trifling, Rothschild had refused to pay it. He was responsible for the dress only, explained the multi-millionaire.
At the ball, one look at Lillie – so seductive in her clinging silk and with her loosely-knotted hair – was enough for the impressionable young Crown Prince. He insisted on dancing almost every dance with her. And ten minutes after the royal party had processed into their own supper room (where Rudolph was seated beside his host's sister, Alice Rothschild) the Baron came hurrying back into the ballroom. The Crown Prince, he explained to Lillie, had demanded that she be put next to him at table. Rudolph had not addressed a single word to poor Alice Rothschild, an amused Bertie afterwards told Lillie.
After supper, Rudolph again monopolised her. So vigorous,apparently, was his dancing that his hands were leaving sweaty imprints on her dress. Politely, Lillie asked him to put on his gloves. His reply was singularly graceless.
'It is you who are sweating, madam,' 23 he said.
In the days that followed the Rothschilds' ball, the Crown Prince was a persistent caller at Norfolk Street. One cannot know how much Lillie led him on, or whether she led him on at all, but there can be no doubt that the young man was infatuated by her. In later years, she is said to have told Somerset Maugham that their association ended when Rudolph one day made his 'dishonourable intentions' so apparent that, 'in disgust', she pretended to throw a magnificent emerald ring he had just given her into the fire. With a 'horrified cry he fell to his knees and desperately scrabbled out the burning coals in an effort to retrieve the jewel.'
'I couldn't have loved him after that,' 24 shrugged Lillie.
But she kept the emerald ring.
Almost ten years later, Crown Prince Rudolph shocked the world by shooting first his mistress, young Mary Vetsera, and then himself in what has been described as a suicide pact, at the imperial hunting lodge at Mayerling.
Would Lillie have considered a sexual liaison with Crown Prince Rudolph? It is doubtful. She would hardly have risked a possible break-up of her affair with the Prince of Wales. Her position was too precarious for that. She might have been tickled by the thought of adding the name of the future Emperor of Austria-Hungary to that of the future King of England as a royal lover, but it would have remained a thought only.
Yet in spite of her circumspection, there is some recently unearthed evidence that Lillie was indeed involved in a clandestine love affair throughout this period. A cache of sixty-five love letters, written by Lillie to Arthur Henry Jones, was discovered in a battered green box in an attic in a Jersey farmhouse. The box had apparently been brought there by Arthur Jones's niece, many years ago. The tone of these letters is passionate; the relationship between Lillie Langtry and Arthur Jones was undoubtedly sexual. Always addressing him as 'My Darling', she often tells him when it will be safe for him to visit her. 'Please, please, hurry back,' she writes on one occasion. 'I want you so much.' 25
The ardent nature of these letters gives the lie to the frequent assertion that Lillie Langtry was asexual, cold-hearted, incapable of love. On the other hand, they reinforce the theory that no matter howpassionately she might be in love, she would never allow her heart to rule her head. With Lillie, love always came second to ambition. Not for a moment would she have considered the world well lost for love: nothing must be allowed to interfere with her liaison with the Prince of Wales. She kept her three-year-long love affair with Arthur Jones secret; to this day he remains a shadowy figure.
In any case, she had given the gossips quite enough to be getting on with. News of Lillie Langtry's spectacular success had by now crossed the Atlantic. 'Lovely Lillie Langtry,' trumpeted the New York
Tribune, à propos
her friendship with Crown Prince Rudolph, 'has added another royal scalp to her
At the ball, one look at Lillie – so seductive in her clinging silk and with her loosely-knotted hair – was enough for the impressionable young Crown Prince. He insisted on dancing almost every dance with her. And ten minutes after the royal party had processed into their own supper room (where Rudolph was seated beside his host's sister, Alice Rothschild) the Baron came hurrying back into the ballroom. The Crown Prince, he explained to Lillie, had demanded that she be put next to him at table. Rudolph had not addressed a single word to poor Alice Rothschild, an amused Bertie afterwards told Lillie.
After supper, Rudolph again monopolised her. So vigorous,apparently, was his dancing that his hands were leaving sweaty imprints on her dress. Politely, Lillie asked him to put on his gloves. His reply was singularly graceless.
'It is you who are sweating, madam,' 23 he said.
In the days that followed the Rothschilds' ball, the Crown Prince was a persistent caller at Norfolk Street. One cannot know how much Lillie led him on, or whether she led him on at all, but there can be no doubt that the young man was infatuated by her. In later years, she is said to have told Somerset Maugham that their association ended when Rudolph one day made his 'dishonourable intentions' so apparent that, 'in disgust', she pretended to throw a magnificent emerald ring he had just given her into the fire. With a 'horrified cry he fell to his knees and desperately scrabbled out the burning coals in an effort to retrieve the jewel.'
'I couldn't have loved him after that,' 24 shrugged Lillie.
But she kept the emerald ring.
Almost ten years later, Crown Prince Rudolph shocked the world by shooting first his mistress, young Mary Vetsera, and then himself in what has been described as a suicide pact, at the imperial hunting lodge at Mayerling.
Would Lillie have considered a sexual liaison with Crown Prince Rudolph? It is doubtful. She would hardly have risked a possible break-up of her affair with the Prince of Wales. Her position was too precarious for that. She might have been tickled by the thought of adding the name of the future Emperor of Austria-Hungary to that of the future King of England as a royal lover, but it would have remained a thought only.
Yet in spite of her circumspection, there is some recently unearthed evidence that Lillie was indeed involved in a clandestine love affair throughout this period. A cache of sixty-five love letters, written by Lillie to Arthur Henry Jones, was discovered in a battered green box in an attic in a Jersey farmhouse. The box had apparently been brought there by Arthur Jones's niece, many years ago. The tone of these letters is passionate; the relationship between Lillie Langtry and Arthur Jones was undoubtedly sexual. Always addressing him as 'My Darling', she often tells him when it will be safe for him to visit her. 'Please, please, hurry back,' she writes on one occasion. 'I want you so much.' 25
The ardent nature of these letters gives the lie to the frequent assertion that Lillie Langtry was asexual, cold-hearted, incapable of love. On the other hand, they reinforce the theory that no matter howpassionately she might be in love, she would never allow her heart to rule her head. With Lillie, love always came second to ambition. Not for a moment would she have considered the world well lost for love: nothing must be allowed to interfere with her liaison with the Prince of Wales. She kept her three-year-long love affair with Arthur Jones secret; to this day he remains a shadowy figure.
In any case, she had given the gossips quite enough to be getting on with. News of Lillie Langtry's spectacular success had by now crossed the Atlantic. 'Lovely Lillie Langtry,' trumpeted the New York
Tribune, à propos
her friendship with Crown Prince Rudolph, 'has added another royal scalp to her
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