Bentley's Miscellany, Volume II

MASCALBRUNI

I have frequently observed that there are some people who haunt you in all parts of the world, and to whom you have a sort of secret antipathy, yet who, by an attraction in spite of repulsion, are continually crossing your path, as though they were sent as emissaries to link themselves with your destiny, or on the watch mysteriously to bring it about. One person in particular, whose name I do not even know, if he has one, I have met fifty times in as many different places, and we each say to ourselves, "'Tis he! – what, again!" So with a personage too well known at home and abroad, of whom, by a curious concatenation of circumstances, I am enabled to become the biographer.

Geronymo Mascalbruni was the son of a pauper belonging to a village whose name I forget, in the marshes of Ancona. He had begged his way when a boy to Rome, and supported himself for some time there, by attending at the doors of the courts of justice, and running on errands for the advocates or the suitors. His intelligence and adroitness did not escape the observation of one of the attorneys, who, wanting a lad of all work, took Mascalbruni into his service, and taught him to read and write; finding him useful in his office, and having no children of his own, he at length adopted him, in formâ pauperis, and gave him a small share in his business. This man of the law did not bear the most exemplary of characters, and perhaps it was in order to conceal some nefarious practices to which Mascalbruni was privy that he made the clerk his associate. Perhaps also he discovered in his character a hardihood, combined with cunning and chicanery, that made him a ready instrument for his purposes, and thus enabled him, like Teucer, to fight behind the shield of another. Under this worthy master – a worthy disciple – Mascalbruni continued for some years; till at length, tired of confinement to the desk, and having the taste early acquired for a roving and profligate life revived, he, during his old benefactor's confinement to his bed with a rheumatic attack, administered to him a dose of poison instead of medicine, and having robbed him of all the money and plate that was portable, and of certain coupons, and bons in the Neapolitan and other funds, standing in his name, he decamped, and reached Florence in safety.

Every one has heard of the laxity of the Roman police. The impunity of offenders, even when their crimes are established by incontestable proof, is notorious. The relations of the lawyer, contrary to all their expectations, (for he had never recognised them,) had come into their inheritance, and little regarded the means, having attained the end. They perhaps, also, from having had no admission into the house during the old miser's life, were ignorant of the strength of his coffers; and the disappearance of the murderer, who, by a will which they discovered and burnt, had been made his sole heir, was by them deemed too fortunate a circumstance; so that they neither inquired into the manner of his death, nor had any post mortem examination of the body. They gave their respectable relative a splendid funeral, erected to his memory a tomb in one of the rival churches that front the Piazza del Popolo, in which his many virtues were not forgotten, and established an annual mass for his povera anima, that no doubt saved him

Having quietly inurned the master, let us follow the man. The sum which he carried with him is not exactly known, but it must have been considerable. His stay in the Tuscan state was short, and we find him with his ill-gotten wealth in "that common sewer of London and of Rome," Paris. He was then about twenty years of age, had a good person, talents, an insinuating address, and a sufficient knowledge of the world, at least of the worst part of mankind, to avoid sinking in that quagmire, which has swallowed up so many of the thoughtless and inexperienced who have trusted to its flattering surface. In fact, Nature seemed to have gifted him with the elements of an accomplished sharper, and he seconded her attributes by all the resources of art. He took an apartment in the Rue Neuve de Luxembourg, that street so admirably situated between the Boulevards and the Gardens of the Tuileries, and had engraven on his cards, "Il Marchese Mascalbruni." He was attached to his name; it was a good, sonorous, well-sounding name; and the addition of Marchese dovetailed well, and seemed as though it had always, or ought always, to have belonged to it.

But before he made his entrée in the world of Paris, he was aware that he had much to learn; and, with the tact and nice sense of observation and disinvoltura nel maneggiar peculiar to his nature, he soon set about accomplishing himself in the externals of a gentleman. With this view he passed several hours a day in the salle d'armes, where he made himself a first-rate fencer; and became so dexterous au tir, that he could at the extremity of the gallery hit the bull's-eye of the target at almost every other shot.

Pushkin himself was not more dexterous; and, like him, our hero in the course of his career signalised himself by several rencontres which proved fatal to his antagonists, into the details of but one of which I shall enter. He heard that nothing gives a young man greater éclat at starting into society than a duel. Among those who frequented the salle was an old officer who had served in the campaigns of Napoleon, one of the reliquiæ Danaum, the few survivors of Moscow; for those who did not perish on the road, mostly fell victims to the congelations and fatigues of that memorable retreat. Mascalbruni, now a match for the maître d'armes, frequently exercised with this old grognard, who had the character of being a crane, if not a bourreau des cranes;12 and one day, before a numerous gallerie, having struck the foil out of his hand, the fencer so far forgot himself, in the shame and vexation of defeat by a youngster, as to pick up the weapon and strike the Italian a blow on the shoulders with the flat part of the foil, if it be not an Irishism so to call it. Those who saw Mascalbruni at that moment would not have forgotten the traits of his countenance. His eyes flashed with a sombre fire; his Moorish complexion assumed a darker hue, as the blood rushed from his heart to his brain in an almost suffocating tide; his breath came forth in long and audible expirations; his features were convulsed with the rage of a demoniac. I only describe what Horace Verney, who was present, faithfully sketched from memory after the scene. Mascalbruni, tearing off the button of his foil, vociferated, putting himself in position, "A la mort, à la mort!" The lookers-on were panic-stricken; but the silence was interrupted by the clinking of the steel. The aggressor soon lay stretched in the agonies of death.

Though he had now taken his first degree, Mascalbruni's education was not yet complete. He had made himself master of French, so as to speak it almost without any of the accent of a foreigner; and having a magnificent voice, he added to it all the science that one of his own countrymen could supply, and became in the end a finished musician and vocalist.

Such was the course of his studies; and now, with all the préstige of his singular affaire to give him éclat, the Marchese Mascalbruni made his début. By way of recreation, he had frequently gone into the gambling-houses of the Palais Royal, and had been much struck with these words, almost obliterated, on the walls of one of them, "Tutus veni, tutus abi." Mascalbruni was determined to profit by the advice, and to confirm its truth by one solitary exception – to come and depart in safety, or rather a winner.

Mascalbruni invented a theory of his own, that has since been practised by several of the habitués of the hells, particularly by a man denominated, in the maisons de jeu, L'Avocat. He won such enormous sums of the bank, that, on his return to his lodgings one night, he was assassinated, not without suspicion that he fell by the hands of some kind bravo of the company. Chi lo sa? But to revert to Mascalbruni.

Impares numeri are said to be fortunate: strange to say, the number three is the most so. Three was a mystic number. The triangle was sacred to the Hindoos and Egyptians. There were three Graces, three Furies, three Fates. He played a martingale of one, three, seven, fifteen, &c. on triple numbers, i. e. after three of a colour, either red or black, had come up, and not till then, he played, and opposed its going a fourth; thus rendering it necessary that there should be twelve or thirteen successive coups of four, et sequentia, without the intervention of a three. The gain, it is true, could not be great, for he began with a five-franc piece: but it seemed sure; and so he found it, making a daily profit of three or four louis in as many hours.

I have gone into this dry subject to show the character of the man, and his imperturbable sang-froid. He did not, however, confine himself to rouge et noir, but soon learned all the niceties of that scientific game écarté. In addition to sauter le coup, which he practised with an invisible dexterity, he used to file the ends of the fingers of his right hand, so that he could feel the court-cards, which, having a thicker coat of paint, are thus made easily sensible to the touch; and would extract from each pack one or two, the knowledge of whose non-existence was no slight advantage in discarding. He did not long wait for associates in his art. There was formed at that time a club in the Rue Richelieu on the principle of some of the English clubs, it being entirely managed by a committee. Of this he became a member, and afterwards got an introduction at the salon. Most of the English at Paris joined this circle; and it was broken up in consequence of the discovery of manœuvres and sleights of hand such as I have described, but not until Mascalbruni had contrived to bear away a more than equal share of the plunder. The English, of course, were the great sufferers.

He now turned his face towards the Channel, and opened the campaign in London on a much more extensive scale. He took up his quarters at Higginbottom's hotel in the same year that young Napoleon came to England, and only left it when it was given up to that lamented and accomplished prince. It is not generally known that he ever visited England. His sojourn in the capital was kept a profound secret. The master of the hotel and all his servants took an oath of secrecy; and Prince Esterhazy and the members of the Austrian embassy were not likely to betray it. The prince passed a week with George the Fourth at the Cottage at Windsor, and afterwards assisted at a concert at the Hanover Square rooms, himself leading a concert on the piano. This by the bye. Mascalbruni on that occasion attracted all eyes, and fascinated all ears, and was greeted after a solo with the loudest plaudits. He had now become the fashion, and, having forged a letter from one of the cardinals at Rome to a patroness of Almacks, obtained the entrée, and made one of the three hundred that compose the world of London. You know, however, in this world that there is another world – orb within orb – an imperium in imperio– the Exclusives. It is difficult to define what the qualifications for an exclusive are: it is not rank, connexion, talents, virtues, grace, elegance, accomplishments. No. But I shall not attempt to explain the inexplicable. Certain it is, however, that our hero was admitted into the coteries of this caste, as distinct – as much separated by a line of demarcation drawn round them from the rest – as the Rajhpoot is from the Raiot, who sprang, one from the head, the other from the heels of Brahma.

It was on the daughter of one of these extra-exclusives that Mascalbruni cast his eye. He flew at high game. The Honourable Miss M. was the belle of the season. I remember seeing her the year before at a fancy ball. A quadrille had been got up, for which were selected twelve of the most beautiful girls to represent the twelve Seasons. Louisa was May, and excelled the rest, (I do not speak of the present year,) as much as that season of flowers does the other months. It was an 'incarnation of May!' – a metaphor of Spring, and Youth, and Morning! – a rose-bud just opening its young leaves, that brings the swiftest thought of beauty, though words cannot embody it: – a sylph borne by a breath, a zephyr, as in the celebrated Hebe of John of Bologna, may make intelligible the lightness of her step, – the ethereal grace of her form. She was a nymph of Canova, without her affectation. Hers was the poetry of motion, —

that would have been the despair of sculpture or poetry. I have never seen but one who might compare with her, and she was engulfed that same year in the waters of the inexorable Tiber, – Rosa Bathurst.13

Louisa M. was the only daughter of an Irish bishop. His see was one of the most valuable in the sister island; and some idea may be formed of his accumulated wealth, by the circumstance of his having received thirty thousand pounds in one year by fines on the renewal of leases. He had one son, then on a Continental tour with his tutor; but having no entailed estates, and his fortune consisting of ready money, Louisa was probably one of the meilleures parties in the three kingdoms.

There was at that time a mania for foreign alliances. The grand tour, which almost every family of distinction had taken, introduced a rage for Continental customs and manners, which had in some degree superseded our own.

A spring in Paris, and winter in Italy, left behind them regrets in the minds of old and young, but especially the latter, who longed to return to those scenes that had captivated their senses and seduced their young imaginations. No language was spoken at the opera but French or Italian, – no topics of conversation excited so much interest as those which had formed the charm of their residence abroad, – and the fair daughters of England drew comparisons unfavourable to fox-hunting squires and insipid young nobles, when they thought of the accomplished and fascinating foreigners from whom, in the first dawn of life, when all their impressions were new and vivid, they had received such flattering homage.

The mother of Louisa, still young, had not been insensible to prepossessions; and had a liaison at Rome, where she was unaccompanied by her husband, the effects of which she had not altogether eradicated.

It is said that the road to the daughter's affections is through the heart of the mother. Certainly in Italy cavalier-serventeism generally has this termination; and, though it is not yet openly established in England, there are very many women in high life who have some secret adorer, some favourite friend, to keep alive the flame which too often lies smothered in the ashes of matrimony. I do not mean that this attachment is frequently carried to criminal lengths; nor am I ready to give much credence to the vain boastings of those foreigners who, when they return to their own country, amuse their idle hours, and idler friends, with a detailed account of their bonnes fortunes in London.