After old Baron Bodisco's marriage to the young and beautiful Miss Williams, the Russian Legation at Georgetown became the scene of brilliant weekly entertainments, given, it was asserted, by especial direction of the Emperor Nicholas, who had a special allowance made for table-money. At these entertainments there was dancing, an excellent supper, and a room devoted to whist. Mr. Webster, Mr. Clay, General Scott, and several of the Diplomatic Corps were invariably to be seen handling "fifty-two pieces of printed pasteboard," while the old Baron, though not a good player, as the host of the evening, was accustomed to take a hand. One night he sat down to play with those better acquainted with the game, and he lost over a thousand dollars. At the supper-table he made the following announcement, in a sad tone: "Ladies and gentlemens: It is my disagreeable duty to make the announce that these receptions must have an end, and to declare them at an end for the present, because why? The fund for their expend, ladies and gentlemens, is exhaust, and they must discontinue."
Ole Bull, the renowned violinist, then gave a concert at Washington, which was largely and fashionably attended. In the midst of one of his most exquisite performances, while every breath was suspended, and every ear attentive to catch the sounds of his magical instrument, the silence was suddenly broken and the harmony harshly interrupted by the well-known voice of General Felix Grundy McConnell, a Representative from the Talladega district of Alabama, shouting, "None of your high-falutin, but give us Hail Columbia, and bear hard on the treble!" "Turn him out," was shouted from every part of the house, and the police force in attendance undertook to remove him from the hall. "Mac," as he was called, was not only one of the handsomest men in Congress, but one of the most athletic, and it was a difficult task for the policemen to overpower him, although they used their clubs. After he was carried from the hall, some of his Congressional friends interfered, and secured his release.
The publication of verbatim reports of the proceedings of Congress was systematically begun during Polk's Administration by John C. Rives, in the Congressional Globe, established a few years previously as an offshoot from the old Democratic organ. This unquestionably had a disastrous effect upon the eloquence of Congress, which no longer hung upon the accents of its leading members, and rarely read what appeared in the report of the debates. Imitating Demosthenes and Cicero, Chatham and Burke, Mirabeau and Lamartine, the Congressmen of the first fifty years of the Republic poured forth their breathing thoughts and burning words in polished and elegant language, and were listened to by their colleagues and by spectators so alive to the beauties of eloquence that they were entitled to the appellation of assemblages of trained critics. The publication of verbatim reports of the debates put an end to this, for Senators and Representatives addressed their respective constituents through the Congressional Globe.
[Facsimile]
Felix Grundy
FELIX GRUNDY was born in Berkeley County, Virginia (now West
Virginia), September 11th, 1777; was a Representative from Tennessee,
1811-1814; was United States Senator, 1829-1838; was Attorney-
General under President Van Buren, 1838-1840; was again elected
Senator in 1840, and died at Nashville, December 19th of the same
year.
CHAPTER XXIII. LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
John Tyler, who was fifty-one years of age when he took possession of the Executive Mansion, was somewhat above the medium height, and of slender figure, with long limbs and great activity of movement. His thin auburn hair turned white during his term of office, his nose was large and prominent, his eyes were of a bluish- gray, his lips were thin, and his cheeks sunken. His manners were those of the old school of Virginia gentlemen, and he was very courteous to strangers. The ceremonious etiquette established at the White House by Van Buren vanished, and the President lived precisely as he had on his plantation, attended by his old family slaves. He invariably invited visitors with whom he was acquainted, or strangers who were introduced to him, to visit the family dining- room and "take something" from a sideboard well garnished with decanters of ardent spirits and wines, with a bowl of juleps in the summer and of egg-nog in the winter. He thus expended nearly all of his salary, and used to regret that it was not larger, that he might entertain his guests more liberally.
One day President Tyler joked Mr. Wise about his little one-horse carriage, which the President styled "a candle-box on wheels," to which the Representative from the Accomac district retorted by telling Mr. Tyler that he had been riding for a month in a second- hand carriage purchased at the sale of the effects of Mr. Paulding, the Secretary of the Navy under Mr. Van Buren, and having the Paulding coat-of-arms emblazoned on the door-panels. The President laughed at the sally, and gave orders at once to have the armorial bearings of the Pauldings painted over. Economy also prompted the purchase of some partly worn suits of livery at the sale of the effects of a foreign Minister, and these were afterward worn by the colored waiters in state dinners.
"Beau" Hickman, as he called himself, made his appearance at Washington toward the close of the Tyler Administration. He was of middle size, with long hair, and an inoffensive, cadaverous countenance. It was his boast that he was born among the slashes of Hanover County, Virginia, and he was to be seen lounging about the hotels, fashionably, yet shabbily, dressed, generally wearing soiled white kid gloves and a white cravat. It was considered the proper thing to introduce strangers to the Beau, who thereupon unblushingly demanded his initiation fee, and his impudence sometimes secured him a generous sum. He was always ready to pilot his victims to gambling-houses and other questionable resorts, and for a quarter of a century he lived on the blackmail thus levied upon strangers.
One of the most agreeable homes in Washington was that of Colonel Benton, the veteran Senator from Missouri, whose accomplished and graceful daughters had been thoroughly educated under his own supervision. He was not willing, however, that one of them, Miss Jessie, should receive the attentions of a young second lieutenant in the corps of the Topographical Engineers, Mr. Fremont, and the young couple, therefore, eloped and were married clandestinely. The Colonel, although terribly angry at first, accepted the situation, and his powerful support in Congress afterward enabled Mr. Fremont to explore, under the patronage of the General Government, the vast central regions beyond the Rocky Mountains, and to plant the national flag on Wind River Peak, upward of thirteen thousand feet above the Gulf of Mexico.
A very different wedding was that of Baron Alexander de Bodisco, the Russian Minister Plenipotentiary, and Miss Harriet Williams, a daughter of the chief clerk in the office of the Adjutant-General. The Baron was nearly fifty years of age, with dyed hair, whiskers, and moustache, and she a blonde schoolgirl of "sweet sixteen," celebrated for her clear complexion and robust beauty. The ceremony was performed at her father's house on Georgetown Heights, and was a regular May and December affair throughout. There were eight groomsmen, six of whom were well advanced in life, and as many bridesmaids, all of them young girls from fourteen to sixteen years of age, wearing long dresses of white satin damask, donated by the bridegroom. The question of precedence gave the Baron much trouble, as he could not determine whether Mr. Fox, then the British Minister and Dean of the Diplomatic Corps, or Senator Buchanan, who had been Minister to Russia, should be the first groomsman. This important question was settled by having the groomsmen and bridesmaids stand in couples, four on either side of the bridegroom and bride. The ceremony was witnessed at the bride's residence by a distinguished company, and the bridal party then went in carriages to the Russian Legation, where an elegant entertainment awaited them, and where some of the many guests got gloriously drunk in drinking the health of the happy couple.