Bentley's Miscellany, Volume II

I shall not prostitute my narrative, had I the data for so doing, by tracing step by step the well-organised scheme by which Mascalbruni contrived to ingratiate himself with both the mother and the daughter. He was young, handsome, and accomplished; an inimitable dancer, a perfect musician. His dress, his stud, and cabriolet were in the best taste, and he passed for a man of large fortune.

It may be asked how he supported this establishment? By play. Play, in men whose means are ample, if considered a vice, is thought a very venial one. He got admission into several clubs, – Crockford's among the rest: – his games were écarté and whist; games at which he was without a match. Cool, cautious, and calculating, he lost with perfect nonchalance, and won with the greatest seeming indifference.

There was a French vicomte, with whom he seemed to have no particular acquaintance, but who was in reality his ally and confederate, and who had accompanied him to England expressly that they might play into each other's hands. He belonged to one of the oldest families, and had one of those historical names that are a passe par-tout. I had seen him at the soirées of Paris, and he was in the habit at the écarté table, if he had come without money, which was not unfrequently the case, of claiming, when the division took place at the end of the game, two napoleons; pretending that at its commencement he had bet one on the winner. I need say no more.

He had signalised himself in several rencontres. I have him before me now, as he used to appear in the Tuileries' gardens, with his narrow hat, his thin face, and spare figure, – so spare, that sideways one might as well have fired at the edge of a knife. To this man Mascalbruni frequently pretended to have lost large sums, and it is now well known that they divided the profits of their gains during the season. No one certainly suspected either of unfair practices, though their uniform success might have opened the eyes of the blindest. The Marchioness of S.'s card-parties and those of Lady E. were a rich harvest, as well as the private routs and soirées to which they obtained easy admission. Lady M. was well aware that Mascalbruni had a penchant for play; but it seemed to occupy so little of his thoughts or intrench on his time, that it gave her no serious alarm.

I have not yet told you, however, as I ought to have done, that he was a favoured suitor.

The bishop, who, by nature of his office, was seldom in town, was a cypher in the family, and little thought of interfering with his lady in the choice of a son-in-law.

But the season now drew to a close, and Mascalbruni received an invitation to pass the summer at the episcopal palace in the Emerald Isle. He had succeeded in gaining the affections, the irrevocable affections of Louisa. Yes, – she loved him,

"Loved him with all the intenseness of first love!"

Time seemed to her to crawl with tortoise steps when he was absent, – but how seldom was that the case! They sang together those duets of Rossini that are steeped in passion. How well did his deep and mellow voice marry itself with her contralto! They rode together, not often in the parks, but through those shady and almost unfrequented lanes of which there are so many in the environs of the metropolis; they waltzed together; they danced the mazourka together, – that dance which is almost exclusively confined to foreigners, from the difficulty of its steps, and the grace required in its mazes.

They passed hours together alone, – they read together those scenes of Metastasio, so musical in words, so easily retained in the memory. But why do I dwell on these details? When I look on this picture and on that, I am almost forced to renounce the opinion that kindred spirits can alone love; for what sympathy of soul could exist between beings so dissimilar, so little made for each other? Poor Louisa!

Mascalbruni accompanied them to Ireland. That summer was a continual fête. It was settled that the wedding was to take place on their return to town the ensuing season.

In the mean time the intended marriage had been long announced in the Morning Post, and was declared in due form to the son at Naples. Louisa, who was her brother's constant correspondent, in the openness of her heart did not conceal from him that passion, no longer, indeed, a secret. Her letters teemed with effusions of her admiration for the talents, the accomplishments, and the virtues, for such they seemed, of her intended – her promesso sposo, and the proud delight that a very few months would seal their union.

William, who had now had some experience of the Italians, and who had looked forward to his sister's marrying one of his college friends, an Irishman with large estates in their immediate neighbourhood, could not help expressing his disappointment, though it was urged with delicacy, at this foreign connexion. He wrote also to the bishop, and, after obtaining from him all the necessary particulars as to the Marchese Mascalbruni, – through what channel he became acquainted with them, by what letter got introduced to Lady – , lost no time in proceeding to Rome, though the mountains were then infested by brigands, and the Pontine marshes, for it was the month of September, breathed malaria.

Our consul was then at Cività Vecchia, but willingly consented to accompany Mr. M. to Rome, in order to aid in the investigation. He was intimate with Cardinal – , and they immediately proceeded to his palace. They found from him that he had never heard the name of Mascalbruni; that there was no marchese in the pontifical states so called; and he unhesitatingly declared the letter to be a forgery, and its writer an impostor.

They then applied to the police, who, after some days' inquiry, discovered that a person answering the description given had quitted Rome a few years before, and had been a clerk in the office of a notario.

No farther evidence was necessary to convict Mascalbruni of being a swindler; and, not trusting to a letter's safe arrival, Mr. M. travelled night and day till he reached the palace at – .

It is not difficult to imagine the scene that ensued, – the indignation of the father, the vexation and self-reproaches of the mother, or the heart-rending emotions of the unfortunate girl.

Mascalbruni at first, with great effrontery, endeavoured to brave the storm; contended that Louisa was bound to him by the most sacred ties, the most solemn engagements; that his she should be, – or, if not his, that she should never be another's; denounced them as her murderers; and ended with threats of vengeance, – vengeance that, alas! he too well accomplished.

It is not very well known what now became of Mascalbruni; but there is reason to believe that he lay perdu somewhere in the neighbourhood, watching like a vulture over the prey from which he had been driven, the corpse of what was once Louisa.

A suspicious-looking person was frequently seen at night-fall prowling about the environs of the palace; and Miss M.'s femme de chambre, with whom he is said to have carried on an intrigue, was observed by the servants in animated conversation with a stranger in the garb of a peasant among the shrubberies and pleasure grounds.

It was through her medium that Mascalbruni gained intelligence of all that was passing in the palace.

The shock which Louisa had sustained was so sudden, so severe, that, acting on a frame naturally delicate, it brought on a brain fever. Her ravings were so dreadful, and so extraordinary; and so revolting was the language in which she at times clothed them, that even her mother – and no other was allowed to attend her – could scarcely stay by her couch. How perfect a knowledge of human nature has Shakspeare displayed in depicting the madness of the shamelessly-wronged and innocent Ophelia! – The fragments of those songs to which her broken accents gave utterance, especially that which ends with may suggest an idea of the wanderings of the poor sufferer's heated imagination.

"Who, in a maid, yet out a maid,Did ne'er return again,"

For some weeks her life hung on a thread; but the affectionate cares and sympathy of a mother, and a sense of the unworthiness of the object of her regard, at last brought back the dawn of reason; and her recovery, though slow, was sufficiently sure to banish all anxiety.

The afflictions as well as the affections of woman are, if I may judge by my own experience, less profoundly acute than those of our own sex. Whether this be owing to constitution or education, or that the superior delicacy and fineness of the nervous system makes them more easily susceptible of new impressions to efface the old, I leave it to the physiologist or the psychologist to explain. The river that is the most ruffled at the surface is seldom the deepest. Thus with Miss M. Her passion, like

"A little brook, swoln by the melted snow,That overflows its banks, pour'd in her heartA scanty stream, and soon was dry again."14

In the course of three months the image of Mascalbruni, if not effaced from her mind, scarcely awakened a regret; and, save that at times a paleness overspread her cheek, rapidly chased by a blush, be it of virgin innocence or shame, no one could ever have discovered in her person or bearing any traces of the past.

At this time a paragraph appeared in the Court Journal of the day, nearly in these words:

"Strange rumours are afloat in the Sister Island respecting a certain Italian marchese, who figured at the clubs and about town during the last season. Revelations of an extraordinary nature, that hastened the return of the Honourable Mr. M. from the Continent, have led to a rupture of the marriage of the belle of the season, which we are authorised to say is definitively broken off."

It was a telegraph that the field was open for new candidates; but no one on this side the water answered it. Louisa M. was no longer the same, – the préstige was fled, – the bloom of the peach was gone.

Scarcely had four months elapsed, however, when fresh preparations were made for her marriage, and a day fixed for the nuptials.

The hour came; and behold, in the conventional language used on such occasions, the happy pair, Lady M. the bride-maids, and a numerous party of friends assembled in the chapel of the palace. The bishop officiated.

The ceremony had already commenced, and the rite was on the point of being ratified by that mystical type of union – the ring – when a figure burst through the crowd collected about the doors; a figure more like a spectre than a man.

So great a change had taken place in him, from the wild and savage life that he had been leading among the mountains, the privations he had endured, and the neglect of his person, that no one would have recognised him for the observed of all observers, the once elegant and handsome Mascalbruni. His hair, matted like the mane of a wild beast, streamed over his face and bare neck. His cheek was fallen, his eyes sunken in their sockets; yet in them burned, as in two dark caves, a fierce and sombre fire. His lips were tremulous and convulsed with passion; his whole appearance, in short, exhibited the same diabolical rage and thirst of vengeance that had electrified the salle d'armes in his memorable conflict. He advanced straight to the altar with long and hurried steps, and, tearing aside the hands of the couple, the ring fell over the communion rails to the ground. So profound was the silence, so great the consternation and surprise the sight of this apparition created in the minds of all, that the sound of the ring, as it struck and rolled along the vaulted pavement, was audibly heard. It was an omen of evil augury, – a warning voice as from the grave, to tell of the death of premised joys – of hopes destroyed – of happiness for ever crushed. He stood wildly waving his arms for a moment between the pair, looking as though they had been transformed into stone, more like two statues kneeling at a tomb than at the altar. Then he folded his arms; gazed with a triumphant and ghastly smile at the bride; said, or rather muttered, "Mine she is!" then, turning to the bridegroom, with a sneer of scorn and mockery he howled, "Mine she has been; now wed her!"

With these laconic words he turned on his heel, and regained without interruption the portal by which he had entered. So suddenly had all this passed, so paralysed and panic-stricken were the spectators and audience of this scene, that they could scarcely believe it to be other than a dream, till they saw the bride extended without sense or motion on the steps. Thus was she borne, the service being unconcluded, to her chamber. The ceremony was privately completed the ensuing day.

No domestic felicity attended this ill-fated union. It was poisoned by doubts and suspicions, and embittered by the memory of Mascalbruni's words. "Mine she has been" continually rang in the husband's ears; and on the anniversary of that eventful day, after a lingering illness of many months, a martyr to disappointment and chagrin, she sunk into an untimely grave.

The next we hear of Mascalbruni was his being at Cheltenham. There he frequented the rooms under very different auspices, and had to compete with another order of players than those he had been in the habit of duping. He was narrowly watched, and detected in the act of pocketing a queen from an écarté pack. The consequence was his expulsion from the club with ignominy. His name was placarded, and his fame, or rather infamy, noised with a winged speed all over the United Kingdom.

It was no longer a place for him. In the course of the ensuing week the following announcement was made in a well-known and widely-circulated weekly paper. It was headed —

"An Italian black sheep

"We hope in a short time to present our readers with the exploits of a new Count Fathom, a soi disant marchese, better known than trusted, the two first syllables of whose name more than rhyme with rascal. And as it is our duty to un-mask all such, we shall confine ourselves at present to saying that he has been weighed at a fashionable watering-place in Gloucestershire, and found wanting, or rather practising certain sleights of hand for which the charlatans of his own country are notorious. He had better sing small here!"

Mascalbruni took the vulgar hint. His funds were nearly exhausted, and with but a few louis in his pocket he embarked at Dover, and once more repaired to Paris.

His prospects were widely different from those with which he had left it. To play the game I have described at rouge et noir, requires a capital. Every respectable house was closed against him. He now disguised his appearance, so that his former acquaintance should not be able to recognise him, and frequented the lowest hells – those cloacæ, the resort of all the vilains and chenapans, the lowest dregs of the metropolis. By what practices this mauvais sujet contrived to support life here for some years is best known to the police, where his name stands chronicled pretty legibly; it is probable that he passed much of that time in one of the prisons, or on the roads.

Eighteen months had now elapsed, and the Honourable Mr. M. with his bride, to whom he had been a short time married, took an apartment in the Rue d'Artois. A man in a cloak – an embocado, – which means one who enwraps his face in his mantle so that only his eyes are visible, – was observed from the windows often passing and repassing the hotel. The novelty of the costume attracted the attention of Mrs. M.; and the blackness of his eyes, and their peculiarly gloomy expression, made her take him for a Spaniard. She more than once pointed him out to her husband, and said one day, "Look, William, there stands that man again. He answers your description of a bandit, and makes me shudder to look at him."

"Don't be alarmed, dear," replied Mr. M. smilingly; "we are not at Terracina. It will be time enough to be frightened then."

The recollection of Mascalbruni had been almost effaced from his mind; but, had he met him face to face, it is not unlikely that he would have remembered the villain who had destroyed the hopes of his family, and marred their happiness for ever.

For some time he never went out at night unaccompanied by his wife, and always in a carriage. But a day came when he happened to dine without her in the Rue St. Honoré. The weather being fine, and the party a late one, he sent away his cabriolet, and after midnight proceeded to walk home. Paris was at that time very badly lighted; the reverberées at a vast distance apart, suspended between the houses, giving a very dim and feeble ray. Few persons – there being then no trottoirs– were walking at that hour; and it so happened that not a soul was stirring the whole length of the street. But, within a few yards of his own door, the figure I have described rushed from under the shadow of a porte cochère, and plunged a dagger in his heart. He fell without a groan, and lay there till the patrol passed, when he was conveyed, cold and lifeless, to the arms of his bride, who was anxiously awaiting his return. Her agony I shall not make the attempt to depict: there are some sorrows that defy description.

Notwithstanding the boasted excellence of the Parisian police, the author of this crime, who I need not say was Mascalbruni, remained undiscovered.

Strange as it may appear, I am enabled to connect two more links in the chain of this ruffian's history, and thus, as it were, to become his biographer. Having been in town at the period when he was in the zenith of his glory, and being slightly acquainted with the family whom, like a pestilence, it was his lot to destroy and blight, I was well acquainted with his person, and he with mine; indeed, once seen, it was not easy to mistake his.

After two winters at Naples, I travelled, by the way of Ravenna and Rimini, to Venice. The carnival was drawing to a close, and, on quitting a soirée at Madame Benzon's, I repaired to the Ridotta. The place was crowded to excess with that mercurial population, who during this saturnalia, particularly its last nights, mingle in one orgie, and seem to endeavour, by a kind of intoxication of the senses, and general licentiousness, to drown the memory of the destitution and wretchedness to which the iron despotism of the Austrian has reduced them. The scene had a sort of magnetic attraction in it.

I had neither mask nor domino, but it is considered rather distingué for men to appear without them; and, as I had no love-affair to carry on, it was no bad means of obtaining one, had I been so inclined.

Among the other groups, I observed two persons who went intriguing round the salle, appearing to know the secrets of many of their acquaintances, whom it seemed their delight to torment and persecute, and whom, notwithstanding their masks, they had detected by the voice, which, however attempted to be disguised, betrays more than the eyes, or even the mouth, though it is the great seat of expression. The pair wore fancy dresses. The domino of the man was of Persian or Turkish manufacture, a rich silk with a purple ground, in which were inwoven palm-leaves of gold, The costume of the lady, who seemed of a portly figure, not the most symmetrical, was a rich Venetian brocade, such as we see in the gorgeous pictures of Paul Veronese, and much in use during the dogal times of the republic. As they passed me, I heard the lady say, looking at me, "That is a foreigner." "Si signora, è Inglese," was the reply; "lo conosco." Who this could be who knew me, – me, almost a stranger at Venice, I was curious to discover. By the slow and drawling accent peculiar to the Romans, I felt satisfied he was one, and fancied that I had heard that voice before, – that it was not altogether unfamiliar to me.

I was desirous of unravelling the secret, for such it was, as the man did not address me; and I remained at the Ridotta much later than I should otherwise have done, in order to find out my unknown acquaintance. I therefore kept my eye on the couple, hoping that accident might favour my wish.

On the last nights of the carnival it is common to sup at the Ridotta, and I at length watched the incognito into a box with his inamorata, where he took off his mask, and whom should I discover under it but the identical hero of romance, the villain Mascalbruni.

He was an acquaintance who might well shun my recognition, and I was not anxious he should see I had attracted his observation. As I was returning to my hotel on the Grand Canal, I asked the gondolier if he knew one Signor Mascalbruni. These boatmen are a kind of Figaros, and, like the agents of the Austrian police, are acquainted with the names and address of almost every resident in Venice, especially of those who frequent the public places. The man, however, did not know my friend by that name, – perhaps he had changed it. But when I described his costume, he said that the signor was the cavalier servente of a Russian princess, who had taken for a year one of the largest palaces in Venice. "Il signor," he added, "canta come un angelo."

The idea of coupling an angel and Mascalbruni together amused me. "An angel of darkness!" I was near replying; but thought it best to be silent.

I had no wish to encounter Mascalbruni a second time. I went the next day to Fusina, and thence to Milan; indeed I had made all the preparations for my departure, nothing being more dull than the Carême at Venice.

Two years after this adventure, I was travelling in the Grisons, after having made a tour of the petits cantons, with my knapsack on my back, and a map of Switzerland in my pocket, to serve the place of a guide, – a description of persons to whom I have almost as great an objection as to cicerones, preferring rather to miss seeing what I should like to see, than to be told what I ought to like to see; not that it has fallen to the lot of many guides, or travellers either, to be present at a spectacle such as I am going to describe. I had been pacing nine good leagues; and that I saw it was merely accidental, for if it had not come in my way, I should not have gone out of mine to witness it.

Coire, the capital of the Grisons, my place of destination for the night, had just appeared, when I observed a great crowd collecting together immediately in front, but at some distance off, the peasants running in all directions from the neighbouring hills, like so many radii to meet in a centre.

One of these crossed me; and, on inquiring of him the occasion of all this haste and bustle, I learned that an execution was about to take place. My informant added with some pride that the criminal was not a Swiss, but an Italian. He seemed perfectly acquainted with all the particulars of the event that had transpired, for he had been present at the trial; and, as we walked along the road together, in his patois, – bad German, and worse French, with here and there a sprinkling of Italian, – he related to me in his own way what I will endeavour to translate.

"An Englishman of about twenty years of age was travelling, as you may be, on foot, about seven weeks ago, in this canton, having lately crossed the St. Gothard from Bellinzona. He was accompanied by a courier, whom he had picked up at Milan. They halted for some days in our town, waiting for the young gentleman's remittances from Genoa, where his letters of credit were addressed. On their arrival at Coire they had a guide; but the Italian persuaded his master, who seemed much attached to him, to discharge Pierre, on the pretence that he was thoroughly acquainted with the country, and spoke the language, which indeed he did. He was a dark brigand-looking fellow, with a particularly bad expression of countenance, and a gloomy look about his eyes; and, for my part, I am surprised that the young man should have ventured to trust himself in his company, for I should not like to meet his fellow on the road by myself even in the day-time. Well: the Englishman's money, a good round sum, – they say, two hundred napoleons d'or, – was paid him by an order on our bankers; and then they set out, but not as before.

"They had only been two days in company, when the villainous Italian, who either did not know the road over the mountains, or had purposely gone out of the way, thought it a good opportunity of perpetrating an act, no doubt long planned, which was neither more nor less than despatching his master. It was a solitary place, and a fit one for a deed of blood. A narrow path had been worn in the side of a precipice, which yawned to the depth of several hundred feet over a torrent that rushed, as though impatient of being confined, foaming and boiling through a narrow chasm opened for itself through the rocks. I could show you the spot, for I know it well, having a right of commune on the mountains; and have often driven my cows, after the melting of the snows, up the pass, to feed on the herbage that, mixed with heath and rhododendrons, forms a thick carpet under foot. It is a pasture that makes excellent cheese.