Lola, knowing the temper of her countrymen, saw in this attack on a woman a sure means of enlisting their sympathies. She wrote a letter to the _Times_ in which she gave her own version of affairs in Bavaria in the following terms:--
"I had not been here a week before I discovered that there was a plot existing in the town to get me out of it, and that the party was the Jesuit party. Of course, you are aware that Bavaria has long been their stronghold, and Munich their headquarters. This, naturally, to a person brought up and instructed from her earliest youth to detest this party (I think you will say naturally) irritated me not a little.
"When they saw that I was not likely to leave them, they commenced on another tack, and tried what bribery would do, and actually offered me 50,000 francs yearly if I would quit Bavaria and promise never to return. This, as you may imagine, opened my eyes, and as I indignantly refused their offer, they have not since then left a stone unturned to get rid of me, and have never for an instant ceased persecuting me. I may mention, as one instance, that within the last week a Jesuit professor of philosophy at the University here, by the name of Lassaulx, was removed from his professorship, upon which the party paid and hired a mob to insult me and break the windows of my palace, and also to attack the palace; but, thanks to the better feeling of the other party, and the devotedness of the soldiers to His Majesty and his authority, this plot likewise failed."
It was, in fact, as disastrous to its instigators as the famous memorandum. The King perceived the University to be a hot-bed of clericalism, and promptly invited the majority of the professors to transfer their services to other seats of learning, or to abandon this particular sphere of usefulness altogether. Their chairs were filled by men of moderate views. At the same time the University was freed from the oppressive surveillance of the Ministry; the obnoxious decrees affecting the sale of books were withdrawn; and even the undergraduates felt constrained to testify their gratitude to the liberal King by means of a torchlight procession.
Louis and his new ministers were not wanting in firmness. Several officers and civil servants were transferred to distant stations, and otherwise made to feel the weight of the royal displeasure for having taken part in an Ultramontane gathering at Adelholz, in the Bavarian Highlands, where a protest was raised against Lola's elevation to the peerage. With the bulk of the people, notwithstanding, the King's popularity knew no diminution. He received an enthusiastic greeting at Bruckenau, Kissingen, and Aschaffenburg, where he passed the summer. He wrote to his secretary in Munich, on 27th June 1847: "I am very satisfied with my reception throughout my whole progress;" and on 31st August: "I was surprised, agreeably surprised, by my evidently joyful reception in the Palatinate." In Franconia, inhabited largely by Protestants, the King's change of policy was naturally welcome. Lola's popularity likewise increased by leaps and bounds, though her uncontrollable temper continued to lead her into mischief. A furious quarrel with the commandant of the Würzburg garrison interrupted her journey north to join the Court at Aschaffenburg. The Queen, meanwhile, was the object of a demonstration of sympathy at Bamberg, really directed against the favourite. Certain sections of the aristocracy held aloof from the Countess, with that steadfast devotion to virtue that has always characterised their order. Lola complained of their attitude to His Majesty. Questioned by him they alluded to the lady's doubtful antecedents as sufficient justification for their refusal to present her to their wives. The King's answer was that of a chivalrous man of the world: "What other woman of so-called high standing would have conducted herself better, had she been abandoned to the world, young, beautiful, and helpless? Bah! I know them all, and I tell you I don't rate too highly the much-belauded virtue of the inexperienced and untried." Louis was a gentleman as well as a prince, and had the courage to protect the woman he loved. "Mark well," he wrote to a person of rank, "if you are invited to the house the King frequents, and you do not come, the King will see in this an offence against his dignity, and his displeasure will follow." Louis's rule for his courtiers was, in short: "Love me, love Lola."