I didn't know a whole lot about Beau Brummell, apart from the fact that he was the real arbiter elegantiarum of Regency England and that his rise and fall were closely connected to his being a personal friend of the heir to the throne, who was famously unpopular. The thing I liked the most was that Brummell wasn't even a member of the aristocracy, and yet the whole London trembled before his judgment, because he was cruel and merciless and he understood fashion deeper than anyone. I liked him for being nasty to the Upper Ten, and for not taking anything seriously, including himself. I also liked the speculations about his sexuality, and the descriptions of sexual mores of the time, it was fascinating. (I'm not very interested in fashion though.)
So, Beau Brummell who was able to make people tremble for fear that their boots might not shine enough or that there was something wrong with their cravat, Beau Brummell may look like an awfully shallow and idiotic person, fully deserving to be ridiculed and hated... but no. He seemed to also be considerate, sensitive and above all, a great companion and an interesting person.
It is true that he had to run away from his debts, and quite possibly - some of his biographers hint at this - caused the ruin of many shopkeepers and other people who were dependent on him or whom he owed money, much like the case with Thackeray's Becky Sharp after her downfall. Ian Kelly doesn't have any examples, and he only cities Brummell's contemporaries on this, but it's of course entirely possible.
Yet I think that Brummell paid in full for whatever he did. When he left London, he lived the rest of his life as an immigrant in Calais, then as a British consul in Caen, then as a prisoner, and finally as an inmate of the mental hospital. He was seriously ill, often cold and hungry, and at the end he suffered terribly, dying of tertiary syphilis, which also means that he had periods of relative lucidity and he must have been conscious at moments and aware of what was happening to him. So I felt really sorry for him, especially seeing that he actually refused to feel very sorry for himself, and I'll remember that he liked cats and that when he was arrested for debts, his first action was to ask his friends to pay off his poor washerwoman who was going to starve otherwise.
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(Anonymous) 2015-06-22 05:42 pm (UTC)(link)So, Beau Brummell who was able to make people tremble for fear that their boots might not shine enough or that there was something wrong with their cravat, Beau Brummell may look like an awfully shallow and idiotic person, fully deserving to be ridiculed and hated... but no. He seemed to also be considerate, sensitive and above all, a great companion and an interesting person.
It is true that he had to run away from his debts, and quite possibly - some of his biographers hint at this - caused the ruin of many shopkeepers and other people who were dependent on him or whom he owed money, much like the case with Thackeray's Becky Sharp after her downfall. Ian Kelly doesn't have any examples, and he only cities Brummell's contemporaries on this, but it's of course entirely possible.
Yet I think that Brummell paid in full for whatever he did. When he left London, he lived the rest of his life as an immigrant in Calais, then as a British consul in Caen, then as a prisoner, and finally as an inmate of the mental hospital. He was seriously ill, often cold and hungry, and at the end he suffered terribly, dying of tertiary syphilis, which also means that he had periods of relative lucidity and he must have been conscious at moments and aware of what was happening to him. So I felt really sorry for him, especially seeing that he actually refused to feel very sorry for himself, and I'll remember that he liked cats and that when he was arrested for debts, his first action was to ask his friends to pay off his poor washerwoman who was going to starve otherwise.
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(Anonymous) 2015-06-22 05:43 pm (UTC)(link)