COURT DWARFS
The custom of keeping dwarfs as retainers to ornament the homes of
princes, and to provide amusement--which was much in fashion in the old
days of the Roman Empire--has survived at most Courts until a
comparatively recent period. According to Suetonius, Augustus, in order
to forget the cares of State, would play with his dwarfs for nuts, and
laugh at their childish prattle, whilst for his special amusement
Domitian kept a band of dwarf gladiators.
Charles IX. of France and his mother had a strong partiality for dwarfs,
and in 1573 three were sent to him by the Emperor of Germany; and the
same year a large sum was paid for bringing some dwarfs from Poland for
the King: one of these, Majoski, being given to the Queen-mother, and an
entry in her accounts tells how thirty livres were paid for “little
disbursements for the said Majoski, as well as clothes, books, pens,
paper, and ink.” It may be remembered how the famous dwarf, Joseph
Boruwlaski--who at fifteen years of age was only twenty-five inches
high--was presented to the Empress Maria Theresa by the Countess
Humiecka, who took him on her lap and kissed him. She then asked him
what struck him as most curious at Vienna, to which he replied, “that
which he then beheld.” “And what is that?” inquired her Majesty.
“To see so little a man on the lap of so great a woman,” answered
Boruwlaski. He then besought the permission of the Empress to kiss her
hand, whereupon she took from the finger of Marie Antoinette, then a
child, a ring, and put it on his finger.
Afterwards Boruwlaski visited Luneville, where he was introduced to
Stanislaus Leczinski, the dethroned King of Poland, who kept a dwarf,
nicknamed Bébé, a native of France, his real name being Nicholas Feny,
or Ferry. Bébé quickly became jealous of Boruwlaski, and on the first
opportunity tried to push him into the fire. But the noise occasioned by
the scuffle brought the King on the scene, who ordered Bébé to have
corporal punishment, and never to appear in his presence again.
Boruwlaski won the favour of Stanislaus II., who for a time took him
under his protection, and eventually visited this country, when he was
introduced to the Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV.; and on May 23,
1782, he was presented by the Countess of Egremont to the King and Queen
and the junior members of the royal family.
When King Christian II. of Denmark fell into the hands of his enemy
Frederick I., he was imprisoned with his dwarf in the castle of
Söndeborg in Holstein. Having entered his gloomy cell with
[Illustration: CHARLES IX DV NOM ROY DE FRANCE]
the sole companion of his misery, the door was at once walled up; but
after a time the King, according to one account, induced his dwarf to
counterfeit sickness, and to solicit his removal from prison, when, if
he should be successful, he was to try and make his escape from the
Danish dominions to the Court of the Electress. The dwarf feigned
illness and was liberated, but was recaptured on his attempting to leave
the Danish territory.
Peter the Great kept a dwarf whom he used to call his puppet; and in
1710 he celebrated a marriage of two dwarfs at St. Petersburg with great
ceremony, when he invited all his courtiers and the foreign ambassadors,
and ordered that all dwarfs residing within 200 miles of his capital
should be present. But some would not consent to come for fear of
ridicule, an act of disobedience which Peter punished by compelling them
to wait on the rest at dinner. For this miniature company “everything
provided was suitable in size. A low table held small plates, dishes,
glasses, and other necessary articles, diminished to the standard of the
guests”--the banquet being followed by a dance, opened with a minuet by
the bridegroom, who was three feet two inches high.[109]
Marie Anne, wife of Philip IV. of Spain, having laughed once at the
eccentric antics of a dwarf clown, was sternly reproved for her bad
taste in so doing, upon which she sensibly replied that they should take
the clown away if they did not mean her to laugh--so austere was Spanish
etiquette.
A favourite dwarf of Charles V. of Spain was Corneille, a portrait of
whom, by Francesco Torbido, in the Louvre at Paris, represents him
dressed as a knight, with his left hand resting on the back of a large
dog; and Velasquez has painted some dwarfs which were once attached to
the Spanish Court, “where the most ugly of such deformities were most
valued.”[110] At Madrid there is a painting by this artist representing
the Infanta Margarita with her two dwarfs, Maria Borbola and Nicolasico
Pertusano, who are teasing a good-natured dog. Some years ago a dwarf
named Don Francisco Hidalgo held his levees in the Cosmorama Rooms,
Regent Street, having previously for eighteen years, it was stated, been
attached to the Court of Madrid, in the reign of Ferdinand VII.
The first wife of Joachim Frederick, Elector of Brandenburg, assembled
together a number of dwarfs of both sexes, in order to marry them with a
view of multiplying their species--an experiment said to have been
practised also by Catherine de Medicis, but in each case the attempt was
fruitless. And at the castle of Ambras, in the Tyrol, was a wooden
image, “only three spans high, representing a dwarf who lived in the
Archduke Ferdinand’s Court.”
From an early period dwarfs were kept in Turkish palaces, an amusing
reference to this custom being given by Lord Byron, who, describing the
Sultan’s palace in Turkey, says:--
“This massy portal stood at the wide close
Of a huge hall, and on its either side
Two little dwarfs, the least you could suppose,
Were sate, like ugly imps, as if allied
In mockery to the enormous gate which rose
O’er them in almost pyramidic pride;
The gate so splendid was in all its features,
You never thought about those little creatures,
Until you nearly trod on them, and then
You started back in horror to survey
The wondrous hideousness of those small men,
Whose colour was not black, nor white, nor grey,
But an extraneous mixture, which no pen
Can trace, although perhaps the pencil may;
They were misshapen pigmies, deaf and dumb--
Monsters, who cost a no less monstrous sum,” &c.
Dwarfs formed part of the retinue of William, Duke of Normandy, at which
period it was customary for them to hold the bridle of the King’s horse
in State processions. Although it is commonly said Queen Elizabeth
detested as ominous all dwarfs and monsters, yet among the New Year’s
gifts presented by her on January 1, 1584-85, at Greenwich, was the
following: “To Mrs. Tomysen, the dwarf, two ounces of gilt plate.”
Henrietta Maria, Queen Consort of Charles I., had a great fancy for
dwarfs. And on the occasion of a royal progress, during which Charles I.
and herself were entertained by the Duchess of Buckingham, the Queen was
induced to partake of a noble venison pasty in the centre of the table,
when, on the removal of the crust, the dwarf Jeffrey Hudson, only
eighteen inches high, rose out of the pie, entreating to be taken into
her service, a favour she granted. He seems to have proved a valuable
acquisition to the Court household, being sent to France to fetch a
midwife for Queen Henrietta Maria; but the homeward journey was
disastrous, for “a Dunkirk privateer captured both the midwife and
Jeffrey, plundered them of all the rich presents they were bringing to
the Queen from her mother, Marie de Medicis, and what was worse,
detained the midwife till her office was no longer needed by the royal
patient.”
About 1615 was born Richard Gibson, who became Court dwarf to Charles
I., and married Anne Shepherd, who was Court dwarf to Queen Henrietta
Maria. Her Majesty was present at the marriage, Charles I. giving away
the bride, and the Queen presenting her with a diamond ring as a bridal
present. These married dwarfs both attained celebrity as miniature
painters; they had the honour of teaching Mary II. and Princess Anne
drawing, and they died in the service of the former.
And coming down to modern times, it may be mentioned that the dwarf
Matthew Buchinger was patronised by George I. And the _London Gazette_
for January 10, 1752, records that “on Wednesday evening Mr. John Coan,
the Norfolk dwarf, was sent for to Leicester House by her Royal Highness
the Princess Dowager of Wales, and was immediately introduced before
her, his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, Prince Edward, Princess
Augusta, and all the other princes and princesses being present, where
he stayed upwards of two hours; and we are assured by the pertinency of
his answers, actions, and behaviour, their Royal Highnesses were most
agreeably entertained the whole time, and made him a very handsome
present.”
On March 23, 1844, Charles S. Stratton, popularly known as General Tom
Thumb, visited the Queen, Prince Albert, and the Duchess of Kent at
Buckingham Palace, where he went through his performances, repeating
them again on April 2 before her Majesty, when there also were present
the Queen of the Belgians, the Prince of Wales, the Princess Royal, and
the Princess Alice. At the conclusion of the entertainment her Majesty
presented the General with a souvenir of mother-of-pearl, set with
rubies, and bearing the crown and the initials V.R., and subsequently
she presented him with a gold pencil-case. On April 19 he appeared for
the third time before the Queen, Prince Albert, the King and Queen of
the Belgians, and Prince Leiningen at Buckingham Palace, and sang on
this, as on previous occasions, a comic song to the air of “Yankee
Doodle,” in which he introduced the royal personages.
On May 21, 1846, three Highland dwarfs performed their national dances,
and sang at Buckingham Palace before the Queen, Prince Albert, and the
Duchess of Kent; and in 1848 a dwarf, called Admiral Van Tromp, was
patronised by her Majesty, Prince Albert, the Duchess of Kent, the
Duchess of Gloucester, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, the Prince and
Princess of Parma, the Prince of Orange, and the King and Queen of
Holland. And lastly, in 1853, the two Aztec children appeared before
the Queen, Prince Albert, and the Prince of Wales at Buckingham Palace;
and subsequently before the Emperor Napoleon and his family at the
Tuileries, the Emperors of Austria and Russia, the Kings and Queens of
Prussia, Bavaria, Holland, Hanover, and Denmark, and other illustrious
personages.