ant their petition, we, your
Ministers, will then have no alternative but to tender the
resignation of the portfolios with which you have entrusted
them.

The signatories to this precious "manifesto" were von Abel, von
Gumpenberg (Minister of War), von Schrenk, and von Seinsheim
(Councillors of State). Much to their hurt astonishment, their
resignations were accepted. Nor was there any lack of candidates for
the vacant portfolios. Ludwig, prompted by Lola, filled up the gaps at
once. Georg von Maurer (who reciprocated by signing her certificate of
naturalisation) was appointed Minister of Justice and Foreign Affairs,
and Freiherr Friederich zu Rhein was the new Minister of Public
Worship and Finance.

The students, not prepared to let slip a chance of asserting
themselves, paraded the streets with a fresh song:

_Da kam Senorra Lolala,
Sturzt Abel und Consorten;
Ach war sie doch jetz wieder da,
Und jagte fort den----_

Despite the fact that he was indebted for his appointment to her,
Maurer attempted to snub Lola and refused to speak to her the next
time they met. For his pains, he found himself, in December, 1847,
dismissed from office. There was, however, joy in the ranks of the
clerical party, for, to their horror, he happened to be a Protestant.

"I have now a new ministry, and there are no more Jesuits in Bavaria,"
announced Ludwig with much complacence. As was his custom when a
national crisis occurred, he was also delivered of a sonnet,
commencing:

You who have wished to hold me in thrall, tremble!
Greatly do I esteem the important affair
Which has ever on divested you of your power!

But the fallen ministers had the sympathy of Vienna. Count Senfft, the
Austrian envoy at Munich, gave a banquet in their honour. Lola
reported this to Ludwig, and Ludwig gave Senfft his _conge_.

What had annoyed the Wittelsbach Lovelace more than anything else
about the business was that the memorandum in which von Abel and his
colleagues had expressed their candid opinion of Lola Montez found its
way into the _Augsburger Zeitung_ and a number of Paris journals. This
was regarded by him as a breach of confidence. Enquiries revealed the
fact that von Abel's sister had been surreptitiously shown a copy of
the document, and, not prepared to keep such a tit-bit of gossip to
herself, had disclosed its contents to a reporter. After this, the
fat, so to speak, was in the fire; and n