"The peculiar prominence he has attained," remarked an obituarist, "has not always been of an enviable description. There are probably few men who have had so many charges of the most varied and disagreeable nature made against them. The resultant obloquy to which he had thus been exposed is great, nor has it vanished, as it properly should have done, with the charges themselves."
This, however, was looking ahead. The comments of 1843 came first. "In the clubs that night," we read, "the bucks and bloods laughed heartily when they discussed the mishap of the proud beauty who had scorned the advances of my Lord." Lola Montez, however, did not regard it as anything at which to laugh. She may, as she boasted, have had a dash of Spanish blood in her veins, but she certainly had none of George Washington's, for she immediately sat down and wrote a circular letter to all the London papers. In this she sought to correct what she described as a "false impression." Swallowing it as gospel, a number of them printed it in full: To the Editor.
SIR: Since I had the honour of dancing at Her Majesty's Theatre, on Saturday, the 3rd inst. (when I was received by the English public in so kind and flattering a manner) I have been cruelly annoyed by reports that I am not really the person I pretend to be, but that I have long been known in London as a woman of disreputable character. I entreat you, Sir, to allow me, through the medium of your respected journal, to assure you and the public, in the most positive and unqualified manner, that there is not a word of truth in such a statement.
I am a native of Seville; and in the year 1833, when ten years old, was sent to a Catholic lady at Bath, where I remained seven months, and was then taken back to my parents in Spain. From that period, until the 14th of April, when I landed in England, I have never set foot in this country, and I never saw London before in my life.
In apologising for the favour I ask you, I feel sure that you will kindly consider the anxiety of myself and my friends to remove from the public any impression to my disadvantage. My lawyer has received instructions to proceed against all the parties who have calumniated me.
Believe me to be your obedient and humble servant, LOLA MONTEZ.
June 13, 1843.
Ballet-dancers cannot, when making their débuts, be expected to remember everything; and this one had obviously forgotten her sojourn in India, just as she had forgotten her marriage to Thomas James (and the subsequent Consistory Court action), as well as her amorous dalliance with Captain Lennox during the previous year.