The strange case of Charles Random de Berenger

[anteros_lmc]

Now I've got time to catch breath, it's time for another picture of the midshipman's berth and there's a bit of a story to this one...



The Midshipman's Berth by Charles Random de Berenger
This picture caught my eye because it's curiously similar to this picture by George Humphrey. In fact it almost looks like the same scene captured a few minutes later. The flute player has laid down his flute, the boy in the muffler removing his coat is now hanging it on the peg, the mid whose face was being drawn on has woken up and his tormentor is now decorating another his shipmates. What do you think?

The other curious thing about this image is that it is attributed to an artist called Charles Random de Berenger. I had never heard of Mr de Berenger before so I did a bit of digging and was astonished to discover that he is the same de Berenger who was embroiled in the stock market fraud that saw Thomas Cochrane stripped of his honours and imprisoned in the Kings Bench Prison. In Cochrane the Dauntless David Cordingly describes de Berenger as "a Prussian aristocrat...who called himself Captain Charles Random de Berenger". Although Cordingly admits it is not clear when Cochrane first met de Berenger, he suggests that Cochrane initially commissioned him to make drawings for a convoy lamp patent. Cochrane himself described de Berenger as "a man who eventually proved my ruin." I am not even going to attempt to summarise the convoluted twists of the stock market fraud, but briefly it involved gaming the stock market by spreading rumours that Napoleon was dead. De Berenger is the man who allegedly rode from Dover to Cochrane's town house in London spreading the word that Napoleon had been killed by a party of cossacks, and it was the colour of the jacket de Berenger's was wearing when he entered Cochrane's house that caused endless debate and disagreement at the trial and which eventually resulted in Cochrane's prosecution. De Berenger himself was sentenced to a year in prison for his part in the fraud.

Although there are numerous detailed accounts of the stock market fraud, few reveal much about the dastardly de Berenger himself. In fact the most detailed and plausible account of de Berenger's life appears on this fascinating blog: The Bartitsu Society. According to this source, de Berenger was born plain old Charles Random and assumed his title and Prussian persona on marrying a German widow Baroness de Berenger. De Berenger appears to have had a talent for caricature and worked as a colourist at Ackermann’s Printing Company in London. In one of his own books, the mind boggling Helps and Hints how to Protect Life and Property: With Instructions in Rifle and Pistol Shooting (I'm not making this up, honestly) he claims to have been influenced by Rowlandson and Gillray, and he was also friends with Cruikshank who illustrated the book. This would certainly explain the origins of the illustration of the midshipman's berth.

In addition to being something of an artist, de Berenger was also an enthusiastic and skilled marksman and in 1830, after coming into a large sum of money, he bought an estate in Chelsea and established a sporting stadium and shooting range in the grounds of Cremone House. It was around this time that de Berenger published the aforementioned Helps and Hints which, as the title suggets, includes all sorts of useful tips, such as advice "on Character generally, and Manliness especially, with the best modes of averting or resenting Insults". I only came across this wonderful tome this evening and haven't had a chance to scan it in any detail but it looks like a real gem! Whatever the case, Charles Random aka Baron Charles Random de Bérenger Beaufain appears to have been a real character and a man of many talents.

Comments

[eglantine-br.livejournal.com]

You could not make this stuff up! real life is so much weirder than fiction.

Yes, it looks to me like the picture is a sequel. No less lovely for that, though. i cannot get enough of the mid's berth. Don't you wish we had a 1790's web-cam?

[anteros-lmc.livejournal.com]

You could not make this stuff up!
Tell me about it! I couldn't believe it when I figured out who de Berenger was! that book of his sounds quite fabulously bonkers, I must try and read it one day.

i cannot get enough of the mid's berth.
I've still got a few more pictures to post :)

Don't you wish we had a 1790's web-cam?
Your fic is the next best thing!

[aletheiafelinea.livejournal.com]

Berenger was better than Humphrey in catching of expressions, IMHO. I wonder why at least two of them has injured hands. And that candle over there has just broken and will burn the book, which is already stained with dripping wax anyway. And, ahem, the angry gentleman will be even more angry when he'll try to put his hat on.

[anteros-lmc.livejournal.com]

Berenger was better than Humphrey in catching of expressions, IMHO
I agree, this is certainly much more animated than Humphrey's picture.

I wonder why at least two of them has injured hands.
Well spotted! I hadn't noticed that. How odd!

[esteven]

It is difficult to pinpoint what was right and what went wrong at the Cochrane trial. I guess Mr de Berenger is not my favourite person, but then I am shallow that way. ;)

[anteros-lmc.livejournal.com]

Of course I remembered how important to the case the man who arrived at the door had been, and what colour of jacket he had been wearing, but I was astonished to discover he was the same man who had produced this picture. He seems to have been quite a character to say the least!! Hardly surprising that Cochrane rued the day their paths crossed.

[esteven]

I also found it strange that he would go reasonable scot free while TLC was sentenced to the pillory (even if that was revoked at some stage)
*grumbles*

[anteros-lmc.livejournal.com]

Yes, given the role De Berenger played in the fraud he appears to have got off rather lightly. He seems to have been a slippery character to say the least!

[esteven]

Eel or snake ain't in it!