CHAPTER X

Dieppe under Prussian Rule—A Toilette by Worth—A Confirmed Gambler

During the Franco-German War, while I was at Eton, my parents remained in Paris, and though my father left the city during the Commune, my mother stayed until the very last, when she was persuaded to follow him. Towards the end of the war I joined my parents at Dieppe, and saw the Prussians enter the town, when eighteen soldiers were billeted on the owner of the house we lived in. Madame Gaillard, an American lady, the young wife of General Gaillard, who was afterwards appointed to look after Maréchal Bazaine when a prisoner, was with us at Dieppe. She was a very pretty woman, and she and the Baronne van Havre usually went with my mother to the afternoon concerts. I took lessons on the violin from the chief violinist, whose name was Lamoury. His brother was one of the first violoncello players in France, and played in the orchestra at the Conservatoire in Paris. Lamoury told me that he had begun to learn the violin too late in life to be a virtuoso on that instrument, as he had not begun to play it until he was fourteen, whereas you ought to start playing at the age of seven in order to be anything remarkable as a violinist.

The English Consul at Dieppe was a Mr. Chapman, and there were several English residents. Among them were Edward Blount, a friend of my father, who had been at school with Gambetta and spoke French almost better than he did English, and a Major Boland, from Bath, who had married a French lady, the sister of Jules Simon, one of the Ministers then in power in Paris. Boland was in the habit of depreciating the French Army and praising the Prussians in every way. Owing to his having lived in the same house as his brother-in-law for many years before the war, he had had, although an Englishman, opportunities for ascertaining the real condition of the French Army.

“I knew from the first,” he would observe, “that the French would be defeated, and that Bazaine was a traitor, who was playing into the hands of the Prussians all along.”

Jules Simon seemed to share his opinion of the state to which the Empire had reduced France by embarking in this disastrous war, for which she was unprepared, whereas Prussia had been preparing for it for many years.

Dieppe is a very charming seaside resort in the summer months, and it was very pleasant to go to the Casino, where the band played of an afternoon, and listen to the orchestra, which in those days was excellent, as most of the performers came from Paris. The Casino was near the sea, and to sit there and watch the sea sparkling under the rays of the sun and the snow-white sails in the distance, bathed, as evening approached, in a rosy light, was to me a never-failing source of pleasure. At such an hour as this Time and Space seem to be eliminated. The incoming tide approaches with a gentle murmur. It encircles first one spot on the sands, then another; rests for a moment, and then continues its advance. The sea is a symbol for us of Eternity and of our passing away.

When the Uhlans entered Dieppe, followed by the Prussian infantry, the town was in a ferment, since no one knew what was going to follow. All kinds of rumours were afloat, and some people believed that a warship would bombard the town, if the invaders met with any resistance. The Germans requisitioned many things, with which the inhabitants were very reluctant to supply them, and ordered that all lights should be extinguished at 8 p.m., and that after 10 p.m. no one should leave his house. This condition of affairs naturally did not suit my father, and he determined to leave Dieppe at once. But this was a difficult matter, as to go by rail was nearly impossible, and by sea altogether out of the question. Finally we decided to hire a carriage and to start before daybreak, although we were very much afraid lest we should be stopped by the Prussians. We succeeded, however, in escaping detection and reached Dunkerque, where we took the train for Calais, and thence made our way to Boulogne. Here we stayed for some days at the Hôtel des Bains, and then embarked for Folkestone, from which we proceeded to Brighton.

At Brighton, where my parents took a house facing the sea, and not far from the Old Pier, we found Captain and Mrs. Berkeley, who had taken a house for the season in Regency Square; Mrs. Charles Woodforde, an aunt of my father, who was staying there with her daughter, and Sophia Kinglake, a sister of the author of “Eöthen,” whom Thackeray once described as the cleverest woman he had ever met in his life. One day, I remember calling with my mother upon her, when she told us that she was knitting a scarf for John Ardagh, who afterwards became General Sir John Ardagh, and died some years ago. Shortly after we arrived, a very pretty, graceful and beautifully-dressed girl entered the room. She was a Miss Gordon, daughter of a General Gordon, and, in the course of conversation, said to me:—

“I always get my dresses from Worth, and sometimes I go and stay with his family at their country-place in France. I generally stop with them from three weeks to a month, and return to England with a fine lot of dresses. Worth would be horrified were he to see me to-day, because I am wearing gloves which do not match my dress. Once I put on grey gloves with a costume of an unusual colour, upon which he told me that if I ever did so again, he would make for me no more. So, you see, I have to study his taste in the matter of toilettes most carefully.”

I inquired whether Worth charged very high prices for his confections.

“It is according to what you consider high,” she replied. “He charges from forty pounds for a dress, and will not make one under that price; but it is always perfectly finished and lined with silk. For ball-dresses he charges more. I get both my morning-gowns and ball-toilettes from him, for I consider that he is the only man who can make dresses which are worth wearing.”

I asked if Laferrière were not very good, as I had heard so much about him in Paris.

“Yes, he is,” she said, “but Worth I consider still better.”

Miss Gordon was a girl of about eighteen, with a wonderfully clear complexion, brown hair, blue eyes, and rather good features. She had also a beautiful figure, for which reason it must have been quite a pleasure for a dressmaker to make for her. She was wearing on this occasion a blue costume, with a good deal of _passementerie_ on it, and very pretty buttons in enamel, a white petticoat with flounces of lace, stockings _à jour_, and shoes with Louis Quinze heels. Her hat matched her dress, and the _ensemble_ would have been a dream, had not her gloves, which were brown, spoiled—as she herself admitted—an otherwise perfect toilette.

While at Brighton, I used frequently to go on the Pier with my mother to listen to the band, which, however, played very badly. Captain and Mrs. Berkeley often came there too, and would sit with us until my father came to fetch us to lunch. Captain Dorrien was also at Brighton at this time, and occasionally some of the old society of Homburg would meet on the Pier, and talk over their experiences at roulette and trente-et-quarante.

“I say, Fred,” inquired Dorrien one day of my father, “how about your infallible system? What was it? Let me see: one louis _à cheval_ between zero and two, one between twelve and fifteen, one between twenty-six and twenty-nine, and one between thirty-two and thirty-five. Isn’t that it?”

“Yes, my dear fellow,” answered my father, “and you double the amount if you lose.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Berkeley, “that game is a martingale, and it nearly broke me.”

“Then, old fellow,” said my father, “you didn’t play it the right way.”

“Oh, yes, I did, and in very much the right way, for I lost all I had....”

“I wish I were at Homburg to try it again,” continued my father.

“You would only lose again,” said Berkeley.

“I am sorry that I ever played there at all,” said Dorrien.

“So am I,” exclaimed Berkeley, “but there is an attraction there that somehow one cannot resist.”

“I feel I should win if I played at Monte Carlo,” said my father.

“You always felt like that at Homburg,” remarked Dorrien. “You said, if you remember, one evening, that you felt like winning, and you lost heavily.”

“But I won afterwards—three hundred louis.”

“My dear fellow, you forget how much you lost. You can talk like that to people who know nothing about the game, but as for me, who have lost thirty thousand pounds at it, you cannot make me believe that white is black.”

“Can’t I?” said my father, laughing.

“No, you can’t, and you are foolish to try to make yourself believe that you can ever win at that game.”

“I agree with you entirely,” observed Berkeley.

“I always hope to win back what I have lost,” said my father.

“That you will never do at roulette and trente-et-quarante,” said Dorrien.

“Don’t you play at all now then?” asked my father.

“Yes, at baccarat and the Stock Exchange.”

“That is as bad,” remarked my father.

“I am not sure it isn’t worse,” said Dorrien, laughing.

“Quite as bad,” exclaimed Berkeley, “but I do the same thing.”

“I shall have a try this winter at Monte Carlo,” said my father.

“You have had one lesson; why do you want to burn your fingers again?” asked Dorrien.

“If you do,” remarked Berkeley, “_vous y perdrez vos pas, mon cher ami_.”

And then they talked about other things.