Bohemian Days in Fleet Street

by William Mackay

Your average pressman, with an observing eye and an open mind, is bound to knock up against a greater number of charlatans than the member of any other profession. For publicity is to the charlatan the breath of his nostrils, and the Press is the most potent engine in procuring publicity of which the charlatan has any knowledge. And it will be borne in mind that your properly-constituted charlatan does not at all care what description of publicity he attains so long as the quantity is all right.

“Better be damned than mentioned not at all”

is his motto. Notoriety rather than celebrity is his aim.

Taking this as the measure of his aims, I conceive that the Marquis De Leuville was the greatest charlatan that loomed through all the jocund years. To begin with, he was no more a Marquis than I am; and, to complete the absurdity of his pretensions, although he bore a high-sounding French title, he was not a Frenchman. But he had every possible claim to the title of “odd fish.” He was an Englishman. His name was Oliver, and the place of his nativity was the city of Bath. Various accounts have been circulated concerning his early life. Some of these legends declared him to have been a hairdresser’s assistant; others, that he had commenced as page-boy to a Bath doctor. About these matters he himself was persistently reticent. The literary world first heard of his existence by means of a novel in three volumes—at that time the simple and inexpensive method of publishing a couple of shilling’s worth of fiction. I forget the title of the book, I never read it; but I discovered some time after its appearance that, although the title-page described it as “by the Marquis De Leuville,” it was the work of one of those literary “ghosts” of whose labours, all through his artistic career, the “Marky,” as he was called, liberally availed himself.

The “Marky’s” novel was reviewed in the daily and weekly Press. In many quarters it was even favourably reviewed. For there are snobs in Fleet Street, as there are everywhere else, and there were certain book-reviewers who would consider it bad form to say anything that was not quite civil about the productions of a Marquis, even though the title he bore was only a French one. The appearance, and newspaper acceptance, of the book established those friendly relations with the Press concerning which our friend Oliver had been so solicitous. Having once established his footing in Fleet Street, the “Marky” was most assiduous in his attention to those individuals with whom his work had found favour. By them he was introduced to others. And so he extended his connection like a good commercial traveller. It was rather unfortunate for the adventurer that, at the moment of his advent as a writer, Mr. Henry Labouchere had just commenced, in Truth, that crusade against impostors, charlatans, and social parasites generally, which at once made his paper and protected the public—one of those rare occasions by which public benefactors have made anything out of their labours. In the most matter-of-fact way Labouchere laid bare the pretensions of the mock Marquis, and left him without a rag of reputation to his back.

Little incidents of the kind are always allowed for in the calculations of an adventurer. The Marquis De Leuville, following the example of “ole Brer Fox” in the allegory, determined to “lay low an’ say nuffin.” When the Labouchere disclosures were forgotten, the scandal blown over, and the sportsmen of Carteret Street busy on the trail of some other quarry, the Marquis-who-was-not-a-Marquis and author-who-was-not-an-author made his reappearance. Invitations to garden-parties at the Priory, Kilburn, issued by a Mrs. Peters, descended like a shower of snow on newspaper offices. And those who accepted them were received at the Priory by a very affable, not to say merry, widow, who had very sensibly discarded the trappings and the suits of woe. This was Mrs. Peters, the owner of the house and grounds. And in these pleasant surroundings we found the Marquis installed. The game was a very pretty one. Mrs. Peters was the widow of a wealthy coach-builder. And in the chaste fastnesses of Kilburn she had thought to establish a salon. Here she would play the part of Madame Récamier to the Chateaubriand of a Bath Oliver!

Quick to read between the lines, the journalists who had been induced to accept an invitation to the Priory were able now to piece together the whole story. The giddy relict of the deceased coach-builder was the founder of the “Marky’s” fortunes. Her cheque had paid for the French marquisate. The Marquis De Leuville was, indeed, a work of fiction conceived, constructed, and given to the public, by Mrs. Peters. And it was a work of fiction transcending in human interest anything in the same line which could be produced by Oliver or his “ghosts.” The salon at Kilburn failed to fulfil the hopes of its promoters; Society—even society with a little “s”—fought shy of it. It was felt that Mrs. Peters as Madame Récamier and her protégé as Chateaubriand did less than justice to their several parts.

A suite of rooms was then taken for the Marquis in Victoria Street, Westminster, somewhere opposite the Army and Navy Stores. Here the indomitable humbug gave receptions, issuing the invitations in his own name. At these receptions one met the most weird characters—the shy denizens of the fringe of Bohemia, ostracized clerics, unread authors, swashbucklers of doubtful nationality, but about whose character there could be no sort of doubt whatever.

Mr. Harry De Windt, in his interesting book of reminiscence, gives an anecdote concerning the Marquis and his Victoria Street receptions, which, if worth telling at all, was worth telling correctly. I now relate the incident as it was repeated to me by Mr. Charles Collette, the well-known actor. At one of these assemblies in Victoria Street the Marquis invited two or three of the guests to remain and “have a bite” with him. When the general body of the guests had retired, these selected individuals were taken to the dining-room, where the merry widow was discovered awaiting them. Half a dozen people sat down to a meal which consisted chiefly of potatoes and mutton cutlets. Collette sat on the left of the Marquis, who took the head of the table. The Marquis was not a pretty eater, and that’s the truth. He detached a whole cutlet from the bone, and put it into his mouth as one bite. Looking up, he saw the amazed expression on Collette’s face.

“I’ve got a devil of a twist,” explained the Marquis.