Various
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
"From many a peck of purgatorial coals."
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, —
"It was the soul, which from so fair a frame
Look'd forth, and told us 'twas from heaven it came," —
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.
I shall not prostitute my narrative, had I the data for so doing, by tracing step by step the well-organised scheme by which Mascalbruni contrived to ingratiate himself with both the mother and the daughter. He was young, handsome, and accomplished; an inimitable dancer, a perfect musician. His dress, his stud, and cabriolet were in the best taste, and he passed for a man of large fortune.
It may be asked how he supported this establishment? By play. Play, in men whose means are ample, if considered a vice, is thought a very venial one. He got admission into several clubs, – Crockford's among the rest: – his games were écarté and whist; games at which he was without a match. Cool, cautious, and calculating, he lost with perfect nonchalance, and won with the greatest seeming indifference.
There was a French vicomte, with whom he seemed to have no particular acquaintance, but who was in reality his ally and confederate, and who had accompanied him to England expressly that they might play into each other's hands. He belonged to one of the oldest families, and had one of those historical names that are a passe par-tout. I had seen him at the soirées of Paris, and he was in the habit at the écarté table, if he had come without money, which was not unfrequently the case, of claiming, when the division took place at the end of the game, two napoleons; pretending that at its commencement he had bet one on the winner. I need say no more.
He had signalised himself in several rencontres. I have him before me now, as he used to appear in the Tuileries' gardens, with his narrow hat, his thin face, and spare figure, – so spare, that sideways one might as well have fired at the edge of a knife. To this man Mascalbruni frequently pretended to have lost large sums, and it is now well known that they divided the profits of their gains during the season. No one certainly suspected either of unfair practices, though their uniform success might have opened the eyes of the blindest. The Marchioness of S.'s card-parties and those of Lady E. were a rich harvest, as well as the private routs and soirées to which they obtained easy admission. Lady M. was well aware that Mascalbruni had a penchant for play; but it seemed to occupy so little of his thoughts or intrench on his time, that it gave her no serious alarm.
I have not yet told you, however, as I ought to have done, that he was a favoured suitor.
The bishop, who, by nature of his office, was seldom in town, was a cypher in the family, and little thought of interfering with his lady in the choice of a son-in-law.
But the season now drew to a close, and Mascalbruni received an invitation to pass the summer at the episcopal palace in the Emerald Isle. He had succeeded in gaining the affections, the irrevocable affections of Louisa. Yes, – she loved him,
"Loved him with all the intenseness of first love!"
Time seemed to her to crawl with tortoise steps when he was absent, – but how seldom was that the case! They sang together those duets of Rossini that are steeped in passion. How well did his deep and mellow voice marry itself with her contralto! They rode together, not often in the parks, but through those shady and almost unfrequented lanes of which there are so many in the environs of the metropolis; they waltzed together; they danced the mazourka together, – that dance which is almost exclusively confined to foreigners, from the difficulty of its steps, and the grace required in its mazes.
They passed hours together alone, – they read together those scenes of Metastasio, so musical in words, so easily retained in the memory. But why do I dwell on these details? When I look on this picture and on that, I am almost forced to renounce the opinion that kindred spirits can alone love; for what sympathy of soul could exist between beings so dissimilar, so little made for each other? Poor Louisa!
Mascalbruni accompanied them to Ireland. That summer was a continual fête. It was settled that the wedding was to take place on their return to town the ensuing season.
In the mean time the intended marriage had been long announced in the Morning Post, and was declared in due form to the son at Naples. Louisa, who was her brother's constant correspondent, in the openness of her heart did not conceal from him that passion, no longer, indeed, a secret. Her letters teemed with effusions of her admiration for the talents, the accomplishments, and the virtues, for such they seemed, of her intended – her promesso sposo, and the proud delight that a very few months would seal their union.
William, who had now had some experience of the Italians, and who had looked forward to his sister's marrying one of his college friends, an Irishman with large estates in their immediate neighbourhood, could not help expressing his disappointment, though it was urged with delicacy, at this foreign connexion. He wrote also to the bishop, and, after obtaining from him all the necessary particulars as to the Marchese Mascalbruni, – through what channel he became acquainted with them, by what letter got introduced to Lady – , lost no time in proceeding to Rome, though the mountains were then infested by brigands, and the Pontine marshes, for it was the month of September, breathed malaria.
Our consul was then at Cività Vecchia, but willingly consented to accompany Mr. M. to Rome, in order to aid in the investigation. He was intimate with Cardinal – , and they immediately proceeded to his palace. They found from him that he had never heard the name of Mascalbruni; that there was no marchese in the pontifical states so called; and he unhesitatingly declared the letter to be a forgery, and its writer an impostor.
They then applied to the police, who, after some days' inquiry, discovered that a person answering the description given had quitted Rome a few years before, and had been a clerk in the office of a notario.
No farther evidence was necessary to convict Mascalbruni of being a swindler; and, not trusting to a letter's safe arrival, Mr. M. travelled night and day till he reached the palace at – .
It is not difficult to imagine the scene that ensued, – the indignation of the father, the vexation and self-reproaches of the mother, or the heart-rending emotions of the unfortunate girl.
Mascalbruni at first, with great effrontery, endeavoured to brave the storm; contended that Louisa was bound to him by the most sacred ties, the most solemn engagements; that his she should be, – or, if not his, that she should never be another's; denounced them as her murderers; and ended with threats of vengeance, – vengeance that, alas! he too well accomplished.
It is not very well known what now became of Mascalbruni; but there is reason to believe that he lay perdu somewhere in the neighbourhood, watching like a vulture over the prey from which he had been driven, the corpse of what was once Louisa.
A suspicious-looking person was frequently seen at night-fall prowling about the environs of the palace; and Miss M.'s femme de chambre, with whom he is said to have carried on an intrigue, was observed by the servants in animated conversation with a stranger in the garb of a peasant among the shrubberies and pleasure grounds.
It was through her medium that Mascalbruni gained intelligence of all that was passing in the palace.
The shock which Louisa had sustained was so sudden, so severe, that, acting on a frame naturally delicate, it brought on a brain fever. Her ravings were so dreadful, and so extraordinary; and so revolting was the language in which she at times clothed them, that even her mother – and no other was allowed to attend her – could scarcely stay by her couch. How perfect a knowledge of human nature has Shakspeare displayed in depicting the madness of the shamelessly-wronged and innocent Ophelia! – The fragments of those songs to which her broken accents gave utterance, especially that which ends with may suggest an idea of the wanderings of the poor sufferer's heated imagination.
"Who, in a maid, yet out a maid,
Did ne'er return again,"
For some weeks her life hung on a thread; but the affectionate cares and sympathy of a mother, and a sense of the unworthiness of the object of her regard, at last brought back the dawn of reason; and her recovery, though slow, was sufficiently sure to banish all anxiety.
The afflictions as well as the affections of woman are, if I may judge by my own experience, less profoundly acute than those of our own sex. Whether this be owing to constitution or education, or that the superior delicacy and fineness of the nervous system makes them more easily susceptible of new impressions to efface the old, I leave it to the physiologist or the psychologist to explain. The river that is the most ruffled at the surface is seldom the deepest. Thus with Miss M. Her passion, like
"A little brook, swoln by the melted snow,
That overflows its banks, pour'd in her heart
A scanty stream, and soon was dry again."14
In the course of three months the image of Mascalbruni, if not effaced from her mind, scarcely awakened a regret; and, save that at times a paleness overspread her cheek, rapidly chased by a blush, be it of virgin innocence or shame, no one could ever have discovered in her person or bearing any traces of the past.
At this time a paragraph appeared in the Court Journal of the day, nearly in these words:
"Strange rumours are afloat in the Sister Island respecting a certain Italian marchese, who figured at the clubs and about town during the last season. Revelations of an extraordinary nature, that hastened the return of the Honourable Mr. M. from the Continent, have led to a rupture of the marriage of the belle of the season, which we are authorised to say is definitively broken off."
It was a telegraph that the field was open for new candidates; but no one on this side the water answered it. Louisa M. was no longer the same, – the préstige was fled, – the bloom of the peach was gone.
Scarcely had four months elapsed, however, when fresh preparations were made for her marriage, and a day fixed for the nuptials.
The hour came; and behold, in the conventional language used on such occasions, the happy pair, Lady M. the bride-maids, and a numerous party of friends assembled in the chapel of the palace. The bishop officiated.
The ceremony had already commenced, and the rite was on the point of being ratified by that mystical type of union – the ring – when a figure burst through the crowd collected about the doors; a figure more like a spectre than a man.
So great a change had taken place in him, from the wild and savage life that he had been leading among the mountains, the privations he had endured, and the neglect of his person, that no one would have recognised him for the observed of all observers, the once elegant and handsome Mascalbruni. His hair, matted like the mane of a wild beast, streamed over his face and bare neck. His cheek was fallen, his eyes sunken in their sockets; yet in them burned, as in two dark caves, a fierce and sombre fire. His lips were tremulous and convulsed with passion; his whole appearance, in short, exhibited the same diabolical rage and thirst of vengeance that had electrified the salle d'armes in his memorable conflict. He advanced straight to the altar with long and hurried steps, and, tearing aside the hands of the couple, the ring fell over the communion rails to the ground. So profound was the silence, so great the consternation and surprise the sight of this apparition created in the minds of all, that the sound of the ring, as it struck and rolled along the vaulted pavement, was audibly heard. It was an omen of evil augury, – a warning voice as from the grave, to tell of the death of premised joys – of hopes destroyed – of happiness for ever crushed. He stood wildly waving his arms for a moment between the pair, looking as though they had been transformed into stone, more like two statues kneeling at a tomb than at the altar. Then he folded his arms; gazed with a triumphant and ghastly smile at the bride; said, or rather muttered, "Mine she is!" then, turning to the bridegroom, with a sneer of scorn and mockery he howled, "Mine she has been; now wed her!"
With these laconic words he turned on his heel, and regained without interruption the portal by which he had entered. So suddenly had all this passed, so paralysed and panic-stricken were the spectators and audience of this scene, that they could scarcely believe it to be other than a dream, till they saw the bride extended without sense or motion on the steps. Thus was she borne, the service being unconcluded, to her chamber. The ceremony was privately completed the ensuing day.
No domestic felicity attended this ill-fated union. It was poisoned by doubts and suspicions, and embittered by the memory of Mascalbruni's words. "Mine she has been" continually rang in the husband's ears; and on the anniversary of that eventful day, after a lingering illness of many months, a martyr to disappointment and chagrin, she sunk into an untimely grave.
The next we hear of Mascalbruni was his being at Cheltenham. There he frequented the rooms under very different auspices, and had to compete with another order of players than those he had been in the habit of duping. He was narrowly watched, and detected in the act of pocketing a queen from an écarté pack. The consequence was his expulsion from the club with ignominy. His name was placarded, and his fame, or rather infamy, noised with a winged speed all over the United Kingdom.
It was no longer a place for him. In the course of the ensuing week the following announcement was made in a well-known and widely-circulated weekly paper. It was headed —
"An Italian black sheep
"We hope in a short time to present our readers with the exploits of a new Count Fathom, a soi disant marchese, better known than trusted, the two first syllables of whose name more than rhyme with rascal. And as it is our duty to un-mask all such, we shall confine ourselves at present to saying that he has been weighed at a fashionable watering-place in Gloucestershire, and found wanting, or rather practising certain sleights of hand for which the charlatans of his own country are notorious. He had better sing small here!"
Mascalbruni took the vulgar hint. His funds were nearly exhausted, and with but a few louis in his pocket he embarked at Dover, and once more repaired to Paris.
His prospects were widely different from those with which he had left it. To play the game I have described at rouge et noir, requires a capital. Every respectable house was closed against him. He now disguised his appearance, so that his former acquaintance should not be able to recognise him, and frequented the lowest hells – those cloacæ, the resort of all the vilains and chenapans, the lowest dregs of the metropolis. By what practices this mauvais sujet contrived to support life here for some years is best known to the police, where his name stands chronicled pretty legibly; it is probable that he passed much of that time in one of the prisons, or on the roads.