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Excerpt from The Café de la Régence, by a Chess-player
Fraser's Magazine, Vol. XXII, July to December, 1840.
Part 7/7
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A change comes over the Régence, and the noise reaches its climax, as
if the elements of confusion in the caldron had received their final
stirabout. What portly form do we see making its way through the
crowd, at this, the eleventh hour? Fifty persons accost him at once,
all eager to wind up the evening with one more game; -- all shouting,
and laughing, and screaming, with the peculiar and prodigious
gesticulations of La belle France, rising many octaves above
concert pitch. The crash is terrific. Not to know the potentate who
enters with noise exceeding that of drum and trumpet, were indeed to
prove yourself unknown. The new-comer is De la Bourdonnais, since the
retirement of Deschapelles, the acknowledged first chess-player in the
world.
M. De la Bourdonnais is of noble family, being grandson to that
Governor of the Mauritius, immortalized by St. Pierre in Paul and
Virginia. De la Bourdonnais is now about forty-five years of age.
He was educated in the College of Henri IV., but has never followed
any profession except chess, which he took up as a passion about
five-and-twenty years back. La Bourdonnais inherited a small paternal
estate; but, I regret to say, that this was devoured by some
unfortunate building speculations at St. Maloe's. His frame is large
and square, the head presenting a fine study for a phrenologist,
bearing the organs of calculation enormously developed. Solid and
massive, the head of La Bourdonnais is a true Napoleon front; carved
out of marble, and placed upon shoulders of granite, like Ajax
Telamon. That eye so piercing, looks through and through the board, so
as to convey the feeling that La Bourdonnais could really see well in
the dark, which hypothesis accounts for his playing so beautifully
blindfold.
You have never seen La Bourdonnais at chess? Come, then; although
late, this is a glorious opportunity. He is about to give the rook to
Boissy d'Anglais, pair de France; let us hasten to get a
favourable position for looking on. The spectators of this duel are no
mean men: -- General Haxo, who commanded the artillery for the Son of
Thunder at Waterloo; Méry the poet; Lacretelle, the naturalist; Calvi,
Chamouillet, Robello, and others of the élite are in the press;
while the venerable Chevalier de Barneville, nearly ninety years of
age, who has played with Philidor and with Jean Jacques, serves as the
connecting link of three generations, and reminds one of Philidor
himself come back to witness the triumphs of his illustrious heir. I
would rather play chess a day with De la Bourdonnais, than spend a
week with Sardanaplus.
From the east and the west, from the north and the south, have players
come to kneel at the footstool of the monarch. They present themselves
under smiling pretences; but nerved, nevertheless, to have a pluck at
his diadem. Hitherto, all have tried in vain; none having encountered
La Bourdonnais, for fifteen years, to whom he could not give the pawn,
with the single exception of the late Mr. McDonnell. At this moment,
bowed down to earth with a cruel malady, De la Bourdonnais plays chess
as well as ever. His great spirit rises above bodily suffering, and
triumphs over pain. May health be shortly restored to him!
"Steady and ready," is the motto of De la Bourdonnais. If challenged
to engage in an important match, no preparation is required beyond
half an hour's notice. He will play you at any time, by night or by
day, or both; rendering freely the most liberal odds, his stake being
one franc to a hundred. If any one mode of training for the battle be
more in favor with our chief than another, it is perhaps that of
Gargantua; who, when he came to the Paris schools, to dispute with the
sages of the Seine, "refreshed himself," says Rabelais, "two or three
days; making very merry with his folks, and inquiring what men of
learning there were in the city, and what wine they drank
there."
The quickness with which La Bourdonnais calculates the coups is
a beautiful part of his game. Since Philidor, he has never, in this
respect, been equalled, Deschapelles having been a much slower player.
When I first had the honour of measuring weapons with De la
Bourdonnais over the chess-board, his rapidity was to me positively
terrific. I was lost in the whirl. You raise your hand to play a move,
and up go the Frenchmen's fingers in readiness to present his answer,
before you have travelled half way towards the piece you mean to
touch. You move, and your opponent replies ere your arm has regained
its resting place. This bustle drives English nerves cruelly. We whip
and spur, but cannot live the pace. If you are very slow, he does not
hesitate to tap the table lustily. You labour out a ten minutes'
calculation; and then, congratulating yourself on having done the
deed, sink back in your chair to enjoy a heavenly interval of
repose. Vain hope! -- mistaken mortal! In less than a single moment,
La Bourdonnais plays his counter-stroke; and, wishing your adversary
at tous les diables, you recommend, like him of Tartarus, the
never-ending task of rolling the stone up the mountain. Custom
reconciles you, however, to the railroad speed of La Bourdonnais; and
comparing it with the broad-wheeled wagons we too often are compelled
to travel by in this country, you say "This is, indeed, chess!" La
Bourdonnais first introduced the piercing the sides of the
chess-board, like a cribbage machine, in order to peg the number of
games played at a sitting. He tells them off by the score!
The rapidity of De la Bourdonnais can only, in fact, be equalled by
his gluttony for the game. Nothing satiates him, or causes him to cry,
"Hold! -- enough!" His chess hours are from noon till midnight, seven
times a week. He seems to be a species of chess-automaton, wound up to
meet all conceivable cases with mathematical accuracy. When he played
his famed match here of nearly one hundred games with our McDonnell,
the hour of meeting being between eleven and twelve A.M., the
encounter has frequently continued until six or seven P.M.; after
which Mr. McDonnell would cease playing, exhausted frequently even to
weariness. Not so De la Bourdonnais. He would snatch a hasty dinner by
the side of the chessboard, and in ten minutes be again enthroned in
his chair, the hero of the hundred fights, giving rook, or knight, or
pawn, as the case might be, to any opponents who presented; fresh as
the dewy morn, and vigorous as though 'twere breakfast time. He would
play thus till long past midnight; smoking cigars, drinking punch, and
pouring forth his full soul in even boisterous merriment; dismissing
at times his punch, in favour of what he termed, "Burton ale-beer,"
the only fault of which, he was wont to say, was, that after three or
four bottles, he became additionally impatient, if he found his
adversary slow. I recollect that upon one occasion he played above
forty games of chess at a sitting, with amateurs of every grade of
skill; and with all this, he had to be at his post to encounter
McDonnell in the morning!
The habits of De la Bourdonnais over the board are, indeed, the very
reverse of what would be expected from so profound a thinker; but he
appears to be divided into two existences, -- the one of which does
the chess, the other the fun. Jokes, songs, and epigrams, burst in a
flood from his lips, in tones like those of Lablache. This is, of
course, chiefly after dinner, when giving large odds, when
winning; for, should the tables turn in the latter respect, the
brows of our friend lour like the storm-clouds of Mont Blanc. De la
Bourdonnais expressed himself to me, as being altogether confounded at
the imperturbability of McDonnell under defeat. Our countryman, at one
sitting, lost three games running; "And yet," quoth La Bourdonnais,
"he could smile! Had it been me," added the Frenchman emphatically, "I
should have torn the hair from my head!" -- and so he would.
No passing events can shake the attention of La Bourdonnais when at
chess. He concocts jests and mates in the same crucible. Une petite
position is what he aims at from the beginning. Let him once
attain that, and be sure he'll hold his own. When the joke and the
laugh rise highest, then look out for your squalls, and reef your
topsails. To you it is a dark night, but to his leopard eye the first
rays of the sun are gilding the mountain top. His advantage improves,
and he absolutely smothers you in mystification and nonsense. Taruffi
once met Ercole del Rio in a chess café; and when beaten
soundly, exclaimed, "You must be either the devil or Del Rio!" The
mortality of our hero is certainly at times to be suspected. The
clearness with which he foresees consequences, through a long vista of
checks and changes, is truly admirable. No man sacrifices a piece so
well; none knows so fully the art of playing the proper move at the
proper time. When hard pushed, his coups de resource are
electrifying. Win a piece, it is a trifle; nothing short of killing
him outright will avail you. Strike him merely to the earth, and
Antaeus-like, he rises stronger from the fall. "I should never have
given up chess," said Deschapelles once to me, "except in favor of La
Bourdonnais. He is worthy to sustain the honour of my school, and in
his hands the reputation of France is safe."
De la Bourdonnais has not disdained to study books. He has played
through all that has been written. The openings are familiar to him.
He has the most dashing variations of attack at his fingers' end, and
meets a new mode of assault intuitively with the strongest defence. He
is not like one fine player who, perhaps, can only conduct the middles
of games well; or another, who possesses bit the mechanical knowledge
of openings and endings. De la Bourdonnais plays every part of chess
well; the pieces in a complicated situation, above all, beautifully.
His pawn play, towards the close of the game, is superb; as a judge of
what we term "position", he stands alone. Many established axioms he
appears to disregard, but this arises from the species of second sight
he possesses over the board. Isolated pawns he thinks of "not over
much," a piece in danger troubles him not. Set-openings he laughs
to scorn, and breaks up what the tyro has been taught, and rightly
taught, to think legitimate rules. The genius of La Bourdonnais or a
Napoleon makes its own laws, and owns none other. De la Bourdonnais
plays to check-mate, and he does it; what would you have more? He
bowls at the adverse king with the force, and celerity, and deadly
sweep of a Mynn, or a Congreve rocket.
The game we are looking over is done; De la Bourdonnais gives
check-mate, and the noise becomes positively infernal. Not only do all
chatter at once, but like the talking bird in the Eastern tale, each
man appears endowed with twenty different voices. A rush is made
towards the chess-board and a dozen hands snatch at the pieces to shew
what the unfortunate loser could, would, should, or might have done.
Thus was Job comforted of old, and thus do the tormentors attack a man
already suffering sufficient disquiet in being beaten. The English are
the best lookers-on in the world, the French the very worst. They do
not hesitate, during the most interesting crisis, to whisper their
opinions freely; to point with their hands over the board; to foretell
the probable future; to vituperate the past. It is hard to play before
such critics; and rather trying to the nerves to hear yourself styled,
perhaps, "an ass," for what you thought a neat bit of play; or to see
lips coiling, and sneering, and smiling contemptuously at your
proceedings, knowing that the scorners in a similar case would play
ten times worse than you have done. When your move is made, half a
dozen voices are loudly raised to demand "Pourquoi diable, you
didn't do this?" or, "Why you overlooked that?" I have lost many games
in Paris through similar impertinences, and have all but vowed that
when I next play chess there, it shall be in a barricadoed room.
Talking of barricades, I may here remark that never was the Café de la
Régence more thronged with chess players than during the three
glorious days of July, 1830. Speak of parting lovers! why 'twere
easier to sunder Romeo and Juliet, than two stanch chess-players over
a good game. Ten revolutions worked at once around -- the sun and moon
dancing the chahut, with the stars whirling by in joyous
gallopade -- no wreck of worlds or systems could, I say, sever two
real chess enthusiasts in the heat of battle.
To those who think I exaggerate the noise of the Régence at the close
of the evening, I can only say, witness it before passing judgment.
In singing and spitting, its inmates are particularly strong; would
that they all sang the same tune, and spat only, as French lady
vocalists do on the stage, between the verses. I know Frenchmen who,
at chess, expectorate airs with variations, and are quite surprised we
do not sanction the custom. Cigars are forbidden in the Régence. This
is it should be. The same moral rule which permits one individual, in
a public room, to blow second-hand tobacco smoke in your face, should
be equally lenient to the smokers of opium, valerian, or assafoetida.
Eat, drink, or suck what you will yourself, but do not force me to go
shares against my will.
To whom is destined the marshal's baton when De la Bourdonnais throws
it down, and what country will furnish his successor? The speculation
is interesting. Will Gaul continue the dynasty by placing a fourth
Frenchman on the throne of the world? -- the three last chess chiefs
having been successively Philidor, Deschapelles, and De la
Bourdonnais. I have my doubts. Boncourt is passing, St. Amant
forsaking chess; and there is no third son of France worthy of being
borne on the books, save as a petty officer. May we hope that the
laurel is growing in England? No! Ten thousand reasons forbid the
supposition. Germany, Holland, and Belgium, contain no likely man. At
present De la Bourdonnais, like Alexander the Great, is without heir,
and there is room to fear the empire may be divided eventually under a
number of petty kings. M. Deschapelles considers that chess is an
affair of the sun, and that the cold north can never produce a
first-rate chess organisation. I cannot admit the truth of the
hypothesis; since we find the north, in our time, bringing forth the
hardest thinkers of the day in every department. Calvi of Italy will
go far in chess; but so will Szen of Poland, and Kaesaritzki of
Livonia. The imperial name of the latter is alone a pawn in his
favour; but, I repeat, the future is yet wrapped in darkness.
G.W., November 1840.
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