Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 21.djvu/339

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Gilbert
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Gilbert

News, 20 March 1847, p. 180, with portrait, and 3 April, pp. 215–16; Times, 24 March 1848, p. 7; Fraser's Mag. January 1848, pp. 89–104, and March, pp. 366–8). Early in 1849 she came to England, where she was advertised to appear at Covent Garden Theatre, London, in a drama entitled ‘Lola Montez ou La Comtesse pour une heure;’ but, it being very doubtful whether the lord chamberlain would have licensed the piece, the advertisements were withdrawn. On 19 July 1849 she married, at St. George's, Hanover Square, George Trafford Heald. He was only just of age, a son of George Heald of the chancery bar, and had been gazetted a cornet in the 2nd life guards on 29 June 1848. On 6 Aug. 1849 she was summoned to the Marlborough Street police-court on a charge of bigamy. The case was not promoted by the husband, but by Miss Susanna Heald of Horncastle, Lincolnshire, who had been her nephew's guardian (Times, 7 Aug. 1849, pp. 6–7). To avoid possible punishment, as it appeared that the final order for her divorce in the consistory court had never been made, she fled with Heald to Spain, where she is said to have borne him two sons. He sold out of the army soon after his marriage, and is reported to have been accidentally drowned at Lisbon in 1853. She was afterwards in America, arriving at New York in the same vessel with Kossuth on 5 Dec. 1851, and making her appearance at the Broadway Theatre on 29 Dec. in the ballet of ‘Betley the Tyrolean.’ She remained there until 19 Jan. 1852. As a danseuse she disappointed public expectation, although for some time she attracted crowded houses. On 18 May she reappeared at the same theatre in Ware's drama entitled ‘Lola Montez in Bavaria,’ in which she represented herself as the danseuse, the politician, the countess, the revolutionist, and the fugitive, and played for five nights (Ireland, New York Stage, ii. 593–5). On 19 Jan. 1852 she was at the Walnut Street Theatre, Philadelphia. In 1853 she went to California, where on 2 Aug. she married P. P. Hull, the proprietor of the ‘San Francisco Whig,’ but did not live long with him. At this period it was stated that her first and second husbands were dead, but this was not correct, as Captain James, who had retired from the Indian army on 28 Feb. 1856, did not die until 17 May 1871. After a visit to Europe she went to Australia, and on 23 Aug. 1855 played at the Victoria Theatre, Sydney. In the following year, while playing at Melbourne, she horsewhipped Mr. Seekamp, the editor of the ‘Ballarat Times,’ on account of an article he had inserted in his journal reflecting on her character. Shortly after this she had a disagreement with Mr. Crosby, the lessee of a theatre where she was engaged, which led to a personal encounter between herself and Mrs. Crosby. In August 1856 she went to France, whence in 1857 she sailed for America, and made her appearance at the Green Street Theatre, New York, in ‘The Eton Boy,’ ‘The Follies of a Night,’ and ‘Lola in Bavaria.’ She next appeared as a public lecturer, speaking of beautiful women, gallantry, heroines of history, and similar subjects. These lectures were printed in America and England in 1858, and there is also a German edition of some of them entitled ‘Blaues Blut. Handbuch der Noblesse. Von E. M. Vacano, Berlin,’ 1864. She also published at New York in 1858 a work on ‘The Art of Beauty,’ of which there is a French edition called ‘L'Art de la Beauté ou secrets de la toilette des Dames,’ Paris, 1862, with a portrait of the author. The lectures, which were written for her by the Rev. C. Chauncey Burr, proved pecuniarily successful, but she soon wasted the greater part of the proceeds. Shattered in health and deserted by her associates, she met in New York in 1859 Mrs. Buchanan, wife of the well-known florist, a schoolfellow whom she had known long ago at Montrose. This meeting was the turning-point of her career; she devoted the remainder of her life to visiting the outcasts of her own sex at the Magdalen Asylum, near New York. While thus labouring she was stricken with paralysis, and after great suffering died, sincerely penitent, in a sanitary asylum at Asteria, New York, 17 Jan. 1861, and was buried in the Greenwood cemetery 19 Jan., where a tablet was erected to her memory.

[Autobiography and Lectures of Lola Montez, London, 1858, with portrait; Lectures of Lola Montez, including her Autobiography, London, 1858; Les Contemporains, ‘Lola Montès, par Eugène de Mirecourt,’ Paris, 1870, with portrait; H. H. Phelps's Players of a Century, 1880, pp. 265–7, 297; Larousse's Grand Dictionnaire, x. 645; Temple Bar, July 1880, pp. 362–7; F. L. Hawks's Story of a Penitent, Lola Montez, New York, 1867; Mortemar's Folly's Queens (1882), pp. 10–14, with portrait; New York Herald, 20 Jan. 1861, p. 4; Era, 10 Feb. 1861, p. 10.]

G. C. B.

GILBERT, NICOLAS ALAIN (1762–1821), catholic divine, born at St. Malo in Britanny in 1762, became parish priest of Saint-Pern. During the French revolution he was several times imprisoned, and narrowly escaped with his life. On coming to England he was stationed at Whitby, Yorkshire, where he established a mission. After the restora-