L'homme qui rit. English

  CHAPTER IV.

  THE LEADER OF FASHION.

  Josiana was bored. The fact is so natural as to be scarcely worthmentioning.

  Lord David held the position of judge in the gay life of London. He waslooked up to by the nobility and gentry. Let us register a glory of LordDavid's. He was daring enough to wear his own hair. The reaction againstthe wig was beginning. Just as in 1824 Eugene Deveria was the first toallow his beard to grow, so in 1702 Prince Devereux was the first torisk wearing his own hair in public disguised by artful curling. For torisk one's hair was almost to risk one's head. The indignation wasuniversal. Nevertheless Prince Devereux was Viscount Hereford, and apeer of England. He was insulted, and the deed was well worth theinsult. In the hottest part of the row Lord David suddenly appearedwithout his wig and in his own hair. Such conduct shakes the foundationsof society. Lord David was insulted even more than Viscount Hereford. Heheld his ground. Prince Devereux was the first, Lord David Dirry-Moirthe second. It is sometimes more difficult to be second than first. Itrequires less genius, but more courage. The first, intoxicated by thenovelty, may ignore the danger; the second sees the abyss, and rushesinto it. Lord David flung himself into the abyss of no longer wearing awig. Later on these lords found imitators. Following these tworevolutionists, men found sufficient audacity to wear their own hair,and powder was introduced as an extenuating circumstance.

  In order to establish, before we pass on, an important period ofhistory, we should remark that the first blow in the war of wigs wasreally struck by a Queen, Christina of Sweden, who wore man's clothes,and had appeared in 1680, in her hair of golden brown, powdered, andbrushed up from her head. She had, besides, says Misson, a slight beard.The Pope, on his part, by a bull of March 1694, had somewhat let downthe wig, by taking it from the heads of bishops and priests, and inordering churchmen to let their hair grow.

  Lord David, then, did not wear a wig, and did wear cowhide boots. Suchgreat things made him a mark for public admiration. There was not a clubof which he was not the leader, not a boxing match in which he was notdesired as referee. The referee is the arbitrator.

  He had drawn up the rules of several clubs in high life. He foundedseveral resorts of fashionable society, of which one, the Lady Guinea,was still in existence in Pall Mall in 1772. The Lady Guinea was a clubin which all the youth of the peerage congregated. They gamed there. Thelowest stake allowed was a rouleau of fifty guineas, and there was neverless than 20,000 guineas on the table. By the side of each player was alittle stand on which to place his cup of tea, and a gilt bowl in whichto put the rouleaux of guineas. The players, like servants when cleaningknives, wore leather sleeves to save their lace, breastplates of leatherto protect their ruffles, shades on their brows to shelter their eyesfrom the great glare of the lamps, and, to keep their curls in order,broad-brimmed hats covered with flowers. They were masked to concealtheir excitement, especially when playing the game of _quinze_. All,moreover, had their coats turned the wrong way, for luck. Lord David wasa member of the Beefsteak Club, the Surly Club, and of the SplitfarthingClub, of the Cross Club, the Scratchpenny Club, of the Sealed Knot, aRoyalist Club, and of the Martinus Scribblerus, founded by Swift, totake the place of the Rota, founded by Milton.

  Though handsome, he belonged to the Ugly Club. This club was dedicatedto deformity. The members agreed to fight, not about a beautiful woman,but about an ugly man. The hall of the club was adorned by hideousportraits--Thersites, Triboulet, Duns, Hudibras, Scarron; over thechimney was AEsop, between two men, each blind of an eye, Cocles andCamoens (Cocles being blind of the left, Camoens of the right eye), soarranged that the two profiles without eyes were turned to each other.The day that the beautiful Mrs. Visart caught the small pox the UglyClub toasted her. This club was still in existence in the beginning ofthe nineteenth century, and Mirabeau was elected an honorary member.

  Since the restoration of Charles II. revolutionary clubs had beenabolished. The tavern in the little street by Moorfields, where theCalf's Head Club was held, had been pulled down; it was so calledbecause on the 30th of January, the day on which the blood of Charles I.flowed on the scaffold, the members had drunk red wine out of the skullof a calf to the health of Cromwell. To the republican clubs hadsucceeded monarchical clubs. In them people amused themselves withdecency.

  * * * * *

  There was the Hell-fire Club, where they played at being impious. It wasa joust of sacrilege. Hell was at auction there to the highest bidder inblasphemy.

  There was the Butting Club, so called from its members butting folkswith their heads. They found some street porter with a wide chest and astupid countenance. They offered him, and compelled him, if necessary,to accept a pot of porter, in return for which he was to allow them tobutt him with their heads four times in the chest, and on this theybetted. One day a man, a great brute of a Welshman named Gogangerdd,expired at the third butt. This looked serious. An inquest was held, andthe jury returned the following verdict: "Died of an inflation of theheart, caused by excessive drinking." Gogangerdd had certainly drunk thecontents of the pot of porter.

  There was the Fun Club. _Fun_ is like _cant_, like _humour_, a wordwhich is untranslatable. Fun is to farce what pepper is to salt. To getinto a house and break a valuable mirror, slash the family portraits,poison the dog, put the cat in the aviary, is called "cutting a bit offun." To give bad news which is untrue, whereby people put on mourningby mistake, is fun. It was fun to cut a square hole in the Holbein atHampton Court. Fun would have been proud to have broken the arm of theVenus of Milo. Under James II. a young millionaire lord who had duringthe night set fire to a thatched cottage--a feat which made all Londonburst with laughter--was proclaimed the King of Fun. The poor devils inthe cottage were saved in their night clothes. The members of the FunClub, all of the highest aristocracy, used to run about London duringthe hours when the citizens were asleep, pulling the hinges from theshutters, cutting off the pipes of pumps, filling up cisterns, diggingup cultivated plots of ground, putting out lamps, sawing through thebeams which supported houses, breaking the window panes, especially inthe poor quarters of the town. It was the rich who acted thus towardsthe poor. For this reason no complaint was possible. That was the bestof the joke. Those manners have not altogether disappeared. In manyplaces in England and in English possessions--at Guernsey, forinstance--your house is now and then somewhat damaged during the night,or a fence is broken, or the knocker twisted off your door. If it werepoor people who did these things, they would be sent to jail; but theyare done by pleasant young gentlemen.

  The most fashionable of the clubs was presided over by an emperor, whowore a crescent on his forehead, and was called the Grand Mohawk. TheMohawk surpassed the Fun. Do evil for evil's sake was the programme. TheMohawk Club had one great object--to injure. To fulfil this duty allmeans were held good. In becoming a Mohawk the members took an oath tobe hurtful. To injure at any price, no matter when, no matter whom, nomatter where, was a matter of duty. Every member of the Mohawk Club wasbound to possess an accomplishment. One was "a dancing master;" that isto say he made the rustics frisk about by pricking the calves of theirlegs with the point of his sword. Others knew how to make a man sweat;that is to say, a circle of gentlemen with drawn rapiers would surrounda poor wretch, so that it was impossible for him not to turn his backupon some one. The gentleman behind him chastised him for this by aprick of his sword, which made him spring round; another prick in theback warned the fellow that one of noble blood was behind him, and soon, each one wounding him in his turn. When the man, closed round by thecircle of swords and covered with blood, had turned and danced aboutenough, they ordered their servants to beat him with sticks, to changethe course of his ideas. Others "hit the lion"--that is, they gailystopped a passenger, broke his nose with a blow of the fist, and thenshoved both thumbs into his eyes. If his eyes were gouged out, he waspaid for them.

  Such were, towards the beginning of the eighteenth century, the pastimesof the ric
h idlers of London. The idlers of Paris had theirs. M. deCharolais was firing his gun at a citizen standing on his own threshold.In all times youth has had its amusements.

  Lord David Dirry-Moir brought into all these institutions hismagnificent and liberal spirit. Just like any one else, he would gailyset fire to a cot of woodwork and thatch, and just scorch those within;but he would rebuild their houses in stone. He insulted two ladies. Onewas unmarried--he gave her a portion; the other was married--he had herhusband appointed chaplain.

  Cockfighting owed him some praiseworthy improvements. It was marvellousto see Lord David dress a cock for the pit. Cocks lay hold of each otherby the feathers, as men by the hair. Lord David, therefore, made hiscock as bald as possible. With a pair of scissors he cut off all thefeathers from the tail and from the head to the shoulders, and all thoseon the neck. So much less for the enemy's beak, he used to say. Then heextended the cock's wings, and cut each feather, one after another, to apoint, and thus the wings were furnished with darts. So much for theenemy's eyes, he would say. Then he scraped its claws with a penknife,sharpened its nails, fitted it with spurs of sharp steel, spat on itshead, spat on its neck, anointed it with spittle, as they used to ruboil over athletes; then set it down in the pit, a redoubtable champion,exclaiming, "That's how to make a cock an eagle, and a bird of thepoultry yard a bird of the mountain."

  Lord David attended prize-fights, and was their living law. On occasionsof great performances it was he who had the stakes driven in and ropesstretched, and who fixed the number of feet for the ring. When he was asecond, he followed his man step by step, a bottle in one hand, a spongein the other, crying out to him to _hit hard_, suggesting stratagems,advising him as he fought, wiping away the blood, raising him whenoverthrown, placing him on his knee, putting the mouth of the bottlebetween his teeth, and from his own mouth, filled with water, blowing afine rain into his eyes and ears--a thing which reanimates even a dyingman. If he was referee, he saw that there was no foul play, preventedany one, whosoever he might be, from assisting the combatants, exceptingthe seconds, declare the man beaten who did not fairly face hisopponent, watched that the time between the rounds did not exceed half aminute, prevented butting, and declared whoever resorted to it beaten,and forbade a man's being hit when down. All this science, however, didnot render him a pedant, nor destroy his ease of manner in society.

  When he was referee, rough, pimple-faced, unshorn friends of eithercombatant never dared to come to the aid of their failing man, nor, inorder to upset the chances of the betting, jumped over the barrier,entered the ring, broke the ropes, pulled down the stakes, and violentlyinterposed in the battle. Lord David was one of the few referees whomthey dared not thrash.

  No one could train like him. The pugilist whose trainer he consented tobecome was sure to win. Lord David would choose a Hercules--massive as arock, tall as a tower--and make him his child. The problem was to turnthat human rock from a defensive to an offensive state. In this heexcelled. Having once adopted the Cyclops, he never left him. He becamehis nurse; he measured out his wine, weighed his meat, and counted hishours of sleep. It was he who invented the athlete's admirable rules,afterwards reproduced by Morley. In the mornings, a raw egg and a glassof sherry; at twelve, some slices of a leg of mutton, almost raw, withtea; at four, toast and tea; in the evening, pale ale and toast; afterwhich he undressed his man, rubbed him, and put him to bed. In thestreet he never allowed him to leave his sight, keeping him out of everydanger--runaway horses, the wheels of carriages, drunken soldiers,pretty girls. He watched over his virtue. This maternal solicitudecontinually brought some new perfection into the pupil's education. Hetaught him the blow with the fist which breaks the teeth, and the twistof the thumb which gouges out the eye. What could be more touching?

  Thus he was preparing himself for public life to which he was to becalled later on. It is no easy matter to become an accomplishedgentleman.

  Lord David Dirry-Moir was passionately fond of open-air exhibitions, ofshows, of circuses with wild beasts, of the caravans of mountebanks, ofclowns, tumblers, merrymen, open-air farces, and the wonders of a fair.The true noble is he who smacks of the people. Therefore it was thatLord David frequented the taverns and low haunts of London and theCinque Ports. In order to be able at need, and without compromising hisrank in the white squadron, to be cheek-by-jowl with a topman or acalker, he used to wear a sailor's jacket when he went into the slums.For such disguise his not wearing a wig was convenient; for even underLouis XIV. the people kept to their hair like the lion to his mane.This gave him great freedom of action. The low people whom Lord Davidused to meet in the stews, and with whom he mixed, held him in highesteem, without ever dreaming that he was a lord. They called himTom-Jim-Jack. Under this name he was famous and very popular amongst thedregs of the people. He played the blackguard in a masterly style: whennecessary, he used his fists. This phase of his fashionable life washighly appreciated by Lady Josiana.