's mistress.

Misia says she refused Edward's calls 80 times as Lautrec was painting a portrait of her, but finally she met Edwards at his flat where his wife and brother encouraged her to just become his mistress. Instead she took the Orient Express train to be with Thadee in Hungary. When the train got to Vienna, there was Edwards waiting.  His persistence broke her down.

She became Edward's mistress and then married him or maybe she didn't. However, he who went from being obsessed with her, went to being obsessed with a famous actress who had been a prostitute.  

For some time Edwards funded her post divorce lifestyle.

Finally after being his mistress, Misia had a third marriage to a famous painter,  Jose Maria Sert, who was patronized by the Royal Family of Spain.  He was known for his massive paintings for palaces. She had married first a little girl and second as a playmate. This third marriage was life with an equal, she a mature woman.  The marriage lasted twenty years into her old age but ended in a heartbreaking betrayal. 

Luckily my library had a copy of Misia's own memoir. 

When you read her memoir you may feel as I did that she drops a lot of names which, when it was published, might have been more familiar to readers but which generations later might take some research to understand their importance. Misia is, to me, not a great beauty and in fact rather plain, but she apparently was extremely attractive to men and had a lovely personality, bright, enthusiastic, and caring.  And she had enough money to help some of the creative people she believed in, some of whom despite their great talent were paupers.

In her old age she was probably depressed over what happened with Sert.  She was a morphine addict and she and CoCo Chanel would go to Switzerland to buy their drugs.

Towards the end of her memoir is a chapter composed of an impassioned and heartbreaking letter to the long lost husband Sert. He'd found a much younger woman to marry and love but for a time there seemed to be an agreement that they would go on as three. For a while Misia though of this young woman, as a third party in her marriage, almost a daughter, and then she accommodated through divorce. She survived divorce obtained in another country, annulment by the Catholic Church in Spain (which wasn't recognized in France), and the remarriage of Sert to the young woman, called Roussy, first civilly and then in the Catholic church. The annulment was based upon Misia's inability to give old Sert heirs - their childlessness.

While she believed she loved him enough to do as he wanted, freeing him to marry again, he apparently thought if she loved him she would never divorce him. She signed in agreement to the annulment. The young woman, his new bride, shockingly died  young, without providing Sert an heir. Misia survived the betrayal and she and Sert had a second act with each other as good friends after the young woman died. They saw each other frequently but no longer lived together.

Misia outlived both the young woman he had thrown her over for and Sert.  And who was at her death bed?  CoCo Chanel.

At a time and place when marriage was thought to be forever, even if it was supported by Mistresses or to be endured, Misia's life was quite unconventional. She lived fully and endured much emotional turmoil. 

This month, using both books as references, I'll give more detail about Misia's marriages, in particular to artist Sert.  There are some surprises - even Hollywood connections.


To learn more about CoCo Chanel  who was last Mistress of the Month in June 2018 and is mentioned in other parts of this blog, use my archives or the Search feature! 

C 2019  Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot  All Rights Reserved including International and Internet Rights.

LOLA MONTEZ - DANCER - 19th CENTURY RADICAL

According to this video, Lola Montez was a feminist and politically astute.  She was self employed - true.  SHE WAS THE FIRST WOMAN TO BE PHOTOGRAPHED SMOKING A CIGARETTE!

SPIDER DANCE of LOLA MONTEZ

Scandalous? The videos I had originally placed here regarding Lola Montez's Spider Dance have expired and so I chose this one as a replacement June 2021 I love being able to further the interests of YouTube posters, however, videos do expire or are taken down, requiring contemplation on what else to post. Presented by Sovereign Hill Outdoor Museum. This film forms part of Goldfields Stories: Lola Montez, Star Attraction on the Culture Victoria.

 

LOLA MONTEZ : VOLATILE TEMPTRESS and MISTRESS OF KING LUDWIG I of BAVARIA WHO CHANGED HISTORY

youthful image from Wikipedia - Public Domain -
 artist Joseph Heigel painted before 1840

Eliza Rosanna Gilbert -  Lola Montez

born possibly 1818 -1821- death 1861

Also called  Senora Maria Dolores de Porris y Montez 
and a few other names.

A femme fatale of the Victorian age who gained world wide infamy,  the woman most likely born illegitimate to a fifteen year old mother in 1818 as Eliza Rosanna Watson - or Gilbert - in Ireland, was a victim of fake news and gossip like certain celebrities today, even as she caused much real ruckus herself. It seems her nature to have been a spitfire and willing to use notoriety to work her way up to the attentions of a King.  Affairs with Franz Liszt the composer, Andre Dumas Sr., who had left a lot of women with fatherless children, and many others, are probably facts but of short duration. Perhaps "mercurial" or "whimsical" would best describe a woman with a hot temper who would eventually die - most likely - of complications of syphilis.  "Word had it she had taken so many lovers that a centipede couldn't count them on its legs." (page 14)

She was, like many of the women elected Mistress of the Month here at Mistress Manifesto Blogspot, using what she had - beauty - at a time when someone coming from her origins had little opportunity to be more than a wife. Her clear blue eyes were said to shift shades of color and her white skin and black hair were quite the contrast. Considered a great beauty, in some paintings she is, in some images she isn't. Certainly her beauty and youth must have been what captivated her first husband, Lt. Thomas James, whom she married in July 1837 as a sixteen year old (?)who went to live with him in Dublin, then to India. Theirs was a Catholic union that may have never been quite dissolved and could have been a marriage arranged for her by others.

Of this marriage she would come to be quoted thus: "Runaway matches, like runaway horses, are almost sure to end in a smash up."

The author of the book below, James F. Varley, doesn't say how beautiful or desperate her mother may have been, but by 1840 Lola was shipped home to England and said to be locked up in a room.  She had a full on affair with Lt. Charles Lennox of several months duration on the way home.  In 1841, off ship, they went off to London boardinghouse to continue.  But the affair ended.

 Primary reference for posts 
on Lola Montez is this book by James F. Varley.

Later in this month I'll get to her California Adventures, for Lola is considered to be part of the history of California and the Wild Wild West in San Francisco and Grass Valley, once a prosperous boom town, but for this first post, I'll focus on what happened in Europe before she decided to travel to the new country. 

Wanting and needing to become financially independent, and inspired by a famous dancer at the time who did "Latin" dances, Lola decided to give dance a try, studying in London with a Spaniard and then going off to Spain, where she called herself Dona Lola Montez, and claimed Maria de Los Dolores was her real name.  She would change names many times in her life in attempts to reinvent herself. She put on a Spanish accent.  She claimed to be a widow.  But by 1848 she was back in England with a story of being widowed in Spain and selling mantillas. Possibly then she was kept by the Earl of Malmesbury. Too bad for her, an audience member outed her as just plain Betty James, the runaway wife of an army man.

She went to Berlin. There she attended a review held by King Frederick William to honor Nicholas I of Russia.  Did her horse bolt right into the parade because of gun fire or did she ride him there to gain attention?  Well, instead of being arrested, she was invited to visit Saint Petersburg. 

Then there was Warsaw, where she met Liszt.  (He already had a mistress for nine years, Comtesse d'Agoult, but Lola had a passionate week with him.)

Then off to Paris, where she was accused of doing a strip tease of sorts by throwing her garters and other clothing items to men. Her affair with Alexandre Dumas Sr, took place there.

She was still considered an amorist rather than a cold hearted man eater at this point. In Paris she even got herself engaged.  But her fiancee soon died in a duel that wasn't even about her.  She mourned.  She testified.  She brawled with another girl in a theater. She moved on.

In 1846, Lola traveled to the Grand Duchy of Baden and met Henry LXXII of Reuss.  They were lovers but she got thrown out for the offense of having walked across his flower bed! Never mind. Soon King Ludwig I of Bavaria, the married father of nine children, then 60 years old to her 29 years, would become her greatest conquest.  It was a conquest that changed history.

Lola was outspoken and let her opinions be known. She was aware of her power over the King. King Ludwig I's goal in life was to make Munich the center of architecture and art and spent lavishly to build and decorate.  But was he really "mad"?  Lola's presence and the King's unwillingness to give her up challenged the social order and his regime. So controversial was she that protests erupted. She was anti Jesuit/Catholic and sided with the Protestants. It wasn't just his family who wanted her out. Other aristocrats wanted the infamous affair to end. 

By 1848 there were student protests and Ludwig closed down the university for a year.  She was involved with a young Protestant noble.  Soon she was denying rumors of orgies while working on the King to give her a title.  |

"He made the Irish poseur Countess of Landsfeld, Baroness of Rosenthal, and a cannoness of the Order of Saint Therese, of which Ludwig's humiliated Queen was the head." page 40  He also demanded she be respected for her new position and that she receive a lifetime income and a new palace be built for her.
The protests against her became violent. Rocks were thrown at the King.  Lola left town thinking King Ludwig would catch up to her snf when he didn't she tried to come back.  Then she went to Switzerland and awaited him.  He didn't show. 

Lola left Munich because he sent her to Frankfurt where 500,000 florints awaited her at the Rothschilds bank.

Ludwig was forced to cancel her citizenship and all those titles.  

To Londen Lola Montez went, there calling herself Marie, Countess de Landsfeld.  She misjudged that the English didn't know what had happened with Ludwig or that they would accept her. She married a new heir - 21 year old George Stafford Heald, who was a decade younger than she.  Bigamy charges followed.  Divorce was highly unusual.  Had her first husband died in India?  As things got complicated the newly married couple left the country and then fled to France. They lived there quarreling for a couple years - domestic violence. He fled to England alone.  She changed her name to La Comptess de Landsfeld Heald.

Though she got money from Heald and had some of what Ludwig gave her, she spent too much.  So in 1851, she decided to write her memoirs, and they were published in Le Pays, serially.  Like other mistress memoirs, the stories may have been an attempt at extortion.

Affairs and rumors of affairs continued.  Finally she took a steamship to America.  Was she revitalized or broken?  When she arrived in New York in December 1851 crowds were there to greet her.  A book had already been written about her.  Broadway embraced her but the reviews of her dancing skills were not good.  Still, she was learning to market herself and manipulate the press... better than she had before.

More to come!

Missy

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