f hisses and boos. The light faded out of the dancer's eyes, the smile
from her lips; and as the tumult of disapprobation rose to a deafening
climax the curtain was rung down, and Lola rushed weeping from the
stage. Her career as a dancer, in England, had ended at its birth.

But Lola Montez was not the woman to sit down calmly under defeat. A few
weeks later we find her tripping it on the stage at Dresden, and at
Berlin, where the King of Prussia himself was among her applauders. But
such success as the Continent brought her was too small to keep her now
deplenished purse supplied. She fell on evil days, and for two years led
a precarious life--now, we are told, singing in Brussels streets to keep
starvation from her side, now playing the political spy in Russia, and
again, by a capricious turn of fortune's wheel, being feted and courted
in the exalted circles of Vienna and Paris.

From the French capital she made her way to Warsaw, where stirring
adventures awaited her, for before she had been there many days the
Polish Viceroy, General Paskevitch, cast his aged but lascivious eyes on
her young beauty and sent an equerry to desire her presence at the
palace. "He offered her" (so runs the story as told by her own lips)
"the gift of a splendid country estate, and would load her with diamonds
besides. The poor old man was a comic sight to look upon--unusually
short in stature; and every time he spoke he threw his head back and
opened his mouth so wide as to expose the artificial gold roof of his
palate. A death's head making love to a lady could not have been a more
horrible or disgusting sight. These generous gifts were most
respectfully and very decidedly declined."

But General Paskevitch was not disposed to be spurned with impunity. The
contemptuous beauty must be punished for her scorn of his wooing; and,
when she made her appearance on the stage the same night it was to a
greeting of hisses by the Viceroy's hirelings. The next night brought
the same experience; but when on the third night the storm arose, "Lola,
in a rage, rushed down to the footlights and declared that those hisses
had been set at her by the director, because she had refused certain
gifts from the old Prince, his master. Then came a tremendous shower of
applause from the audience, and the old Princess, who was present, both
nodded her head and clapped her hands to the enraged and fiery little
Lola."

A tumultuous crowd of Poles escorted her to