The Parisian courtesan was at the zenith of her extraordinary celebrity
when I became a rustic boulevardier. She could be seen everywhere and
on all occasions. Her gowns were the showiest, her equipage the
smartest; her entourage, loud though it was and vulgar, yet in its way
was undeniable. She reigned for a long time the recognized queen of the
demi-monde. I have beheld her in her glory on her throne—her two
thrones, for she had two—one on the south side of the river, the other
at the east end—not to mention the race course—surrounded by a retinue
of the disreputable. She did not awaken in me the least curiosity, and
I declined many opportunities to meet her.
Marcus Cicero Stanley was sprung from an aristocratic, even a
distinguished, North Carolina family. He came to New York and set up
for a swell. How he lived I never cared to find out, though he was
believed to be what the police call a “fence.” He seemed a cross
between a “con” and a “beat.” Yet for a while he flourished at
Delmonico’s, which he made his headquarters, and cut a kind of dash
with the unknowing. He was a handsome, mannerly brute who knew how to
dress and carry himself like a gentleman.
Later there came to New York another Southerner—a Far Southerner of a
very different quality—who attracted no little attention. This was Tom
Ochiltree. He, too, was well born, his father an eminent jurist of
Texas; he, himself, a wit, _bon homme_ and raconteur. Travers once
said: “We have three professional liars in America—Tom Ochiltree is one
and George Alfred Townsend is the other two.”
The stories told of Tom would fill a book. He denied none, however
preposterous—was indeed the author of many of the most amusing—of how,
when the old judge proposed to take him into law partnership he caused
to be painted an office sign: Thomas P. Ochiltree and Father; of his
reply to General Grant, who had made him United States Marshal of
Texas, and later suggested that it would be well for Tom to pay less
attention to the race course: “Why, Mr. President, all that turf
publicity relates to a horse named after me, not to me,” it being that
the horse of the day had been so called; and of General Grant’s reply:
“Nevertheless, it would be well, Tom, for you to look in upon Texas
once in a while”—in short, of his many sayings and exploits while a
member of Congress from the Galveston district; among the rest, that
having brought in a resolution tendering sympathy to the German Empire
on the death of Herr Laska, the most advanced and distinguished of
Radical Socialists, which became for the moment a _cause célébre_. Tom
remarked, “Not that I care a damn about it, except for the prominence
it gives to Bismarck.”
He lived when in Washington at Chamberlin’s. He and John Chamberlin
were close friends. Once when he was breakfasting with John a mutual
friend came in. He was in doubt what to order. Tom suggested beefsteak
and onions.
“But,” objected the newcomer, “I am about to call on some ladies, and
the smell of onions on my breath, you know!”
“Don’t let that trouble you,” said Tom; “you have the steak and onions
and when you get your bill that will take your breath away!”
Under an unpromising exterior—a stocky build and fiery red head—there
glowed a brave, generous and tender spirit. The man was a _preux
chevalier_. He was a knight-errant. All women—especially all good and
discerning women who knew him and who could intuitively read beneath
that clumsy personality his fine sense of respect—even of
adoration—loved Tom Ochiltree.
The equivocal celebrity he enjoyed was largely fostered by himself, his
stories mostly at his own expense. His education had been but casual.
But he had a great deal of it and a varied assortment. He knew
everybody on both sides of the Atlantic, his friends ranging from the
Prince of Wales, afterward Edward VII, Gladstone and Disraeli, Gambetta
and Thiers, to the bucks of the jockey clubs. There were two of Tom—Tom
the noisy on exhibition, and Tom the courtier in society.
How he lived when out of office was the subject of unflattering
conjecture. Many thought him the stipendiary of Mr. Mackay, the
multimillionaire, with whom he was intimate, who told me he could never
induce Tom to take money except for service rendered. Among his
familiars was Colonel North, the English money magnate, who said the
same thing. He had a widowed sister in Texas to whom he regularly sent
an income sufficient for herself and family. And when he died, to the
surprise of every one, he left his sister quite an accumulation. He had
never been wholly a spendthrift. Though he lived well at Chamberlin’s
in Washington and the Waldorf in New York he was careful of his credit
and his money. I dare say he was not unfortunate in the stock market.
He never married and when he died, still a youngish man as modern ages
go, all sorts of stories were told of him, and the space writers,
having a congenial subject, disported themselves voluminously.
Inevitably most of their stories were apocryphal.
I wonder shall we ever get any real truth out of what is called
history? There are so many sides to it and such a confusing din of
voices. How much does old Sam Johnson owe of the fine figure he cuts to
Boswell, and, minus Boswell, how much would be left of him? For nearly
a century the Empress Josephine was pictured as the effigy of the
faithful and suffering wife sacrificed upon the altar of unprincipled
and selfish ambition—lovelorn, deserted, heartbroken. It was Napoleon,
not Josephine, except in her pride, who suffered. Who shall tell us the
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, about Hamilton;
about Burr; about Cæsar, Caligula and Cleopatra? Did Washington, when
he was angry, swear like a trooper? What was the matter with Nero?