XX The Abel Memorandum
The King’s change of policy first found official expression in the Royal Decree of 15th December 1846, transferring the control of the Departments of Education and Public Worship from Abel, the Minister of the Interior, to Baron von Schrenk. The effect of this measure was practically to remove the schools from the power of the Jesuits. Abel saw in it a blow aimed at him by the detested Andalusierin. He addressed a letter to the King, reminding him of his zeal and devotion to the Crown, of his attachment to his person, of the unpopularity he had willingly incurred in order to subject the people more thoroughly to royal control. Louis was not greatly affected by this letter; we seldom earn the gratitude of others by reminding them that we have taken upon ourselves blame which ought rightly to be theirs. He was ungrateful enough to say that he had no sympathy with Abel’s policy, but that he found him a convenient man to work with. The minister hoped that the King, like Henri Quatre, would prefer his servant to his favourite, but he was disappointed. He next put his trust in Louis’s disinclination to take an active part in the Government; but here again he was deceived. The King, stimulated by Lola, began to exhibit the vigour and activity of youth, and showed a disposition to rule as well as to reign. Baron von Pechmann, the Chief of the Munich Police, was less patient than Abel, and ventured to protest against the consideration shown to “a mere adventuress.” The King’s blue eyes kindled. “Begone!” he exclaimed angrily; “you will find the air of Landshut purer!” It was a sentence of banishment which the minister had no choice but to obey.
This opposition on the part of the clericals determined Louis to regularise his new favourite and counsellor’s position in his kingdom, and to establish her social rank. He proposed to raise her to the peerage, and as a preliminary measure he signed letters patent, conferring upon her the status and rights of a Bavarian citizen. According to the constitution this decree had to be countersigned by a minister. The document was placed before Abel for his signature. The crisis had come. The King must now finally decide between minister and favourite, in other words, between reaction and progress. Abel summoned his colleagues to a council and the following remarkable memorandum to His Majesty was the result of their deliberations.14
“Sire,—There are circumstances in which men invested with the inappreciable confidence of their sovereign, and charged with the direction of affairs, are called upon either to renounce their most sacred duties or to expose themselves, at the bidding of their consciences, to the risk of incurring the displeasure of their beloved monarch. This is the sad necessity to which your ministers find themselves reduced by the royal determination to grant to Señora Lola Montez letters of naturalisation. We are incapable of forgetting the oaths we took to your Majesty, and our resolution has never been for a moment doubtful. The proposed naturalisation of Señora Montez was openly characterised by Councillor von Maurer as the greatest calamity with which Bavaria could be afflicted. This was the conviction of the whole Council, and the opinion of all your Majesty’s faithful subjects. Since December last the eyes of the nation have been fixed on Munich. The respect for the sovereign becomes weaker and weaker in all minds, because on all sides nothing is heard but the bitterest blame and disapprobation. National feeling is wounded: Bavaria believes itself to be governed by a foreign woman, whose reputation is branded in public opinion. Men like the Bishop of Augsburg [Dr. Richarz], whose devotion to your Majesty cannot be disputed, daily shed bitter tears for what is passing before their eyes; the ministers of the Interior and of Finance have witnessed his profound affliction. The Prince Bishop of Breslau [Dr. Diepenbrock], hearing of a rumour that he had countenanced the actual state of things, has written to persons in Munich formally and most emphatically expressing his disapprobation. His letter is no longer a secret, and will soon be known to the whole country. Foreign journals every day relate the most scandalous anecdotes, and make the most degrading attacks on your Majesty. The copy of the Ulner Chronik, which we subjoin, is a proof of our assertions. In vain do the police attempt to stop the circulation of these journals, which are everywhere read with avidity. The impression which they leave on men’s minds is by no means doubtful. It is the same from Berchtesgaden and Passau to Aschaffenburg and Zweibrücken. It is the same throughout Europe, in the cabin of the poor and the palace of the rich. It is not alone the glory and well-being of your Majesty’s Government that is compromised, but the very existence of royalty itself. It is this which explains the joy of the enemies of the throne, and the profound grief and despair of all who are faithfully attached to your Majesty, and who are alive to the dangers greater than any to which it has been exposed. In this state of things, it is inevitable that what is passing will influence the army, and if this bulwark should give way, where would be our resource? The statement, which the undersigned, whose hearts are torn with anguish, venture to place before your Majesty, is not the product of a terrified imagination, but of observations which each has made within the circle of his attributions, during several months. The effect of these circumstances in the ensuing parliamentary session may easily be foreseen. Each of the undersigned is ready to sacrifice for your Majesty his fortune and his life. Your ministers believe that they have given you proofs of their fidelity and attachment, but it is for them a doubly sacred duty to point out to your Majesty the ever-increasing danger of this situation. We beg you to listen to our humble prayer and not to suppose that it is dictated by any desire to thwart your royal will. It is directed only against a state of things which threatens to destroy the fair fame, power, and future happiness of a beloved King. Your ministers are convinced, after earnest deliberation, that if your Majesty should not deign to give ear to their supplications, they are bound to resign the positions to which the kindness and confidence of their sovereign has called them, and to pray your Majesty to remove the portfolios with which they are entrusted,
(Signed) Von Abel. Von Seinsheim.
Von Gumppenberg. Von Schrenk.
Munich, 11th February 1847.”
This extraordinary address exhibits the courage, if not the tact and sense of humour of the signatories; but none of them cared to present it. Abel sent it by messenger to the King, who perused it with mingled amusement and indignation, and then locked it in his desk. He asked Abel if this was the only copy existing, and was answered in the affirmative. But a day or two later the memorandum appeared in print in the columns of the Augsburger Zeitung. A preliminary draft had been sent by Abel to a fifth minister, Herr Von Giese, who had left it carelessly upon his bureau. Here it was scanned with interest and curiosity by his elderly sister, and was carried off by her, to be proudly exhibited at a tea-party. Handed round among the guests for examination, it was not long in finding its way into the Press. It was reproduced in the French and English papers. The Times devoted an editorial to its contents, and compared the excessive sensibility of the Bishop of Augsburg with the hardened indifference of the English hierarchy to the transgressions of the fourth George and William. The lachrymose prelate contributed hugely to the gaiety of nations. Bernstorff, the Prussian Ambassador, considered the address wanting in respect to the sovereign; by another statesman it was qualified as unbecoming, injudicious, and crude. More heads than one, it was remarked, had been lost over Lola. No one could have been more amused than the lady herself by this astonishing memorandum.
She had indeed good cause for mirth. The indiscretion of the Cabinet brought about the complete triumph of her policy. The King allowed Abel twenty-four hours to reconsider his attitude, and as the minister stood to his guns, he was formally dismissed from office on 16th February. His fall involved his colleagues. Louis’s return to his earlier ideas, consequent upon his relations with Lola, was made evident in his choice of new ministers. The portfolio of the Interior was entrusted to Baron Zu Rhein, with the intimation that His Majesty wished to be served by men sincerely attached to their religion, but determined to resist any encroachment by the Church upon the rights of the State. Councillor Maurer became Minister of Justice, having presumably recanted the views attributed to him by his late colleagues in the memorandum. He was a man of learning and Liberal tendencies, and was the first Protestant to hold Cabinet rank in Bavaria. The portfolios of finance and war were given respectively to Councillor Zenetti and Major-General von Hohenhausen. The whole Cabinet was frankly Liberal. Lola had coaxed the King back to sanity, and inflicted a signal defeat upon the clericals. All over Germany she was acclaimed as the heroine of Liberalism. Metternich groaned over the deplorable state of things at Munich, and wrote that this woman had become an instrument of the Radical party. Bernstorff received the news of the fall of Abel’s Ministry with satisfaction, accompanied, as it was, by Maurer’s assurance that the reign of the Jesuits in Bavaria was at an end.
It was at her evening reception at her house in Theresienstrasse that Louis came to announce to Lola the dismissal of his old ministers, and his unalterable attachment to her and to her policy. “I will not give Lola up,” he declared; “I will never give up that noble princely being. My kingdom for Lola!” Maurer was obliged to consent to the naturalisation that he had described as a national calamity. Lola was soon after raised to the peerage with the titles of Countess of Landsfeld15 and Baroness Rosenthal. She is described in the register of Bavarian nobility as Maria Dolores Porris y Montez, the daughter of a Carlist officer and Cuban lady. (That the daughter of a follower of Don Carlos should be a deadly foe of all that was Ultramontane must have struck her friends and opponents as odd.) Her titles conveyed with them an estate of importance, and certain feudal rights—the middle and the low justice, perhaps—over two thousand souls. She was made a canoness of the aristocratic order of St. Theresa, of which the Queen was the head. To enable her to support this dignity the King endowed her with an annuity of twenty thousand florins. With this and the money bequeathed her by Dujarier she was now rich. A palace befitting her position was ordered to be built for her in Bärerstrasse after the design of the architect, Metzger, who was one of her most impassioned admirers. Her portrait was painted by royal command, and placed in the Gallery of Beauties, where Louis, it is said, was accustomed to spend hours in rapturous contemplation.