every year in her cavern, in the Rue de Breda), had declared against him,
and the poor Vicomte's pockets were almost empty when he came to London.
He was amiably communicative regarding himself, and told us his virtues
and his faults (if indeed a passion for play and for women could be
considered as faults in a gay young fellow of two or three and forty),
with a like engaging frankness. He would weep in describing his angel
mother: he would fly off again into tirades respecting the wickedness,
the wit, the extravagance, the charms of the young lady of the Varietes.
He would then (in conversation) introduce us to Madame de Florac, nee
Higg, of Manchesterre. His prattle was incessant, and to my friend Mr.
Warrington especially he was an object of endless delight and amusement
and wonder. He would roll and smoke countless paper cigars, talking
unrestrainedly when we were not busy, silent when we were engaged; he
would only rarely partake of our meals, and altogether refused all offers
of pecuniary aid. He disappeared at dinner-time into the mysterious
purlieus of Leicester Square, and dark ordinaries only frequented by
Frenchmen. As we walked with him in the Regent Street precincts, he would
exchange marks of recognition with many dusky personages, smoking bravos;
and whiskered refugees of his nation.
"That gentleman," he would say, "who has done me the honour to salute me,
is a coiffeur of the most celebrated; he forms the deuces of our
table-d'hote. 'Bon jour, mon cher monsieur!' We are friends, though not
of the same opinion. Monsieur is a republican of the most distinguished;
conspirator of profession, and at this time engaged in constructing an
infernal machine to the address of His Majesty, Louis Philippe, King of
the French." "Who is my friend with the scarlet beard and the white
paletot? My good Warrington! you do not move in the world; you make
yourself a hermit, my dear! Not know monsieur!--monsieur is secretary to
Mademoiselle Caracoline, the lovely rider at the circus of Astley; I
shall be charmed to introduce you to this amiable society some day at our
table-d'hote."
Warrington vowed that the company of Florac's friends would be infinitely
more amusing than the noblest society ever chronicled in the Morning
Post; but we were neither sufficiently familiar with the French language
to make conversation in that tongue as pleasant to us as talking in our
own; and so were content with Florac's description of his compatriots,
which the Vicomte delivered in that charming French-English of which he
was a master.
However threadbare in his garments, poor in purse, and eccentric in
morals our friend was, his manners were always perfectly gentlemanlike,
and he draped himself in his poverty with the grace of a Spanish grandee.
It must be confessed, that the grandee loved the estaminet where he could
play billiards with the first comer; that he had a passion for the
gambling-house; that he was a loose and disorderly nobleman: but, in
whatever company he found himself, a certain kindness, simplicity, and
politeness distinguished him always. He bowed to the damsel who sold him
a penny cigar, as graciously as to a duchess; he crushed a manant's
impertinence or familiarity as haughtily as his noble ancestors ever did
at the Louvre, at Marli, or Versailles. He declined to obtemperer to his
landlady's request to pay his rent, but he refused with a dignity which
struck the woman with awe; and King Alfred, over the celebrated muffin
(on which Gandish and other painters have exercised their genius), could
not have looked more noble than Florac in a robe-de-chambre, once
gorgeous, but shady now as became its owner's clouded fortunes; toasting
his bit of bacon at his lodgings, when the fare even of his table-d'hote
had grown too dear for him.
As we know from Gandish's work, that better times were in store for the
wandering monarch, and that the officers came acquainting him that his
people demanded his presence a grands cris, when of course King Alfred
laid down the toast and resumed the sceptre; so in the case of Florac,
two humble gentlemen, inhabitants of Lamb Court, and members of the Upper
temple, had the good luck to be the heralds as it were, nay indeed, the
occasion, of the rising fortunes of the Prince de Moncontour. Florac had
informed us of the death of his cousin the Duc d'Ivry, by whose demise
the Vicomte's father, the old Count de Florac, became the representative
of the house of Ivry, and possessor, through his relative's bequest, of
an old chateau still more gloomy and spacious than the count's own house
appurtenances had been lopped off by the Revolution. "Monsieur le Comte,"
Florac says, "has not wished to change his name at his age; he has
shrugged his old shoulder, and said it was not the trouble to make to
engrave a new card; and for me," the philosophical Vicomte added, "of
what good shall be a title of prince in the position where I find
myself?" It is wonderful for us who inhabit a country where rank is
worshipped with so admirable a reverence, to think that there are many
gentlemen in France who actually have authentic titles and do not choose
to bear them.
Mr. George Warrington was hugely amused with this notion of Florac's
ranks and dignities. The idea of the Prince purchasing penny cigars; of
the Prince mildly expostulating with his landlady regarding the rent; of
his punting for half-crowns at a neighbouring hall in Air Street, whither
the poor gentleman desperately ran when he had money in his pocket,
tickled George's sense of humour. It was Warrington who gravely saluted
the Vicomte, and compared him to King Alfred, on that afternoon when we
happened to call upon him and found him engaged in cooking his modest
dinner.
We were bent upon an excursion to Greenwich, and on having our friend's
company on that voyage, and we induced the Vicomte to forgo his bacon,
and be our guest for once. George Warrington chose to indulge in a great
deal of ironical pleasantry in the course of the afternoon's excursion.
As we went down the river, he pointed out to Florac the very window in
the Tower where the captive Duke of Orleans used to sit when he was an
inhabitant of that fortress. At Greenwich, which palace Florac informed
us was built by Queen Elizabeth, George showed the very spot where
Raleigh laid his cloak down to enable Her Majesty to step over a puddle.
In a word, he mystified M. de Florac; such was Mr. Warrington's
reprehensible spirit.
It happened that Mr. Barnes Newcome came to dine at Greenwich on the same
day when our little party took place. He had come down to meet Rooster
and one or two other noble friends whose names he took care to give us,
cursing them at the same time for having thrown him over. Having missed
his own company, Mr. Barnes condescended to join ours, Warrington gravely
thanking him for the great honour which he conferred upon us by
volunteering to take a place at our table. Barnes drank freely, and was
good enough to resume his acquaintance with Monsieur de Florac, whom he
perfectly well recollected at Baden, but had thought proper to forget on
the one or two occasions when they had met in public since the Vicomte's
arrival in this country. There are few men who can drop and resume an
acquaintance with such admirable self-possession as Barnes Newcome. When,
over our dessert, by which time all tongues were unloosed and each man
talked gaily, George Warrington feelingly thanked Barnes in a little mock
speech, for his great kindness in noticing us, presenting him at the same
time to Florac as the ornament of the City, the greatest banker of his
age, the beloved kinsman of their friend Clive, who was always writing
about him; Barnes said, with one of his accustomed curses, he did not
know whether Mr. Warrington was "chaffing" him or not, and indeed could
never make him out. Warrington replied that he never could make himself
out: and if ever Mr. Barnes could, George would thank him for information
on that subject.
Florac, like most Frenchmen very sober in his potations, left us for a
while over ours, which were conducted after the more liberal English
manner, and retired to smoke his cigar on the terrace. Barnes then freely
uttered his sentiments regarding him, which were not more favourable than
those which the young gentleman generally emitted respecting gentlemen
whose backs were turned. He had known a little of Florac the year before
at Baden: he had been mixed up with Kew in that confounded row in which
Kew was hit; he was an adventurer, a pauper, a blackleg, a regular Greek;
he had heard Florac was of old family, that was true; but what of that?
He was only one of those d----- French counts; everybody was a count in
France confound 'em! The claret was beastly--not fit for a gentleman to
drink!--He swigged off a great bumper as he was making the remark: for
Barnes Newcome abuses the men and things which he uses, and perhaps is
better served than more grateful persons.
counts? Florac's family is one of the noblest and most ancient in Europe.
It is more ancient than your illustrious friend, the barber-surgeon; it
was illustrious before the house, ay, or the pagoda of Kew was in
existence." And he went on to describe how Florac by the demise of his
kinsman, was now actually Prince de Moncontour, though he did not choose
to assume that title. Very likely the noble Gascon drink in which George
had been indulging, imparted a certain warmth and eloquence to his
descriptions of Florac's good qualities, high birth, and considerable
patrimony; Barnes looked quite amazed and scared at these announcements,
then laughed and declared once more that Warrington was chaffing him.
"As sure as the Black Prince was lord of Acquitaine--as sure as the
English were masters of Bordeaux--and why did we ever lose the country?"
cries George, filling himself a bumper,--"every word I have said about
Florac is true;" and Florac coming in at this juncture havin just
finished his cigar, George turned round and made him a fine speech in the
French language, in which he lauded his constancy and good-humour under
evil fortune, paid him two or three more cordial compliments, and
finished by drinking another great bumper to his good health.
Florac took a little wine, replied "with effusion" to the toast which his
excellent, his noble friend had just carried. We rapped our glasses at
the end of the speech. The landlord himself seemed deeply touched by it
as he stood by with a fresh bottle. "It is good wine--it is honest wine--
it is capital wine" says George, "and honni soit qui mal y pence! What
business have you, you little beggar, to abuse it? My ancestor drank the
wine and wore the motto round his leg long before a Newcome ever showed
his pale face in Lombard Street." George Warrington never bragged about
his pedigree except under certain influences. I am inclined to think that
on this occasion he really did find the claret very good.
"You don't mean to say," says Barnes, addressing Florac in French, on
which he piqued himself, "que vous avez un tel manche a votre nom, et que
vous ne l'usez pas?"
Florac shrugged his shoulders; he at first did not understand that
familiar figure of English speech, or what was meant by "having a handle
to your name." "Moncontour cannot dine better than Florac," he said.
"Florac has two louis in his pocket, and Moncontour exactly forty
shillings. Florac's proprietor will ask Moncontour to-morrow for five
weeks' rent; and as for Florac's friends, my dear, they will burst out
laughing to Moncontour's nose!" "How droll you English are!" this acute
French observer afterwards said, laughing, and recalling the incident.
Did you not see how that little Barnes, as soon as he knew my title of
Prince, changed his manner and became all respect towards me? This,
indeed, Monsieur de Florac's two friends remarked with no little
amusement. Barnes began quite well to remember their pleasant days at
Baden, and talked of their acquaintance there: Barnes offered the Prince
the vacant seat in his brougham, and was ready to set him down anywhere
that he wished in town.
"Bah!" says Florac; "we came by the steamer, and I prefer the peniboat."
But the hospitable Barnes, nevertheless, called upon Florac the next day.
And now having partially explained how the Prince de Moncontour was
present at Mr. Barnes Newcome's wedding, let us show how it was that
Barnes's first-cousin, the Earl of Kew, did not attend that ceremony.
CHAPTER XXXVII
Return to Lord Kew
We do not propose to describe at length or with precision the
circumstances of the duel which ended so unfortunately for young Lord
Kew. The meeting was inevitable: after the public acts and insult of the
morning, the maddened Frenchman went to it convinced that his antagonist
had wilfully outraged him, eager to show his bravery upon the body of an
Englishman, and as proud as if he had been going into actual war. That
commandment, the sixth in our decalogue, which forbids the doing of
murder, and the injunction which directly follows on the same table, have
been repealed by a very great number of Frenchmen for many years past;
and to take the neighbour's wife, and his life subsequently, has not been
an uncommon practice with the politest people in the world. Castillonnes
had no idea but that he was going to the field of honour; stood with an
undaunted scowl before his enemy's pistol; and discharged his own and
brought down his opponent with a grim satisfaction, and a comfortable
conviction afterwards that he had acted en galant homme. "It was well for
this milor that he fell at the first shot, my dear," the exemplary young
Frenchman remarked; "a second might have been yet more fatal to him;
ordinarily I am sure of my coup, and you conceive that in an affair so
grave it was absolutely necessary that one or other should remain on the
ground." Nay, should M. de Kew recover from his wound, it was M. de
Castillonnes' intention to propose a second encounter between himself and
that nobleman. It had been Lord Kew's determination never to fire upon
his opponent, a confession which he made not to his second, poor scared
Lord Rooster, who bore the young Earl to Kehl, but to some of his nearest
relatives, who happened fortunately to be not far from him when he
received his wound, and who came with all the eagerness of love to watch
by his bedside.
We have said that Lord Kew's mother, Lady Walham, and her second son were
staying at Hombourg, when the Earl's disaster occurred. They had proposed
to come to Baden to see Kew's new bride, and to welcome her; but the
presence of her mother-in-law deterred Lady Walham, who gave up her
heart's wish in bitterness of spirit, knowing very well that a meeting
between the old Countess and herself could only produce the wrath, pain,
and humiliation which their coming together always occasioned. It was
Lord Kew who bade Rooster send for his mother, and not for Lady Kew; and
as soon as she received those sad tidings, you may be sure the poor lady
hastened to the bed where her wounded boy lay.
The fever had declared itself, and the young man had been delirious more
than once. His wan face lighted up with joy when he saw his mother; he
put his little feverish hand out of the bed to her--"I knew you would
come, dear," he said, "and you know I never would have fired upon the
poor Frenchman." The fond mother allowed no sign of terror or grief to
appear upon her face, so as to disturb her first-born and darling; but no
doubt she prayed by his side as such loving hearts know how to pray, for
the forgiveness of his trespass, who had forgiven those who sinned
against him. "I knew I should be hit, George," said Kew to his brother
when they were alone; "I always expected some such end as this. My life
has been very wild and reckless; and you, George, have always been
faithful to our mother. You will make a better Lord Kew than I have been,
George. God bless you." George flung himself down with sobs by his
brother's bedside, and swore Frank had always been the best fellow, the
best brother, the kindest heart, the warmest friend in the world. Love--
prayer--repentance, thus met over the young man's bed. Anxious and humble
hearts, his own the least anxious and the most humble, awaited the dread
award of life or death; and the world, and its ambition and vanities,
were shut out from the darkened chamber where the awful issue was being
tried.
Our history has had little to do with characters resembling this lady. It
is of the world, and things pertaining to it. Things beyond it, as the
writer imagines, scarcely belong to the novelist's province. Who is he,
that he should assume the divine's office; or turn his desk into a
preacher's pulpit? In that career of pleasure, of idleness, of crime we
might call it (but that the chronicler of worldly matters had best be
chary of applying hard names to acts which young men are doing in the
world every day), the gentle widowed lady, mother of Lord Kew, could but
keep aloof, deploring the course upon which her dear young prodigal had
entered; and praying with that saintly love, those pure supplications,
with which good mothers follow their children, for her boy's repentance
and return. Very likely her mind was narrow; very likely the precautions
which she had used in the lad's early days, the tutors and directors she
had set about him, the religious studies and practices to which she would
have subjected him, had served only to vex and weary the young pupil, and
to drive his high spirit into revolt. It is hard to convince a woman
perfectly pure in her life and intentions, ready to die if need were for
her own faith, having absolute confidence in the instruction of her
teachers, that she and they (with all their sermons) may be doing harm.