The "swells" of the "sixties"--Old Lord Claud Hamilton--My first
presentation to Queen Victoria--Scandalous behaviour of a
brother--Queen Victoria's letters--Her character and strong common
sense--My mother's recollections of George III. and George IV.--Carlton
House, and the Brighton Pavilion--Queen Alexandra--The Fairchild
Family--Dr. Cumming and his church--A clerical Jazz--First visit to
Paris--General de Flahault's account of Napoleon's campaign of
1812--Another curious link with the past--"Something
French"--Attraction of Paris--Cinderella's glass slipper--A glimpse of
Napoleon III.--The Rue de Rivoli The Riviera in 1865--A novel Tricolor
flag--Jenny Lind--The championship of the Mediterranean--My father's
boat and crew--The race--The Abercorn wins the championship.
Every one familiar with John Leech's Pictures from Punch must have an
excellent idea of the outward appearance of "swells" of the "sixties."
As a child I had an immense admiration for these gorgeous beings,
though, between ourselves, they must have been abominably loud
dressers. They affected rather vulgar sealskin waistcoats, with the
festoons of a long watch-chain meandering over them, above which they
exhibited a huge expanse of black or blue satin, secured by two
scarf-pins of the same design, linked together, like Siamese twins, by
a little chain.
A reference to Leech's drawings will show the flamboyant checked
"pegtop" trousers in which they delighted. Their principal adornment
lay in their immense "Dundreary" whiskers, usually at least eight
inches long. In a high wind these immensely long whiskers blew back
over their owners' shoulders in the most comical fashion, and they must
have been horribly inconvenient. I determined early in life to affect,
when grown-up, longer whiskers than any one else--if possible down to
my waist; but alas for human aspirations! By the time that I had
emerged from my chrysalis stage, Dundreary whiskers had ceased to be
the fashion; added to which unkind Nature had given me a hairless face.
My uncle, old Lord Claud Hamilton, known in our family as "The
Dowager," adhered, to the day of his death, to the William IV. style of
dress. He wore an old-fashioned black-satin stock right up to his chin,
with white "gills" above, and was invariably seen in a blue coat with
brass buttons, and a buff waistcoat. My uncle was one of the handsomest
men in England, and had sat for nearly forty years in Parliament. He
had one curious faculty. He could talk fluently and well on almost any
topic at indefinite length, a very useful gift in the House of Commons
of those days. On one occasion when it was necessary "to talk a Bill
out," he got up without any preparation whatever, and addressed the
House in flowing periods for four hours and twenty minutes. His speech
held the record for length for many years, but it was completely
eclipsed in the early "eighties" by the late Mr. Biggar, who spoke (if
my memory serves me right) for nearly six hours on one occasion.
Biggar, however, merely read interminable extracts from Blue Books,
whereas my uncle indulged in four hours of genuine rhetorical
declamation. My uncle derived his nickname from the fact that in our
family the second son is invariably christened Claud, so I had already
a brother of that name. There happen to be three Lord Claud Hamiltons
living now, of three successive generations.
I shall never forget my bitter disappointment the first time I was
taken, at a very early age, to see Queen Victoria. I had pictured to
myself a dazzling apparition arrayed in sumptuous robes, seated on a
golden throne; a glittering crown on her head, a sceptre in one hand,
an orb grasped in the other. I had fancied Her Majesty seated thus,
motionless during the greater part of the twenty-four hours, simply
"reigning." I could have cried with disappointment when a middle-aged
lady, simply dressed in widow's "weeds" and wearing a widow's cap, rose
from an ordinary arm-chair to receive us. I duly made my bow, but
having a sort of idea that it had to be indefinitely repeated, went on
nodding like a porcelain Chinese mandarin, until ordered to stop.
Between ourselves, I behaved far better than a brother of mine once did
under similar circumstances. Many years before I was born, my father
lent his Scotch house to Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort for ten
days. This entailed my two eldest sisters and two eldest brothers
vacating their nurseries in favour of the Royal children, and their
being transferred to the farm, where they had very cramped quarters
indeed. My second brother deeply resented being turned out of his
comfortable nursery, and refused to be placated. On the day after the
Queen's arrival, my mother took her four eldest children to present
them to Her Majesty, my sisters dressed in their best clothes, my
brothers being in kilts. They were duly instructed as to how they were
to behave, and upon being presented, my two sisters made their
curtsies, and my eldest brother made his best bow. "And this, your
Majesty, is my second boy. Make your bow, dear," said my mother; but my
brother, his heart still hot within him at being expelled from his
nursery, instead of bowing, STOOD ON HIS HEAD IN HIS KILT, and remained
like that, an accomplishment of which he was very proud. The Queen was
exceedingly angry, so later in the day, upon my brother professing deep
penitence, he was taken back to make his apologies, when he did
precisely the same thing over again, and was consequently in disgrace
during the whole of the Royal visit. In strict confidence, I believe
that he would still do it to-day, more than seventy-two years later.
During her stay in my father's house the Queen quite unexpectedly
announced that she meant to give a dance. This put my mother in a great
difficulty, for my sisters had no proper clothes for a ball, and in
those pre-railway days it would have taken at least ten days to get
anything from Edinburgh or Glasgow. My mother had a sudden inspiration.
The muslin curtains in the drawing-room! The drawing-room curtains were
at once commandeered; the ladies'-maids set to work with a will, and I
believe that my sisters looked extremely well dressed in the curtains,
looped up with bunches of rowan or mountain-ash berries.
My mother was honoured with Queen Victoria's close friendship and
confidence for over fifty years. At the time of her death she had in
her possession a numerous collection of letters from the Queen, many of
them very long ones. By the express terms of my mother's will, those
letters will never be published. Many of them touch on exceedingly
private matters relating to the Royal family, others refer to various
political problems of the day. I have read all those letters carefully,
and I fully endorse my mother's views. She was honoured with the
confidence of her Sovereign, and that confidence cannot be betrayed.
The letters are in safe custody, and there they will remain. On reading
them it is impossible not to be struck with Queen Victoria's amazing
shrewdness, and with her unfailing common sense. It so happens that
both a brother and a sister of mine, the late Duchess of Buccleuch,
were brought into very close contact with Queen Victoria. It was this
quality of strong common sense in the Queen which continually impressed
them, as well as her very high standard of duty.
My brother George was twice Secretary of State for India. The Queen was
fond of suggesting amendments in the wording of dispatches relating to
India, whilst not altering their sense. My brother tells me that the
alterations suggested by the Queen were invariably in the direction of
simplification. The Queen had a knack of stripping away unnecessary
verbiage and reducing a sentence to its simplest form, in which its
meaning was unmistakably clear.
All Queen Victoria's tastes were simple. She liked simplicity in dress,
in food, and in her surroundings. If I may say so without disrespect, I
think that Queen Victoria's great hold on her people came from the fact
that, in spite of her high station, she had the ideals, the tastes, the
likes and dislikes of the average clean-living, clean-minded wife of
the average British professional man, together with the strict ideals
as to the sanctity of the marriage-tie, the strong sense of duty, and
the high moral standard such wives usually possess.
It is, of course, the easy fashion now to sneer at Victorian standards.
To my mind they embody all that is clean and sound in the nation. It
does not follow that because Victorians revelled in hideous wall-papers
and loved ugly furniture, that therefore their points-of-view were
mistaken ones. There are things more important than wall-papers. They
certainly liked the obvious in painting, in music, and perhaps in
literature, but it hardly seems to follow logically from that, that
their conceptions of a man's duty to his wife, family, and country were
necessarily false ones. They were not afflicted with the perpetual
modern restlessness, nor did they spend "their time in nothing else,
but either to tell, or to hear some new thing"; still, all their ideas
seem to me eminently sweet and wholesome.
In her old age my mother was the last person living who had seen George
III. She remembered perfectly seeing the old King, in one of his rare
lucid intervals, driving through London, when he was enthusiastically
cheered.
She was also the last person alive who had been at Carlton House which
was pulled down in 1826. My mother at the age of twelve danced as a
solo "The Spanish Shawl dance" before George IV. at the Pavilion,
Brighton. The King was so delighted with her dancing that he went up to
her and said, "You are a very pretty little girl, and you dance
charmingly. Now is there anything I can do for you?" The child
answered, "Yes, there is. Your Majesty can bring me some ham sandwiches
and a glass of port-wine negus, for I am very hungry," and to do George
IV. justice, he promptly brought them. My mother was painted by a
French artist doing her "shawl dance," and if it is a faithful
likeness, she must have been an extraordinarily pretty child. On
another occasion at a children's party at Carlton House, my uncle,
General Lord Alexander Russell, a very outspoken little boy, had been
warned by his mother, the Duchess of Bedford, that though the King wore
a palpable wig, he was to take no notice whatever of it. To my mother's
dismay, she heard her little brother go up to the King and say, "I know
that your Majesty wears a wig, but I've been told not to say anything
about it, so I promised not to tell any one."
Carlton House stood, from all I can learn, at the top of the Duke of
York's steps. Several engravings of its beautiful gardens are still to
be found. These gardens extended from the present Carlton House Terrace
to Pall Mall. Not only the Terrace, but the Carlton, Reform,
Travellers', Athenaeum, and United Service Clubs now stand on their
site. They were separated from Pall Mall by an open colonnade, and the
Corinthian pillars from the front of Carlton House were re-erected in
1834 as the portico of the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square.
As a child I had a wild adoration for Queen Alexandra (then, of course,
Princess of Wales), whom I thought the most beautiful person I had ever
seen in my life, and I dare say that I was not far wrong. When I was
taken to Marlborough House, I remembered and treasured up every single
word she said to me. I was not present at the child's tea-party at
Marlborough House given by the little Princess, including his present
Majesty, when SOME ONE (my loyalty absolutely refuses to let me say
who) suggested that as the woven flowers on the carpet looked rather
faded, it might be as well to water them. The boys present, including
the little Princes, gleefully emptied can after can of water on to the
floor in their attempts to revive the carpet, to the immense
improvement of the ceiling and furniture of the room underneath.
In the "sixties" Sunday was very strictly observed. In our own
Sabbatarian family, our toys and books all disappeared on Saturday
night. On Sundays we were only allowed to read Line upon Line, The Peep
of Day, and The Fairchild Family. I wonder if any one ever reads this
book now. If they haven't, they should. Mr. and Mrs. Fairchild were, I
regret to say it, self-righteous prigs of the deepest dye, whilst Lucy,
Emily, and Henry, their children, were all little prodigies of
precocious piety. It was a curious menage; Mr. Fairchild having no
apparent means of livelihood, and no recreations beyond perpetually
reading the Bible under a tree in the garden. Mrs. Fairchild had the
peculiar gift of being able to recite a different prayer off by heart
applicable to every conceivable emergency; whilst John, their
man-servant, was a real "handy-man," for he was not only gardener, but
looked after the horse and trap, cleaned out the pigsties, and waited
at table. One wonders in what sequence he performed his various duties,
but perhaps the Fairchilds had not sensitive noses. Even the possibly
odoriferous John had a marvellous collection of texts at his command.
It was refreshing after all this to learn that on one occasion all
three of the little Fairchilds got very drunk, which, as the eldest of
them was only ten, would seem to indicate that, in spite of their
aggressive piety, they had their fair dose of original sin still left
in them. I liked the book notwithstanding. There was plenty about
eating and drinking; one could always skip the prayers, and there were
three or four very brightly written accounts of funerals in it. I was
present at a "Fairchild Family" dinner given some twenty years ago in
London by Lady Buxton, wife of the present Governor-General of South
Africa, at which every one of the guests had to enact one of the
characters of the book.
My youngest brother had a great taste for drawing, and was perpetually
depicting terrific steeplechases. From a confusion of ideas natural to
a child, he always introduced a church steeple into the corner of his
drawings. One Sunday he had drawn a most spirited and hotly-contested
"finish" to a steeplechase. When remonstrated with on the ground that
it was not a "Sunday" subject, he pointed to the church steeple and
said, "You don't understand. This is Sunday, and those jockeys are all
racing to see which of them can get to church first," which strikes me
as a peculiarly ready and ingenious explanation for a child of six.
In London we all went on Sundays to the Scottish Presbyterian Church in
Crown Court, just opposite Drury Lane Theatre. Dr. Cumming, the
minister of the church at that time, enjoyed an immense reputation
amongst his congregation. He was a very eloquent man, but was
principally known as always prophesying the imminent end of the world.
He had been a little unfortunate in some of the dates he had predicted
for the final cataclysm, these dates having slipped by uneventfully
without anything whatever happening, but finally definitely fixed on a
date in 1867 as the exact date of the Great Catastrophe. His influence
with his flock rather diminished when it was found that Dr. Cumming had
renewed the lease of his house for twenty-one years, only two months
before the date he had fixed with absolute certainty as being the end
of all things. All the same, I am certain that he was thoroughly in
earnest and perfectly genuine in his convictions. As a child I thought
the church--since rebuilt--absolutely beautiful, but it was in reality
a great, gaunt, barn-like structure. It was always crammed. We were
very old-fashioned, for we sat down to sing, and we stood to pray, and
there was no instrument of any sort. The pew in front of us belonged to
Lord Aberdeen, and his brother Admiral Gordon, one of the Elders,
always sat in it with his high hat on, conversing at the top of his
voice until the minister entered, when he removed his hat and kept
silence. This was, I believe, intended as a protest against the idea of
there being any special sanctity attached to the building itself qua
building. Dr. Cumming had recently introduced an anthem, a new
departure rather dubiously welcomed by his flock. It was the singular
custom of his congregation to leave their pews during the singing of
this anthem and to move about in the aisles; whether as a protest
against a daring innovation, or merely to stretch their limbs, or to
seek better places, I could never make out.
Dr. Cumming invariably preached for over an hour, sometimes for an hour
and a half, and yet I never felt bored or wearied by his long
discourses, but really looked forward to them. This was because his
sermons, instead of consisting of a string of pious platitudes,
interspersed with trite ejaculations and irrelevant quotations, were
one long chain of closely-reasoned argument. Granted his first premiss,
his second point followed logically from it, and so he led his hearers
on point by point, all closely argued, to an indisputable conclusion. I
suppose that the inexorable logic of it all appealed to the Scottish
side of me. His preaching had the same fascination for me that Euclid's
propositions exercised later, even on my hopelessly unmathematical mind.
Whatever the weather, we invariably walked home from Drury Lane to
South Audley Street, a long trudge for young feet, as my mother had
scruples about using the carriages on Sundays.
Neither my father nor my mother ever dined out on a Sunday, nor did
they invite people to dinner on that day, for they wished as far as
possible to give those in their employment a day of rest. All quite
hopelessly Victorian! for, after all, why should people ever think of
anybody but themselves?
Dr. Cumming was a great bee-fancier, and a recognised authority on
bees. Calling one day on my mother, he brought with him four queen-bees
of a new breed, each one encased in a little paper bag. He prided
himself on his skill in handling bees, and proudly exhibited those
treasures to my mother. He replaced them in their paper bags, and being
a very absent-minded man, he slipped the bags into the tail pocket of
his clerical frock-coat. Soon after he began one of his long arguments
(probably fixing the exact date of the end of the world), and, totally
oblivious of the presence of the bees in his tail pocket, he leant
against the mantelpiece. The queen-bees, naturally resenting the
pressure, stung him through the cloth on that portion of his anatomy
immediately nearest to their temporary prison. Dr. Cumming yelled with
pain, and began skipping all round the room. It so tickled my fancy to
see the grim and austere minister, who towered above me in the pulpit
every Sunday, executing a sort of solo-Jazz dance up and down the big
room, punctuated with loud cries, that I rolled about on the floor with
laughter.
The London of the "sixties" was a very dark and dingy place. The
streets were sparingly lit with the dimmest of gas-jets set very far
apart: the shop-windows made no display of lights, and the general
effect was one of intense gloom.
Until I was seven years old, I had never left the United Kingdom. We
then all went to Paris for a fortnight, on our way to the Riviera. I
well remember leaving London at 7 a.m. on a January morning, in the
densest of fogs. So thick was the fog that the footman had to lead the
horses all the way to Charing Cross Station. Ten hours later I found
myself in a fairy city of clean white stone houses, literally blazing
with light. I had never imagined such a beautiful, attractive place,
and indeed the contrast between the dismal London of the "sixties" and
this brilliant, glittering town was unbelievable. Paris certainly
deserved the title of "La Ville Lumiere" in a literal sense. I like the
French expression, "une ville ruisselante de lumiere," "a city dripping
with light." That is an apt description of the Paris of the Second
Empire, for it was hardly a manufacturing city then, and the great rim
of outlying factories that now besmirch the white stone of its house
fronts had not come into existence, the atmosphere being as clear as in
the country. A naturally retentive memory is apt to store up perfectly
useless items of information. What possible object can there be to my
remembering that the engine which hauled us from Calais to Paris in
1865 was built by J. Cail of Paris, on the "Crampton" system; that is,
that the axle of the big single driving-wheels did not run under the
frame of the engine, but passed through the "cab" immediately under the
pressure-gauge?--nor can any useful purpose be served in recalling that
we crossed the Channel in the little steamer La France.
In those days people of a certain class in England maintained far
closer social relations with people of the corresponding class in
France than is the custom now, and this was mutual. Society in both
capitals was far smaller. My father and mother had many friends in
Paris, and amongst the oldest of them were the Comte and Comtesse de
Flahault. General de Flahault had been the personal aide-de-camp and
trusted friend of Napoleon I. Some people, indeed, declared that his
connection with Napoleon III. was of a far closer nature, for his great
friendship with Queen Hortense was a matter of common knowledge. For
some reason or another the old General took a fancy to me, and finding
that I could talk French fluently, he used to take me to his room,
stuff me with chocolate, and tell me about Napoleon's Russian campaign
in 1812, in which he had taken part, I was then seven years old, and
the old Comte must have been seventy-eight or so, but it is curious
that I should have heard from the actual lips of a man who had taken
part in it, the account of the battle of Borodino, of the entry of the
French troops into Moscow, of the burning of Moscow, and of the awful
sufferings the French underwent during their disastrous retreat from
Moscow. General de Flahault had been present at the terrible carnage of
the crossing of the Beresina on November 26, 1812, and had got both his
feet frost-bitten there, whilst his faithful servant David had died
from the effects of the cold. I wish that I could have been older then,
or have had more historical knowledge, for it was a unique opportunity
for acquiring information. I wish, too, that I could recall more of
what M. de Flahault told me. I have quite vivid recollections of the
old General himself, of the room in which we sat, and especially of the
chocolates which formed so agreeable an accompaniment to our
conversations. Still it remains an interesting link with the Napoleonic
era. This is 1920; that was 1812!
I can never hear Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture" without thinking of
General de Flahault. The present Lord Lansdowne is the Comte de
Flahault's grandson.
Nearly fifty years later another interesting link with the past was
forged. I was dining with Prince and Princess Christian of
Schleswig-Holstein at Schomberg House. When the ladies left the room
after dinner, H. R. H. was good enough to ask me to sit next him. Some
train of thought was at work in the Prince's mind, for he suddenly
said, "Do you know that you are sitting next a man who once took
Napoleon I.'s widow, the Empress Marie Louise, in to dinner?" and the
Prince went on to say that as a youth of seventeen he had accompanied
his father on a visit to the Emperor of Austria at Schonbrunn. On the
occasion of a state dinner, one of the Austrian Archdukes became
suddenly indisposed. Sooner than upset all the arrangements, the young
Prince of Schleswig-Holstein was given the ex-Empress to lead in to
dinner.
I must again repeat that this is 1920. Napoleon married Marie Louise in
1810.
Both my younger brother and I were absolutely fascinated by Paris, its
streets and public gardens. As regards myself, something of the glamour
of those days still remains; Paris is not quite to me as other towns,
and I love its peculiar smell, which a discriminating nose would
analyse as one-half wood-smoke, one-quarter roasting coffee, and
one-quarter drains. During the eighteen years of the Second Empire,
Paris reached a height of material prosperity and of dazzling
brilliance which she has never known before nor since. The undisputed
social capital of Europe, the equally undisputed capital of literature
and art, the great pleasure-city of the world, she stood alone and
without a rival. "La Ville Lumiere!" My mother remembered the Paris of
her youth as a place of tortuous, abominably paved, dimly lit streets,
poisoned with atrocious smells; this glittering town of palaces and
broad white avenues was mainly the creation of Napoleon III. himself,
aided by Baron Georges Haussmann and the engineer Adolphe Alphand, who
between them evolved and made the splendid Paris that we know.
We loved the Tuileries gardens, a most attractive place for children in
those days. There were swings and merry-go-rounds; there were stalls
where hot brioches and gaufres were to be bought; there were, above
all, little marionette theatres where the most fascinating dramas were
enacted. Our enjoyment of these performances was rather marred by our
anxious nurse, who was always terrified lest there should be "something
French" in the little plays; something quite unfitted for the eyes and
ears of two staid little Britons. As the worthy woman was a most
indifferent French scholar, we were often hurried away quite
unnecessarily from the most innocuous performances when our faithful
watch-dog scented the approach of "something French." All the shops
attracted us, but especially the delightful toy-shops. Here, again, we
were seldom allowed to linger, our trusty guardian being obsessed with
the idea that the toy-shops might include amongst their wares
"something French." She was perfectly right; there WAS often something
"very French," but my brother and I had always seen it and noted it
before we were moved off from the windows.
I wonder if any "marchands de coco" still survive in Paris. "Coco" had
nothing to do with cocoa, but was a most mawkish beverage compounded
principally of liquorice and water. The attraction about it lay in the
great tank the vendor carried strapped to his back. This tank was
covered with red velvet and gold tinsel, and was surmounted with a
number of little tinkling silver bells. In addition to that, the
"marchand de coco" carried all over him dozens of silver goblets, or,
at all events, goblets that looked like silver, in which he handed out
his insipid brew. Who would not long to drink out of a silver cup a
beverage that flowed out of a red and gold tank, covered with little
silver bells, be it never so mawkish?
The gardens of the Luxembourg were, if anything, even more attractive
than the Tuileries gardens.
Another delightful place for children was the Hippodrome, long since
demolished and built over. It was a huge open-air stadium, where, in
addition to ordinary circus performances, there were chariot-races and
gladiatorial combats. The great attraction of the Hippodrome was that
all the performers were driven into the arena in a real little
Cinderella gilt coach, complete with four little ponies, a diminutive
coachman, and two tiny little footmen.
Talking of Cinderella, I always wonder that no one has pointed out the
curious mistake the original translator of this story fell into. If any
one will take the trouble to consult Perrault's Cendrillon in the
original French, he or she will find that Cinderella went to the ball
with her feet encased in "des pantoufles de vair." Now, vair means grey
or white fur, ermine or miniver. The word is now obsolete, though it
still survives in heraldry. The translator, misled by the similarity of
sound between "vair" and "verre," rendered it "glass" instead of
"ermine," and Cinderella's glass slippers have become a British
tradition. What would "Cinderella" be as a pantomime without the scene
where she triumphantly puts on her glass slipper? And yet, a little
reflection would show that it would be about as easy to dance in a pair
of glass slippers as it would in a pair of fisherman's waders.
I remember well seeing Napoleon III. and the Empress Eugenie driving
down the Rue de Rivoli on their return from the races at Longchamp. I
and my brother were standing close to the edge of the pavement, and
they passed within a few feet of us. They were driving in a
char-a-banes--in French parlance, "attele a la Daumont"--that is, with
four horses, of which the wheelers are driven from the box by a
coachman, and the leaders ridden by a postilion. The Emperor and
Empress were attended by an escort of mounted Cent-Gardes, and over the
carriage there was a curious awning of light blue silk, with a heavy
gold fringe, probably to shield the occupants from the sun at the
races. I thought the Emperor looked very old and tired, but the Empress
was still radiantly beautiful. My young brother, even then a bigoted
little patriot, obstinately refused to take off his cap. "He isn't MY
Emperor," he kept repeating, "and I won't do it." The shrill cries of
"Vive l'Empereur!" seemed to me a very inadequate substitute for the
full-throated cheers with which our own Queen was received when she
drove through London. I used to hear the Emperor alluded to as
"Badinguet" by the hall-porter of our hotel, who was a Royalist, and
consequently detested the Bonapartes.
My father had been on very friendly terms with Napoleon III., then
Prince Louis Napoleon, during the period of his exile in London in
1838, when he lived in King Street, St. James'. Prince Louis Napoleon
acted as my father's "Esquire" at the famous Eglinton Tournament in
August, 1839. The tournament, over which such a vast amount of trouble
and expense had been lavished, was ruined by an incessant downpour of
rain, which lasted four days. My father gave me as a boy the "Challenge
Shield" with coat of arms, which hung outside his tent at the
tournament, and that shield has always accompanied me in my wanderings.
It hangs within a few feet of me as I write, as it hung forty-three
years ago in my room in Berlin, and later in Petrograd, Lisbon, and
Buenos Ayres.
One of the great sights of Paris in the "sixties," whilst it was still
gas-lighted, was the "cordon de lumiere de la Rue de Rivoli." As every
one knows, the Rue de Rivoli is nearly two miles long, and runs
perfectly straight, being arcaded throughout its length. In every arch
of the arcades there hung then a gas lamp. At night the continuous
ribbon of flame from these lamps, stretching in endless vista down the
street, was a fascinatingly beautiful sight. Every French provincial
who visited Paris was expected to admire the "cordon de lumiere de la
Rue de Rivoli." Now that electricity has replaced gas, I fancy that the
lamps are placed further apart, and so the effect of a continuous
quivering band of yellow flame is lost. Equally every French provincial
had to admire the "luxe de gaz" of the Place de la Concorde. It
certainly blazed with gas, but now with electric arc-lamps there is
double the light with less than a tenth of the number of old flickering
gas-lamps; another example of quality vs. quantity.
Most of my father and mother's French friends lived in the Faubourg
Saint Germain. Their houses, though no doubt very fine for
entertaining, were dark and gloomy in the daytime. Our little friends
of my own age seemed all to inhabit dim rooms looking into courtyards,
where, however, we were bidden to unbelievably succulent repasts, very
different to the plain fare to which we were accustomed at home. Both
my brother and myself were, I think, unconscious as to whether we were
speaking English or French; we could express ourselves with equal
facility in either language. When I first went to school, I could speak
French as well as English, and it is a wonderful tribute to the
efficient methods of teaching foreign languages practised in our
English schools, that at the end of nine years of French lessons, both
at a preparatory school and at Harrow, I had not forgotten much more
than seventy-five per cent. of the French I knew when I went there. In
the same way, after learning German at Harrow for two-and-a-half years,
my linguistic attainments in that language were limited to two words,
ja and nein. It is true that, for some mysterious reason, German was
taught us at Harrow by a Frenchman who had merely a bowing
acquaintanceship with the tongue.
In 1865 the fastest train from Paris to the Riviera took twenty-six
hours to accomplish the journey, and then was limited to first-class
passengers. There were, of course, neither dining-cars nor sleeping
cars, no heating, and no toilet accommodation. Eight people were jammed
into a first-class compartment, faintly lit by the dim flicker of an
oil-lamp, and there they remained. I remember that all the French
ladies took off their bonnets or hats, and replaced them with thick
knitted woollen hoods and capes combined, which they fastened tightly
round their heads. They also drew on knitted woollen over-boots; these,
I suppose, were remnants of the times, not very far distant then, when
all-night journeys had frequently to be made in the diligence.
The Riviera of 1865 was not the garish, flamboyant rendezvous of
cosmopolitan finance, of ostentatious newly acquired wealth, and of
highly decorative ladies which it has since become. Cannes, in
particular, was a quiet little place of surpassing beauty, frequented
by a few French and English people, most of whom were there on account
of some delicate member of their families. We went there solely because
my sister, Lady Mount Edgcumbe, had already been attacked by
lung-disease, and to prolong her life it was absolutely necessary for
her to winter in a warm climate. Lord Brougham, the ex-Lord Chancellor,
had virtually created Cannes, as far as English people were concerned,
and the few hotels there were still unpretentious and comfortable.
Amongst the French boys of our own age with whom we played daily was
Antoine de Mores, eldest son of the Duc de Vallombrosa. Later on in
life the Marquis de Mores became a fanatical Anglophobe, and he lost
his life leading an army of irregular Arab cavalry against the British
forces in the Sudan; murdered, if I remember rightly, by his own men.
Most regretfully do I attribute Antoine de Mores' violent Anglophobia
to the very rude things I and my brother were in the habit of saying to
him when we quarrelled, which happened on an average about four times a
day.
The favourite game of these French boys was something like our "King of
the Castle," only that the victor had to plant his flag on the summit
of the "Castle." Amongst our young friends were the two sons of the Duc
Des Cars, a strong Legitimist, the Vallombrosa boy's family being
Bonapartists. So whilst my brother and I naturally carried "Union
Jacks," young Antoine de Mores had a tricolour, but the two Des Cars
boys carried white silk flags, with a microscopic border of blue and
red ribbon running down either side. One day, as boys will do, we
marched through the town in procession with our flags, when the police
stopped us and seized the young Des Cars' white banners, the display of
the white flag of the Bourbons being then strictly forbidden in France.
The Des Cars boys' abbe, or priest-tutor, pointed out to the police the
narrow edging of red and blue on either side, and insisted on it that
the flags were really tricolours, though the proportion in which the
colours were displayed might be an unusual one. The three colours were
undoubtedly there, so the police released the flags, though I feel sure
that that abbe must have been a Jesuit.
The Comte de Chambord (the Henri V. of the Legitimists) was virtually
offered the throne of France in either 1874 or 1875, but all the
negotiations failed because he obstinately refused to recognise the
Tricolour, and insisted upon retaining the white flag of his ancestors.
Any one with the smallest knowledge of the psychology of the French
nation must have known that under no circumstances whatever would they
consent to abandon their adored Tricolour. The Tricolour is part of
themselves: it is a part of their very souls; it is more than a flag,
it is almost a religion. I wonder that in 1875 it never occurred to any
one to suggest to the Comte de Chambord the ingenious expedient of the
Des Cars boys. The Tricolour would be retained as the national flag,
but the King could have as his personal standard a white flag bordered
with almost invisible bands of blue and red. Technically, it would
still be a tricolour, and on the white expanse the golden fleur-de-lys
of the Bourbons could be embroidered, or any other device.
Even had the Comte de Chambord ascended the throne, I am convinced that
his tenure of it as Henri V. would have been a very brief one, given
the temperament of the French nation.
My youngest brother managed to contract typhoid fever at Cannes about
this time, and during his convalescence he was moved to an hotel
standing on much higher ground than our villa, on account of the
fresher air there. A Madame Goldschmidt was staying at this hotel, and
she took a great fancy to the little fellow, then about six years old.
On two occasions I found Madame Goldschmidt in my brother's room,
singing to him in a voice as sweet and spontaneous as a bird's. My
brother was a very highly favoured little mortal, for Madame
Goldschmidt was no other than the world-famous Jenny Lind, the
incomparable songstress who had had all Europe at her feet. She had
then retired from the stage for some years, but her voice was as sweet
as ever. The nineteenth century was fortunate in having produced two
such peerless singers as Adelina Patti and Jenny Lind, "the Swedish
Nightingale." The present generation are not likely to hear their
equals. Both these great singers had that same curious bird-like
quality in their voices; they sang without any effort in crystal-clear
tones, as larks sing.
In 1865 it was announced that there would be a great regatta at Cannes
in the spring of 1866, and that the Emperor Napoleon would give a
special prize for the open rowing (not sculling) championship of the
Mediterranean. We further learnt that the whole of the French
Mediterranean fleet would be at Villefranche at the time, and that
picked oarsmen from the fleet would compete for the championship. My
father at once determined to win this prize; the idea became a perfect
obsession with him, and he determined to have a special boat built.
When we returned to England, he went to Oxford and entered into long
consultations with a famous boat-builder there. The boat, a four-oar,
had to be built on special lines. She must be light and fast, yet
capable of withstanding a heavy sea, for off Cannes the Mediterranean
can be very lumpy indeed, and it would be obviously inconvenient to
have the boat swamped, and her crew all drowned. The boat-builder
having mastered the conditions, felt certain that he could turn out the
craft required, which my father proposed to stroke himself.
When we returned to Cannes in 1866, the completed boat was sent out by
sea, and we saw her released from her casing with immense interest. She
was christened in due form, with a bottle of champagne, by our first
cousin, the venerable Lady de Ros, and named the Abercorn. Lady de Ros
was a daughter of the Duke of Richmond, and had been present at the
famous ball in Brussels on the eve of Waterloo in 1815; a ball given by
her father in honour of her youngest sister.
The crew then went into serious training. Bow was Sir David Erskine,
for many years Sergeant-at-Arms of the House of Commons; No. 2, my
brother-in-law, Lord Mount Edgcumbe; No. 3, General Sir George
Higginson, with my father as stroke. Lord Elphinstone, who had been in
the Navy early in life, officiated as coxswain. But my father was then
fifty-five years old, and he soon found out that his heart was no
longer equal to the strain to which so long and so very arduous a
course (three miles), in rough water, would subject it. As soon as he
realised that his age might militate against the chance of his crew
winning, he resigned his place in the boat in favour of Sir George
Higginson, who was replaced as No. 3 by Mr. Meysey-Clive. My father
took Lord Elphinstone's place as coxswain, but here, again, his weight
told against him. He was over six feet high and proportionately broad,
and he brought the boat's stern too low down in the water, so Lord
Elphinstone was re-installed, and my father most reluctantly had to
content himself with the role of a spectator, in view of his age. The
crew dieted strictly, ran in the mornings, and went to bed early. They
were none of them in their first youth, for Sir George Higginson was
then forty; Sir David Erskine was twenty-eight; my brother-in-law, Lord
Mount Edgcumbe, thirty-four; and Lord Elphinstone thirty-eight.
The great day of the race arrived. We met with one signal piece of
ill-luck. Our No. 3, Mr. Meysey-Clive, had gone on board the French
flagship, and was unable to get ashore again in time, so at the very
last minute a young Oxford rowing-man, the late Mr. Philip Green,
volunteered to replace him, though he was not then in training. The
French men-of-war produced huge thirty-oared galleys, with two men at
each oar. There were also smaller twenty and twelve-oared boats, but
not a single "four" but ours. The sea was heavy and lumpy, the course
was five kilometres (three miles), and there was a fresh breeze blowing
off the land. Our little mahogany Oxford-built boat, lying very low in
the water, looked pitiably small beside the great French galleys. It
wasn't even David and Goliath, it was as though "Little Tich" stood up
to Georges Carpentier. We saw the race from a sailing yacht; my father
absolutely beside himself with excitement.
Off they went! The French galleys lumbering along at a great pace,
their crews pulling a curiously short stroke, and their coxswains
yelling "En avant, mes braves!" with all the strength of their lungs.
It must have been very like the boat-race Virgil describes in the fifth
book of the Aeneid. There was the "huge Chimaera" the "mighty Centaur"
and possibly even the "dark-blue Scylla" with their modern counterparts
of Gyas, Sergestus, and Cloanthus, bawling just as lustily as doubtless
those coxswains of old shouted; no one, however, struck on the rocks,
as we are told the unfortunate "Centaur" did. Still the little
mahogany-built Abercorn continued to forge ahead of her unwieldy French
competitors. The Frenchmen splashed and spurted nobly, but the little
Oxford-built boat increased her lead, her silken "Union Jack" trailing
in the water. All the muscles of the French fleet came into play; the
admiral's barge churned the water into creaming foam; "mes braves" were
incited to superhuman exertions; in spite of it all, the Abercorn shot
past the mark-boat, a winner by a length and a half.
My father was absolutely frantic with delight. We reached the shore
long before our crew did, for they had to return to receive the judge's
formal award. He ceremoniously decorated our boat's bows with a large
laurel-wreath, and so--her stem adorned with laurels, and the large
silk "Union Jack" trailing over her stern--the little mahogany
Oxford-built boat paddled through the lines of her French competitors.
I am sorry to have to record that the French took their defeat in a
most unsportsmanlike fashion; the little Abercorn was received all down
the line with storms of hoots and hisses. Possibly we, too, might feel
annoyed if, say at Portsmouth, in a regatta in which all the crack
oarsmen of the British Home Fleet were competing, a French four should
suddenly appear from nowhere, and walk off with the big prize of the
day. Still, the conditions of the Cannes regatta were clear; this was
an open race, open to any nationality, and to any rowing craft of any
size or build, though the result was thought a foregone certainty for
the French naval crews.
Our crew were terribly exhausted when they landed. They had had a very
very severe pull, in a heavy sea, and with a strong head-wind against
them, and most of them were no longer young; still, after a bath and a
change of clothing, and, quite possibly, a brandy-and-soda or two
(nobody ever drank whisky in the "sixties"), they pulled themselves
together again. It was Lord Mount Edgcumbe who first suggested that as
there was an afternoon dance that day at the Cercle Nautique de la
Mediterranee, they should all adjourn to the club and dance vigorously,
just to show what sturdy, hard-bitten dogs they were, to whom a
strenuous three-mile pull in a heavy sea was a mere trifle, even though
some of them were forty years old. So off we all went to the Cercle,
and I well remember seeing my brother-in-law and Sir George Higginson
gyrating wildly and ceaselessly round the ball-room, tired out though
they were. Between ourselves, our French friends were immensely
impressed with this exhibition of British vigour, and almost forgave
our boat for having won the rowing championship of the Mediterranean.
At the Villa Beaulieu where we lived, there were immense rejoicings
that night. Of course all our crew dined there, and I was allowed to
come down to dinner myself. Toasts were proposed; healths were drunk
again and again. Speeches were made, and the terrific cheering must
have seriously weakened the rafters and roof of the house. No one
grudged my father his immense satisfaction, for after all he had
originated the idea of winning the championship of the Mediterranean,
and had had the boat built at his sole expense, and it was not his
defects as an oarsman but his fifty-five years which had prevented him
from stroking his own boat.
Long after I had been sent to bed, I heard the uproar from below
continuing, and, in the strictest confidence, I have every reason to
believe that they made a real night of it.
Two of that crew are still alive. Gallant old Sir George Higginson was
born in 1826, consequently the General is now ninety-four years of age.
The splendid old veteran's mental faculties are as acute as ever; he is
not afflicted with deafness and he is still upright as a dart, though
his eyesight has failed him. It is to Sir George and to Sir David
Erskine that I am indebted for the greater portion of the details
concerning this boat-race of 1866, and of its preliminaries, for many
of these would not have come within the scope of my knowledge at nine
years of age.
Sir David Erskine, the other member of the crew still surviving,
ex-Sergeant-at-Arms, was a most familiar, respected, and greatly
esteemed personality to all those who have sat in the House of Commons
during the last forty years. I might perhaps have put it more strongly;
for he was invariably courteous, and such a great gentleman. Sir David
was born in 1838, consequently he is now eighty-two years old.
One of my brothers has still in his keeping a very large gold medal.
One side of it bears the effigy of "Napoleon III., Empereur des
Francais." The other side testifies that it is the "Premier Prix
d'Avirons de la Mediterrannee, 1866." The ugly hybrid word
"Championnat" for "Championship" had not then been acclimatised in
France.
Shortly after the boat-race, being now nine years old, I went home to
England to go to school.