The Magnificent Montez - Page 104/177

All things considered, it is perhaps just as well that the two refugees did not cross the Channel together. Had they done so, it is probable that one of them would have found a watery grave.

Metternich had worsted Napoleon, but he found himself worsted by Lola Montez. On April 9, he wrote from The Hague: "I have put off my departure for England, because I wished to know first what was happening in that country as a result of the Chartists' disturbance. I consider that, for me who must have absolute rest, it would have been ridiculous to have arrived in the middle of the agitation."

Louis Napoleon, however, was made of sterner stuff; and it is to his credit that, as a return for the hospitality extended him, he was sworn in as a special constable.