The pen, however, being still an unaccustomed weapon, she availed herself of outside help; and practically the whole of the Autobiography of Lola Montez was written for her (on a profit-sharing agreement) by a clerical collaborator, the Rev. Chauncey Burr.
The tale of the Odyssey--as set forth in this joint production--established contact with glittering circles and the breathing of perfumed air. Within its chapters emperors and kings and princes jostle one another; scenes shift continually from capital to capital; and plots follow counter-plots in breathless fashion. Yet those who purchased the volume in the fond belief that it would turn out to be the analysis of a modern Aspasia were disappointed. As a matter of fact, there was next to nothing in it that would have upset a Band of Hope committee-meeting. This, however, was largely because, an adept at skating over thin ice, the Rev. Mr. Burr ignored, or coloured, such happenings as did not redound to the credit of his subject.
The "Autobiography" (alleged) finishes on a high note: "Ten years have elapsed since the events with which Lola Montez was connected in Bavaria; and yet the malice of the diffusive and ever vigilant Jesuits is as fresh and as active as it was at the first hour it assailed her. It is not too much to say that few artists of her profession ever escaped with so little censure; and certainly none ever had the doors of the highest social respectability so universally open to them as she had, up to the time she went to Bavaria. And she denies that there was anything in her conduct there which ought to have compromised her before the world. Her enemies assailed her, not because her deeds were bad, but because they knew of no other means to destroy her influence."
Although too modest to acknowledge it, this passage is obviously the Rev. Chauncey Burr verbatim.
An offer to serialise part of the "autobiography" in the columns of Le Figaro was accepted. In correcting the proofs, Lola still clung to the earlier account that had already done service in the "memoirs" contributed to Le Pays. But she embellished it with fresh embroideries. Thus, to keep up the Spanish connection, she now claimed as her aunts the Marquise de Pavestra and the Marquise de Villa-Palana, together with an equally imaginary Uncle Juan; and she also, for the first time, gave her schoolgirl friend, Fanny Nicholls, a sister Valerie.
The "autobiography" had originally been accepted for Le Pays by Anténon Joly. When, however, shortly afterwards, MM. de la Guéronnière and de Lamartine acquired the journal, they repudiated the contract. Hence, its transfer to Le Figaro. But this organ also developed a sudden queasiness, and, after the first few instalments had appeared, declined to print the remainder, on the grounds that they were "too scandalous." Some time afterwards, Eugéne de Mirecourt, thinking he had a bargain, secured the interrupted portions and made them the basis of a chapter on Lola Montez in his Les Contemporains. This chapter is marked throughout by severe disapproval. Thus, it begins: "The woman who revives in the nineteenth century the scandals of Jeanne Vaubernier belongs to our gallery, and the abject materialism accompanying her misconduct will be revealed in the pages that follow."