"Madame Lola Montez," remarked one of them, who had gone off with a bulging note-book, crammed with enough "copy" to fill a column, "says that a number of shocking falsehoods about her have been published in our journals. Yet she insists she is not the woman she is credited (or discredited) with being. If she were, her admirers, she thinks, would be still more plentiful than they are. She expresses herself as fearful that she will not have proper consideration in New York; but she trusts that the great American public will suspend judgment until they have made her acquaintance."
"The Countess of Landsfeld, who is now among us," adds a second scribe, "owes more to the brilliancy of intellect with which Heaven has gifted her than to her world-wide celebrity as an artiste. Her person and bearing are unmistakably aristocratic. If we may credit the stories which from time to time have reached us, she can, if necessary, use her riding-whip in vigorous fashion about the ears of any offending biped or quadruped. In America she is somewhat out of her latitude. Paris should be her real home."
For the present, however, Lola decided to stop where she was.
While she was in America on this tour, Barnum wanted to be her impresario, and promised "special terms." Despite, however, the lure of "having her path garlanded with flowers and her carriage drawn by human hands from hotel to theatre," the offer was not accepted.
The New York début of Lola Montez was made on December 29, 1851, in a ballet: Betly, the Tyrolean. Public excitement ran high, for appetites had been whetted by the sensational accounts of her "past" with which the papers were filled.
"Scandal does not necessarily create a great dancer," declared one rigid critic; and a second had a long column, headed: "MONTEZ v. RESPECTABILITY," in which he observed (thoughtfully supplying a translation): "Parturiunt MONTEZ, nascitur ridiculus mus." All the same, the box-office reported record business. As a result, prices were doubled, and the seats put up to auction.
If she had her enemies in the press, Lola also had her champions there. Just before she arrived, one of them, a New York paper, took up the cudgels on her behalf in vigorous fashion: The most funny proceeding that is going on in this town is the terrible to-do that is being made about Lola Montez. If this state of things continues we will guarantee a continuance of the fun after Lola makes her advent among us, for if she doesn't properly horse-whip those squeamish gentlemen we are much mistaken in her character.