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Page 147 from the Albion
September 8, 2007 - 1:01pm - Erika HarrisonThe front of this book appeared to claim it was the newspaper articles of the whole year, for this particular publication. Interesting reads. I use <...> to denote regions that are illegible (ie. where the page connects to the binding, such that I miss a word or two). (And grandparents complain that the type in books nowadays is too small. This must've been like size 6 font or something)
<...> each other at a house of play in Dover Street, in <...> of the two had been concerned, to the bitter <...> who employed him, previously to his re- <...>; and now that they were both in similar cases <...> on the practicability of establishing a club and <...> grand and imposing scale. But how to accomplish <...>
<...>63, Piccadilly, stood in a most eligible and favoured <...> of a club, and under annoucnment that it was <...>-tion was taken to secure it by hook or by crook; <...> effort, and still more extraordinary success, terms <...> member of the legal profession, who had interest <...>-ting - the legal main himself being at the same time <...> eye to, and a slice in the after benefit that was to <...>-int a speculation. This was a grand accomplishment. <...> secured the possession of a large and captivating <...> that it at once supplied the essential referee that <...> under the contemplated advertisement for rasing the <...>
<...> of the practised city man was not long in framing the <...> Speculative Capitalists, desirous of certain large re- <...> occupation of time; and, under extraordinary exer- <...> to raise the money necessary for its insertion, the ad- <...> appeared. A letter of inquiry came up from a dis- <...>-try, which, of course, met with every further satisfaction <...> from the prolific and experienced brain of the framer <...>
<...>-pect before them, it was not contemplated that some <...> should be taken, where, in the event of a meeting <...> with the dupe in prospective, an appointment should <...>-ingly, under reference to the attorney who had been <...> strange to say, was a man who, previously to this dis- <...>-n, stood high in professional character), the principal <...> taken in Half-Moon Street. As imagined, a letter in- <...> a personal interview arrived, and a day was named <...> the legal source of reference was now made applica- <...>-y accomodation of cash on a hill, which succeeding, <...> made for the meeting. The pauper adventurers be- <...> not a little to their own astonishment, transposed into <...>-omestic establishment received the addition of a man- <...> speedily adorned with an imposing livery; and every <...>-eme had been duly considered, as necessary to the first <...> to be produced on the confiding victim.
<...>-d, A handsome dinner was provided: all went off well. <...>-d been nibbling only, now swallowed the bait, and was <...>-ms were entered into, and back he went on the follow- <...> arrangements for the disposal of his property in the <...>-w to a speedy return to town to enter on his new pur- <...> appeared was in a large way of business in a provin- <...> his arrival at home, could not effect a sale of his pro- <...> desired. He therefore communicated with the parties, <...> acquaintances in town, on the unlooked-for delay - which, <...> did not chime in with their views. It was immediate- <...>-timated to him that the money must be ready on a cer- <...> it had been announced that the establishment should <...> dinner, that a committee of noblemen and gentlemen <...> and that, previously to such opening, a grand enter- <...> were to be given, at which he was urged to be pre- <...> programme worked wonders. The respectable victim <...> £2500, which he brought up to town with him on the <...> to which it was professed that a similar sum was to be <...> partners.
<...>the adventurers had not been idle. Possessed of a <...> mansion, and a respectable referee, they were not <...> availed themselves of all the confidence created thereby, <...>-ing all the credit and advantages resulting from it. On <...> of the forthcoming capital of their dupe, they had or <...> splendid furniture, wines, plate, and all things necessary <...>-tablishment. And, amongst other things, they had not <...> enlist a certain number of that particular, but degraded <...> who having the en?rt of society, abuse their positions by <...> of canvassing or catering for patronage and custom to <...> of lending their personal aid as decoys to the unprofi- <...>-ay. Strange as it may appear, too, through the influ- <...>-y, a lady of title was absolutely persuaded to give a con- <...> gamin-house; under total ignorance, however, of the <...> the house was intended, and equally so of the adven- <...> taken it, one of whom was of the darkest shade of human <...> conert, at which about one hundred and fifty per- <...> and which seemed to be the realization of all that had <...> the high and respectable character of the club, the <...>-an was invited, and then and there found himself in <...> divers nobles, honourables, and miliary men and civil- <...> represented to him as patrons and members of the new <...> is experience, poor man, did not lead him to question <...> somwhat strange anomaly of noblemen meetin gin the <...> holding familiar converse and communication with men <...>-ing their patronage and favour; nor thought he of the <...> Such-a-one being invited to meet an innkeeper, whose <...> condesceneded to honour with his presence and custom - and <...> parallel
<...>day was fixed for the grand opening dinner, and final ar- <...> business. The parties met, - a splendid entertainment was <...> were invited the distinguisted persons who had been <...> the previous evening as members, and other parties of <...> Champagne and other exhilarating wines were freely cir- <...> grand toast of the evening was, success to the Buckingham <...>-ted proprietors; and the deluded provincial was in the <...> of blissful anticipation. After the usual indulgence of the <...>-pals retired up stairs for the preliminary purposes of business <...> splendid morocco covering were produced, containing the <...>-men forming the committee, and of some five hundred <...>-ers, most of them borrowed from the Court Guide for the <...>-e. The rate of subscription was exhibited as sufficient to <...>-erating profit. And last of all came the exhibition of <...> at which gold was to be eternally coined, to fulfill the pro- <...>-ertisement.
<...> part of the arrangement with which the new man had not <...> made acquainted; and, being really a man of integrity and <...> expressed his objections to be concerned in any establishment <...>-cter of a gaming-house. But, unfortunately for him, his <...> parted with: the wine, too, was freely circulating in his <...>-cing his better sense and determination from their just ex- <...>-ned to the arguments, and finally yielded to persuasion to <...> arrangement. The lawyer dupe was also of the party, and <...> high state of very pleasing excitement at the prospect of <...> immediately presented to his imaginative view.
<...>-ed off without any attempt at play, excepting some trifling <...> dice, by way of exhibition of the game to the newly-listed <...> when he left the house, had about as clear and distinct a <...> principle and varietties as a pig may be supposed to have of the <...> following day he was to return to the country, to complete <...> his business there; but it was arranged that his brother, <...> and holding a respectable and responsible appointment <...> who had been a party on his behalf to all the former busi- <...> the extensible proprietor in the partnership, and give <...> night in observance of the proceedings.
<...> opened under such management. This arrant knave of <...>-ent, having been extensively connected with gaming-houses, <...> his demicle i? the place with his family, and that he should <...> control of the bank, and lend out money on draft to noble- <...> men players who might require it. Business commenced, <...> at a new establishment, customers dropped in, - amongst <...> noblemen and gentlemen, members of Crockford's and other <...> outrun their limit of credit with the old fishmonger, and <...> accommodated with cash, by way of gaining their future p-
<...> week of play was most successful. Large sums were lost (on <...>-ry paper) to the bank; while, on the other hand, ready <...>-ed by the winners. Nevertheless, a fine report was sent <...>-y proprietor, annoucning the success of the concern, and <...> understanding with the particulars that Lord L--- had lost <...> Lord C--- some hundreds, and other distinguished <...> making up a large balance on the credit side. The report <...> by an intimation that his presence was not absolutely ne- <...> as promising a state of things, although the parties would <...> him. Time for all was satisfactory; but alas! there is <...> is life. A few weeks only clapsed, when another report <...> to the absent confiding parner. There had been a run on <...>-ces of the bank, to the almost total extinction of its capital and the tardy return of money lent to losers had not kept pace with the demared of ready cash by the winners. A farther supply of £1500 was required, there fore to carry on the war. This unexpected requisition brought the party to town, and he made his apperance, his visage somewhat elgonated from its former cherful expanse. He was averse to any further risk of captial and suggested that the large outstanding debts alleged, and indeed shown, to be due from certain noblemen and gentlemen, should be collected. But this was met by information that the convenience of such persons must be consulted in respect to claims of so peculiar a nature; that bills had been given for many of the debts, and that the same were not at maturity. It was urged, as a most potent argument, that, unless a further supply o fmoney should be instantly forthcoming, the house must close; in which case it was most probable that none of the parties indebted would pay at all; whereas means to keep up play would be sure to work out an ultimately good result. The credulity of the man was thus again sucessfully worked up on; he produced the £1500, and business proceeded for a time with sucess.
The two pauper projectors of the scheme suddenly rose into apparent affluent positions. The one who had so recently been liberated from a prison on a short allowance of shoe leather, was seen riding about town on a very fine horse (of which more anon,) and had his separate establishment for his own mistress. The other adopted a more quite and prudent course; but still exhibited an exterior bespeaking a most fortunate change of circumstances.
In this flourishing state things continued. Large sums of money and securities were constantly increasing the bank's means. It was a curious fact, however, observable by the acting brother of the capitalist, that notwithstanding the almost invariable ill fortune of the players in general, there were two or three members of the table who as invariable won, and that considerably. It was observed, too, that these parties were liberally supplied with money on their drafts, which never failed to be redeemed by their good fortune at the table. The observation, however, created no suspicion, nor indeed remark, beyond the expression of surprise at such unchanging luck. But reverse again came to the bank's resources; the ready thousands which had been amassed, and which were supposed to be at comand, had again disappeared in the shape, as was alleged, of loans to members, on their security, payments ot winners on demand, and expenses of the establishment. Another thousand or two was required to keep up the capital and credit: a few hundreds were all that could be found, and these quickly also disappeared, under loss andn expense.
Such continued reverses, in conjunction with a mysterious and unaccountable intimacy that appeared to subsist between the party who had charge of the bank resources and one of the invariably fortunate players, awakened suspicion in the mind of the duped that all was not right. He had discovered that the latter had mad ethe former a present of the horse which he had sported about town; and that he had also accommodated him at one time with a hundred, and at other times with similar sums; favours that were scarcely reconileable with the different positions of the parties. He had received hints, also, as to the former real circumstances of the parties, and as to the notorious character of one, that led him to investigate the whole affair to its original source of imposition; and having done so, and fully acquainted himself with the entire fraudulent conspiracy, he determined to relieve his conscienece at the total sacrifice of his five thousand pounds, and free himself, also, from the connection. A dissolution of partnership, therefore appeared in the Gazette, and he retired; the other parties continuing the establishment as far as they could do so without captial, in the hop of catching another simpleton by the same plausible method of advertisement. They now, also, began to collect in a few claims, and to struggle in every way against the threatened dissolution; but rent and taxes had got into arrear, and debts had accumulated. The resources of the other victim had also been drawn nearly dry. Executions followed executions, and all were in a state of hopeless despair; but still the house assumed its usual brilliant appearances at night. Numerous chandeliers were seen from without brilliantly illuminating the elegant apartments within. Still stood the liveried lacqueys in the hall, and still congregated about certain gentelman touts or bonnets, to go to work under favourable opportunity.
In this state of things, Mr. H---, a gentleman of fortune, made his apperance one evening, fresh from his vinous potations, and against this pauper remnant of bank proprietorship commenced play. Fortune, as may be expected, did not favour him; his vision was insufficiently clear, under the fumes of wine, to watch the results of the dice under the op rations of the other gentlemen at the table; and he lost between six and seven thousand pounds, -- in payment of which he was immediately pressed for his acceptances on the spot. Bill-stamps, always at hand, were forthwith produced. Two bills were drawn in the sums of 2500l. each, and they duly received the same which was to give them value and currency.
This sudden accession of apparent fortune gave new hopes and vigour to the expiring energies of the party. The managing scamp, being the drawer of the bills, kept possession of them, and made unceaseing effort to get them cahsed; but their large amount, and the known character of their holder, gave no confidence.
In the mean time the loser had got scent and recollection of certain suspicious facts attending the loss of this large sum of money, and, communicating with his solicitors on the subject, an immediate application was made to the Court of Chancery for an injunction to prohibit the negotiation of the bills. The injunction was obtained, prompt and speedy measures were taken to give circulation to the proceedings, and notice thereof was sent to every captial in Europe. The efforts of the party to get the bills cashed were, nevertheless, unrelaxed. The holder, to free himself frmo being taken in contempt, took himself to Boulogne, where he met with a party to aid him in his views. But here he was thwarted, and after employing all agency and means to get rid of the bills for half their amount. His last attempt was at Brussels, where he was again concocting a scheme to circulate the bills; but the same vigilance that had watched and defeated his movements at Boulogne as successfully checked them here; and tired out, and wanting money, he abandoned in despair all further attempt, save that of offering to deliver them up to the solicitors of the defrauded party up on a very trifling consideration, which to avoid further trouble, was acceded to.
The establishment of Piccadilly, unable to hold out longer against the host of executions, submitted to its fate, and all came to the hammer. The speculation had worked the complete ruin of the lawyer-proprietor, who, like the provincial victim, had been regularly plundered. The lawyer subsequently became insolvent, took the benefit of the act, by a benefit conferred on himself of ten months' imprisonment in Dover gaol, for having misappropriated trust money. The tradesmand was reserved for further prosecution by the creditors of the establishment, who, prompted by the scoundrel who had been instrumental to the ruin of the man, pursued him by legal process, until, to avoid the disgrace of the connection, he had paid every shilling he could command.
The only person who benefited by the dissolution and break up of the club was the vagabond manager himself, who having possessed himself of all the drafts, bills, and securities given for money lost, these he held fast, and continued to live on their collection and prceeds for some two or three years. Laterly such resources became less easy of command. Gentleman had received information of no right in the applicant to receive the debts, and that such moneys, in collection, should be appropriated to creditor. The hardihood of the fellow, however, led him still to persist in demand, and he even had the temerity to to resort to legal proceedings; and when this did not succeed, to threaten to placard the noblemen and gentlemen refusing to pay; a threat which it is somewhat surprising did not subject him to the summary process of a broken neck by one or other of the insulted parties. He has now, however, seen the full length of his tether, and fallen again to his original state of shoeless poverty.
The above correct statement is a fair example of occasional sucess of imposition, and will exhibit to what absurd and dangerous extreme credulity, led on by avarice, may proceed.
My first trip to Paris was made in - I have forgotten th eyear, but it was one in the reign of Catalani, who swayed so long and well the sceptre of the stage, it was the second season of her glory and the first night of "La Tentation de Saint Antoine;" and I made my way through a crowd whose pressure is still in my recollection to that overthronged pit of the Italian Opera. There was no other spot in that vast and splendid edifice where even standing room might be found; for I had come late, and the house had been filling for the last three hours. There I stood, surrounded by half Paris, in an atmosphere of at least 120 Fahr., with scarcely room to breathe, and sundry English suspicious crossing my mind at all times touching the safety of my pockets and their contents; but all the crosses and trials of the hour were lost and forgotten as the curtain rose in the rich music and gorgeous scenery of that queen of operas; now presenting the arid expansion of an Egyptian desert - its sands, its ruins, and its pyramids, clothed with th eburning lory of a southern sunset; and then the luxuriant garden of an Oriental palace, rich in fountains and in flowers, at one moment showing in the depth of their regal darkness the court and councils of the for-ever-fallen, and the next, with harmonies not all unworthy of their harps, displaying the angel choirs that walk on rosy heights beside the fount of day, and then the dweller of the trackless sands himself, the deeply tried and the strong of purpose, what shapes of beauty and what forms of fear rose around his world-forgotten attitude, and what ? filled the waste, till above all, filled a growing glory, swept the still unrivaled tones and Catalast, singing the final triumph of the ? and ?.
'C'est magnifique, monsieur?" said an elderly, but very intelligent looking Frenchman at my side, as the last burst of enthuisatic applause gradually died away. The speaker was a person who, by his dress and apperance, should have been a frequenter of the front houses, but a crowded theatre levels all distinctions for the time in France, and he had ? an example of his country's hospitality by exterting himself to make room for me. In the course of the evening's performances we had interchanged remarks and snuff-boxes, and at this stage of the proceedings our acquaintance had advanced quite as far as that of two English families on the return of the second visit.
'It is indeed magnificent,' said I, in answer to his last observation, which was made with all the power and spirit of his theatre loving people.
'Are all your Parisian operas so splendid?'
'Ah, not all,' said m new friend, with a look far exceeding in its gratification that with which the first waiter at Mivart's contemplates a golden doueeur, [and, readers, I have seen no deeper delight;] but he added, with patriot pride or vanity, 'Monsieur knows we have always the best things in Paris.' I, of course, assented, and he went on in a graver tone.
'What a sombre thing it is, after all the late brilliancy, to see the curtain fall! It is strangemonsieur, but I never witness that circumstance without recurring to a singular story will known in my youth, and to which I was actually an eye-witness some years before the revolution.' This preface roused my curiosity, for the love of strange stories had followed me from childhood, and, as might be expected, I was earnest in requesting my new friend for the tale. 'The house is emptying slowly,' said he, 'and as we will not get out easily for at least half an hour, take a seat beside me, for thank our stars, there are seats to be had now, and you shall have it, such as it is.'
Down I sat accordingly, and some two or three persons who had lingered like ourselves to avoid the general rush, came and did likewise, and the Frenchman proceeded:-
'I was just fifteen, and it was Christmas time in the year 1787; my friend, the young Marquis de Marigny, had invited me to spend some time with him at Versailles, and I was nothing loating to exchange the discipline of the Jesuit college for the courty festivities which were at that season particularly attractive. Never, indeed has the gay Christmas time been more joyously celebrated in that courtly city: nobles poured from the provinces, and strangers from the frontier. Balls, theatres, and concerts, of the most brilliant description, succeeded each other more rapidly than I can remember; and all was glorious to me, for it was almost my first taste of life; but Christmas-day at last arrived, and its evening was devoted to a magnificent masquerade, given at the palace on a scale of extraordinary liberality; all corners, in fact, were welcome, and as there was little acrutiny and much disguise, the company were exremely numberous. My friend and I, of course, were there, but we had agreed on disguising ourselves from each other, in order to test our respective powers of recognition. I had arrived late in the garb of a brother of St. Francis, and for some time perambulated in vain the apartments of that apparently interminable palace; but amongst all their motley groups of well and ill-disguised figures I could not discover the marquis.
'Hours had elapsed, and I had grown weary in the fruitless search, when in one of the most crowded saloons, I was suddenly accosted by a Benedictine nun in the usual masquerade style, "Holy brother, what is your opinion of these profane and worldly amusements?"
'I was about to reply, when she added in a whisper, 'Turn to the apartment called the Rose Cabinet on the right, where you will find the Marquis de Marigny, and tell him that the play in the Rue de Savonier is about to commence."
'Before I had time to inquire the meaning of her message, the nun was lost to my sight among the ever moving multitude; but I still recollect that the voice, though unknown to me, had a very unfeminine sound, and who that nun was I have never since been able to discover. However, I soon found the Rose Cabinet, a small and beautiful apartment of Marie Antoinette's own choosing, and so called because its ceiling was ornamented with a rich painting of the Eastern Feast of Roses, whilst the floor and walls represented in their carpet and tapestry the riches of summer's garland in every possible variety, from the deep purple of the African to the faiding snow of the funderal rose.
Within it I found seated on a low divan a group who seemed to have retired for social conversatoin; but various as their disguises were, I knew them all, for the ease of the moment they had taken off their masques. The Duke of Orleans was there like a knight Templar, clad in armour; and Madame de Genlis, no doubt, with her usual compliance to his taste, habited as a dame of the twelfth century; beside the lady stood her pupil, the duke's eldest son, as Cupid, with wing and dart; and Madame Elizabeth, in the humility of her taste, wore the garb of the Sisters of Charity; whilest a Turkish sultana, who still wore her masque, sat conversing with an ancient Roman citizen, but well I knew that his ? were those of the De Marigny.
'My friend was five years older than myself; but there were few, even at Versailles, like him, stately, and tall, and handsome; he was, in air and person, and in mind brave as a hero, and wise as a philosopher; besides, he was a true lover of liberty and a believer in her coming, then so ardently expected by the best and the wisest of our land; for the age was full of promise, and De Marigny was faithful in his generation, for he would have willingly laid down rank, and fortune, and honours, to pave a highway for her chariot. He had no relations but an old and widowed aunt, by whome he had been brought up; yet all classes loved the marquis, for he was good, and far above the silly prejudices and paltry pride which characterised too many of our old noblesse. His fortune was ample, and his family might rank with the best in France, but it is gone from among us now, for the marquis was the last, and he never married, it was said, for the sake of one whom he might not think to wed, the Princess Matilda of England, whom he had seen at her father's court just before she sailed to share the crown of Denmark, perhaps not dreaming then of the grave so soon to close over her youth, and the bloth that fell so darkly on her royal name; it might have been but a whipser of the court gossips, for the marquis never mentioned it to me, though I had his confidence in all other matters, and we were friends from childhood, but many a true tale is untold.
'I took the opportunity of a pause in their conversation to approach De Marigny, and give him the nun's message; he recognised me immediately, and rose with a most respectful adieu to the masqued sultana, and a sign for me to follow him, and was turning to the door when the duke suddenly stopped him with,
'"Whither so 'fast, most noble Roman? we little imagined that the descendants of AEneas were so far subject to the cord and cowl of St Francis as to leave even a sultana's converse at the bidding of a monk,"
'"Valiant Templar," said De Marigny, who could be gallant at times, as he was frank of speech, "the rose of royal grace and full moon of beauty shoul dbe but poorly entertained with far more brilliant company than mine; but, to drop masquerading," he added, "as your highness has dropped your masque, my monastic friend and I are going to a pretty theatre established in the Rue de Savonier, which, if all tales be true, has mysteries enough to fill much wiser heads with curiosity."
'"What is so remarkable about it, monsieur?" said the sultana, in a voice whose clear and silvery tones I stil remember, and could even then guess.
'"Why, madame," said the marquis, in the same respectful manner with which he always addressed that masque, "it is a moveable concern, and is said to be the property of a travelling Italian, or perhaps a charlatan who comes here only once a year, and has done so at the Christmas holydays ever since the birth of the Dauphin, punctually takin ghis departure on the Jour de l'Annee. It is added, that where he spends the intervening time remains unknown, but Christmas always finds him at Versailles with his little portable theatre, established in the same spot, a corner of the Rue de Savenier; he is manager and proprietor himself; but who his actors are is yet a mystery, for none are ever seen, nor indeed does the stage present any scenery whatever; the benefit of the audience, it seems, lies all in bearing. The theatre can accommodate comparatively few; yet I am told it is always crowded by the lowest of the people, who pour from Paris for the purpose of attending it; and they say," continued the marquis, "that none who ever witness will forget the performance."
'"We'll go, De Marigny - by heavens! we'll go. What say you, sister of the Sun?" said the Duke of Orleans, addressing the sultana, who shook her head, and for a moment seemed to hesitate; then, rising, whispered something ot the duke,l which of course we could not hear, but his highness's reply was in a louder key.
'My friend nodded assent, though I thought him, but why I could not guess, less anxious to oblige than usual; for De Margny was always a willing assistant in every frolic of his friends, which we, of course, considered the visit to Le Jeu de Noel, as it was called. However all was arranged in a few minutes, for even the ladies seemed eager to go, and a couple of hackney coaches being provided by De Maigny, we all slipped out by a small...