The Alemannia, thinking discretion the better part of valour, barricaded themselves in the restaurant of one Herr Rothmanner, where they fortified themselves with vast quantities of beer. Becoming quarrelsome, their leader, Count Hirschberg, drew his sword and was threatened with arrest by a schutzmannschaft. Thereupon, his comrades sent word to Lola. She answered the call, and rushed to the house. It was a characteristic, but mad, gesture, for she was promptly recognised and pursued by a furious mob. Nobody would give her sanctuary; and the Swiss Guards on duty there shut the doors of the Austrian Legation in her face. Thereupon, she fled to the Theatiner Church, where she took refuge. But she did not stop there long; and, for her own safety, a military escort arrived to conduct her to the main guard-room. As soon as the coast was comparatively clear, she was smuggled out by a back entrance and making her way on foot to the Barerstrasse, hid in the garden.
In the meantime fresh attempts were being made to storm her house. Suddenly, a figure, dishevelled and bare-headed, appeared on the threshold and confronted the rioters.
"You are behaving like a pack of vulgar blackguards," he exclaimed, "and not like true Bavarians at all. I give you my word, the house is empty. Leave it in peace."
A gallant gesture, and a last act of homage to the building that had sheltered the woman he loved. The mob, recognising the speaker, uncovered instinctively. Heil, unserm König, Heil! they shouted. A chorus swelled; the troops presented arms.
"It is an orgy of ingratitude," said Ludwig, as he watched the rabble dancing with glee before the house. "The Jesuits are responsible. If my Lola had been called Loyala, she could still have stopped here."
To Dr. Stahl, Bishop of Wurzburg, who had criticised his conduct, he addressed himself more strongly. "Should a single hair of one I hold dear to me be injured," he informed that prelate, "I shall exhibit no mercy."
Palmerston, who stood no nonsense from anybody, wrote a very snappy letter to Sir John Milbanke, British Minister at Munich: "Pray tell Prince Wallerstein that, if he wishes the British and Bavarian Governments to be on good terms, he will abstain from any attempt to interfere with our diplomatic arrangements, as such attempts on his part are as offensive as they will be fruitless."
II
As Ludwig had said, the Barerstrasse nest was empty, for its occupant had managed to slip out of it and reach Lindeau. From there, on February 23, she wrote a long letter to a friend in England, giving a somewhat highly coloured (and not altogether accurate) version of these happenings: In the morning, the nobles, with Count A.--V--[Arco Valley] and a number of officers, were mixed up with the commonest people. The Countess P [Preysing] I saw myself, with other women--I cannot call them ladies--actually at their head. Hearing that the entire city--with nobles, officers, and countesses--were making for my residence, I looked upon myself as already out of the land of the living. I had all my windows shuttered, and hid all my jewels; and then, having a clear conscience and a firm trust in God, calmly awaited my fate. The ruffians, egged on by a countess and a baroness, had stones, sticks, axes, and firearms, all to frighten and kill one poor inoffensive woman! They positively clamoured for my blood.