You who have wished to hold me in thrall, tremble! Greatly do I esteem the important affair Which has ever on divested you of your power!
But the fallen ministers had the sympathy of Vienna. Count Senfft, the Austrian envoy at Munich, gave a banquet in their honour. Lola reported this to Ludwig, and Ludwig gave Senfft his _congé_.
What had annoyed the Wittelsbach Lovelace more than anything else about the business was that the memorandum in which von Abel and his colleagues had expressed their candid opinion of Lola Montez found its way into the _Augsburger Zeitung_ and a number of Paris journals. This was regarded by him as a breach of confidence. Enquiries revealed the fact that von Abel's sister had been surreptitiously shown a copy of the document, and, not prepared to keep such a tit-bit of gossip to herself, had disclosed its contents to a reporter. After this, the fat, so to speak, was in the fire; and nothing that Ludwig could do could prevent the affair becoming public property. As a result, it formed the basis of innumerable articles in the press of Europe, and the worst possible construction was put on it.
The erudite Dr. Döllinger, between whom and Lola Montez no love was lost, was much upset by the situation and wrote a long letter on the subject:
The existing ministry were fully awake to the encroachments of the notorious Lola Montez; and in view of the destruction which menaced both the throne and the country, they secretly resolved to address a petition to Ludwig I, humbly praying him to dismiss his favourite, and setting forth the grounds on which they based their request.
Rumours of this business soon got afloat. People began to whisper; and one fine day a sister of one of the ministers, goaded by curiosity, discovered the petition. She imparted the news in the strictest confidence to her most intimate friends; and they, in their turn, secretly read the memorial, with the result that, some time after the important document had been safely restored to its hiding-place, its contents appeared, nobody knew how, in the newspapers.
The panic of the ministers was great; the King's displeasure was still greater. He suspected treachery, and considered the publication of such a petition treasonable. Remonstrances were of no avail; the ministers were dismissed, and their adherents fled in every direction. I, who had been nominated a member of the Chamber by the University, but against my will, had to resign office at the bidding of the King. His Majesty was greatly incensed, and meanwhile the excited populace were assembling in crowds before the house of Lola Montez.