Here the tutor made a serious mistake. He should have told the hysterical young man what had really happened. Instead, he saw an opportunity to win an important convertto the Catholic faith as well as to save the young baronet from a life of dissipation. He assured Sir Francis that he must have seen a genuine miracle and that the best course for him to follow was to embrace the True Faith and use his great fortune for the good of the church.

  Sir Francis plunged into religion with all the enthusiasm he had shown for sex, drink, art, and archeology. He rushed about Rome, describing his wonderful visitation to anyone who would listen. Unfortunately, after his escapade in the Sistine Chapel the police had determined that this young man, lord or not, would have to leave the country. So, in spite of Sir Francis’ pleas that he was now a changed man, he and his tutor were put on board a ship bound for England and told not to return.

  During the voyage, Sir Francis’ enthusiasm for his newly found faith continued. He prayed constantly. He made plans for building a Catholic cathedral in the heart of London. He was determined to convert the royal family; or if they refused to be converted, then he would join the Jacobins and put Bonnie Prince Charlie on the throne. By the time they reached Portsmouth, the tutor would have been willing to settle for the young rake who flogged the congregation in the Sistine Chapel.

  In England, Sir Francis continued his frenzied campaign to convert everyone to Catholicism. He engaged architects to build the cathedral and attended mass twice a day. Hewas never seen without a rosary. He would burst unexpectedly into the coffee shops and start preaching to his astonished friends, who could not understand what had happened to Sir Francis Dashwood, the notorious hell-rake.

  The tutor preserved a decorous silence about their Italian-adventures, but one evening a groupof young dandies decided to find out what had really happened in Rome. They plied the tutor with wine until, half drunk, he finally told them the truth. He thought it a great joke. So did the young men-about-town.

  Next morning, the story was repeated in every coffee house. The circumstances of Sir Francis’ conversion became the joke of London society. The baronet was not merely humiliated; he suffered a shock from which he never completely recovered. His conviction that he had been singled out by heaven as the standard bearer in a great cause had been sincere. Now he underwent a reaction as violent as had been his conversion. He determined to prove to the world that he was no sentimental dupe. He would devote the rest of his life to ridiculing religion, particularly Catholicism. And not only religion but all moral principles as well.

  Sir Francis decided to found a club to further his aims. Not an association of crude hooligans like the Hectors, Mohawks, or Man-Killers, but a club that would attract the best and brightest minds in England. Because the 18th Centurywas what it was and Sir Francis was what he was, the main emphasis of the club was to be on sex and drink… sex and drink of the most involved and esoteric kind. Secondly, the club was to be an organization intended to ridicule religion. Lastly, the club was to be a secret groupdirecting the fate of the nation—a sort of invisible empire operating behind the scenes of government.

  That Sir Francis should have succeeded in all of his purposes through an organization that became known as the Hell-Fire Club is a curious commentary on the 18th Century mind. The 18th Century was an era of insecurity. The concept of democracy was fighting against the concept of tyranny. Religion had ceased to make any appeal to many intellectuals. Great Britain had gained control over nearly one-third of the world’s surface, but parliament had no idea how to deal with American colonists, Indian princes, and African tribal kings. The threat of a gigantic international conflict (which later actually occurred in the form of the terrible Napoleonic wars) colored everyone’s thinking. Young men responded to the confusion around them by forming “gangs” with melodramatic names and committing acts of senseless violence. However, these young men were enormously wealthy and had the education and taste to hit on all kinds of refinements of sex and sadism.

  Dickens has called it “the best of times and the worst of times.” There were fantastic fortunes. Living was so cheapthat Swift’s mistress, Stella, could live in “genteel comfort” on an income of £150 a year, yet Lord Durham remarked that a gentleman of fashion “could barely manage to jog along on 40,000 pounds a year.” Johnson himself told Boswell, “A man can manage to exist on 6 pounds a year and live comfortably on 30 pounds.” While the Prince Regent could spend nearly a million pounds building his Turkish Pavilion as a summer resort at Brighton, taverns in White-chapel carried signs: “Drunk for a Penny! Dead drunk for two pence! Clean straw to lie on provided free!” In the Lady Guinea gambling house, the lowest stake allowed on the table was fifty guineas and there was never less than 20,000 guineas in the pot. The members wore leather sleeves to save their lace cuffs, leather bibs to protect their ruffles, and nightcaps to hold their curls in order. There was a special dueling room where, in case of a dispute over the cards or dice, the members could retire. Pistols and swords were provided by the management. Although most of London was a casbah of filthy alleys and tunnel-like cellars where millions of men, women, and children lived like rats, the most famous of the “stately homes” of England were built during this period; a few of them still preserved today (including the great mansion built by Sir Francis Dashwood) by the National Trust as tourist attractions.

  The 18th Century was an era when “great men were as common as gooseberries.” In literature, there were Dr. Johnson,Oliver Goldsmith, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and the others of the Cheshire Cheese group. Lawrence Sterne was writingTristram Shandy, Jonathan Swift had publishedGulliver’s Travels, and Lord Chesterfield was in the midst of his famous letters to his illegitimate son. In art, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Gainsborough, Sir Thomas Lawrence, George Romney and Hogarth were prominent. In architecture, Sir Christopher Wren had completed St. Paul’s, Robert Adams had succeeded Sir John Vanbrugh as the leading architect of “stately homes” and “Capability” Brown did the gardens. A young cabinet maker named Chippendale was beginning to attract attention, as was Hepplewhite. An obscure ensign named Horatio Nelson was amusing himself trying to shoot polar bears, and a sawed-off little Corsican named Napoleon was entering artillery school in France. (His fellow cadets called him “Puss-in-Boots” because he wore high-heeled boots to make himself look bigger.) In the American Colonies, a young surveyor named George Washington was starting on his career, and Benjamin Franklin was already famous in Philadelphia as the author and publisher ofPoor Richard’s Almanac.

  None of these minor events meant much to the young bloods of London society. They were far more interested in the Duke of Queensberry, who had hired the three most famous courtesans in London to appear before him nude while he awarded a golden apple to the most beautiful. There wasalso the intriguing question as to whether the notorious Chevalier d’Eon, the internationally known duelist, was a man or a woman. The Chevalier dressed as both on occasions and had affairs with members of both sexes. Then there was the interesting experiment conducted by Thomas Day, author of the famous boy’s bookSandford and Merton, who decided to raise a wife to suit himself and got an eleven-year-old girl from an orphan asylum. After training her for three years, he tested her ability to stand pain by pouring hot sealing-wax on her neck and was disappointed when she screamed with agony. Then he fired his pistol between her legs. When the girl yelled, Mr. Day sent her back to the asylum in disgust. Another important figure was Lord Petersham, who ordered his valet to put half a dozen bottles of sherry by his bed and call him the day after tomorrow. Then there was Sir Charles Busbury, who never walked across the floor of a room; he always climbed around on topof the furniture. Horace Walpole caused a sensation by having himself and his mistress buried upto their necks and then employing a hairdresser to do their hair. The Duke of Norfolk could be washed only when he was dead drunk, and Beau Nash rode through the town naked on the back of a cow. These men were the heroes of the young bucks who admiringly discussed and imitated their eccentricities.

  Gentlemen of fashion wore high red heels, patted bluepowder on their faces and carried muffs. Their hair was carefully dressed in thirty-six curls, their clothes were covered with fine lace, and tying one’s cravat was a long drawn-out ceremony. The women dressed even more elaborately. No lady of fashion appeared before three o’clock in the afternoon; it took her that long to get her clothes on, with the helpof several maids. Both men and women “received” in bed during the mornings: the men were surrounded by a horde of jockeys, tailors, hairdressers, gamblers, and dancing masters; the women by jewelers, dressmakers, cosmetic experts, milliners, and music teachers. Entering a room was an art. A gentleman came in on tiptoes “as though the floor were wet and he were afraid of falling,” with his hat clasped to the pit of his stomach. He then placed the hat under one arm, advanced one foot, bowed at a perfect 90-degree angle, and remained in that position until recognized.

  The ladies had even a harder time. Their headdresses were nearly a yard high, composed of two or three stories of wire frames covered with tiffany and artificial hair. The Duchess of Devonshire stuck two ostrich feathers in her hairdo, each feather over a yard long, thus starting a new fashion which added to the general complications.Hoopskirts were often eight feet in diameter, and six or seven petticoats were worn underneath. All the gentlemen took snuff, and the boxes were exquisite in design and made ofthe most expensive materials. A gentleman had to be able to open his box in the act of extending it by raising the lid between his thumb and first finger. There were “snuff masters” who did nothing but teach young bucks the art of taking snuff.

  The bucks were not cowards. Dueling was as routine as love-making. The father of Laurence Sterne fought a duel with a Captain Philip over a goose. Philip ran his opponent through the body with such force that the captain’s sword stuck in the wall behind Mr. Sterne. Mr. Sterne politely asked the captain if he’d mind wiping the plaster off the point of his sword before withdrawing it. Two fashionably dressed gentlemen engaged in a duel with pistols and as the shots rang out, one man uttered a scream of mortal agony. “A surgeon, a surgeon!” shouted the seconds. “A tailor, a tailor!” screamed the stricken duelist. “His bullet has ruined my new coat!” Duels were fought in the coffee houses, in the streets, in Hyde Park, and in the parlors of fashionable homes. For a buck to admit that he hadn’t killed his man was as deepa disgrace as admitting to being a virgin.

  Even when the rakes walked the streets they were followed by retinues of down-and-out artists, sculptors, couriers and foreign travel, purveyors of pornographic literature, wine merchants, and pimps. The noblemen had discovered Europe, art, and pornography, and their interests were about evenly divided among the three. Hard liquor had recentlybeen introduced into society and revolutionized drinking habits. The passion for the macabre was as strong as with our own adolescents. A motion picture such asI Was a Teenage Werewolfwould have been as popular then as now. To give an eerie quality to their estates, the noblemen planted dead trees on the grounds and hired hermits to live in specially dug caves. They even employed men to tame bats, vipers, and owls to live in the artificial caves with the hermits. In a wild attempt to capture the ghostly grandeur of Italy and Greece, they built ruined temples in out-of-the-way corners of their gardens and got sculptors to make statues with missing heads, arms, and legs, to resemble the antique statues that were so mutilated. The School of Terror appeared in literature, started by Horace Walpole’s famous novelThe Castle of Otrantothe original of all the haunted castles in fiction. It was followed by “Monk” Lewis’ great work in which a girl is locked in a cellar with the dead body of her illegitimate baby. The mother continues to try to nurse the decaying child and is delighted to find that she is wearing white rings… maggots are crawling around her fingers. There was such a passion for vampires, ghosts, ghouls, and werewolves that some young men insisted on drinking their wine out of skulls especially stolen for them from the graveyards by body-snatchers.

  It was in this atmosphere that Sir Francis set about founding his club. There had been for many years a Hell-FireClub which held its meetings at an old inn called George and Vulture on George Yard in London. The proprietor kept a huge vulture as a theatrical prop and this weird touch endeared the place to the rakes. (The inn is still standing, and Dickens laid several scenes inPickwick Papersthere.) The original Hell-Fire Club had been abolished by special order of the Lord High Chancellor, because even in that broadminded time the members had carried things a little too far when they celebrated Mass on the body of a naked girl stretched out on one of the barroom tables. But Sir Francis was delighted by the club’s principles and set up his own circle at the George and Vulture in imitation of the earlier group.

  Sir Francis did not call his association the Hell-Fire Club. In many ways he despised the earlier rakes as a lot of ignorant peasants. But the public considered the new society to be merely a continuation of the old and called it by the same name. The Hell-Fire Club it has remained ever since.

  Sir Francis called his groupThe Friars of St. Francis of Wycombe. There were twelve members, each named after one of the twelve apostles. Sir Francis took the part of Christ. For several months, they met in the cellar of the George and Vulture, but, as the accommodations were limited and the police were apt to interfere with their parties, they moved to an island in the Thames near Hampton Court. Meanwhile, Sir Francis was busily engaged in finding a suitableclubhouse for his group. At last, some time in 1752, he hit on the perfect spot. It was a ruined Medieval abbey located on the bank of the Thames near Marlow, some six miles from Sir Francis’ estate at West Wycombe. The abbey was surrounded by a grove of magnificent old elms which almost completely concealed it. A little stream ran by the crumbling walls, and beyond lay open meadows. The nearest highway was several miles away. The setting was so romantic that years later Shelley used to go to the abbey to compose his poems. The members could come up the river in private barges with their girls, spend the night in the abbey, and return by the same route—much simpler than having to ride or coach several miles to an equally secluded spot. In addition, the ruined abbey was exactly the sort of setting Sir Francis needed for his ceremonies. It was weird, isolated, and old, and the chapel was still intact. The chapel was important. The friars—or, as they usually called themselves, “the monks”—needed a consecrated chapel for Black Mass ceremonies.

  The abbey was called Medmenham (pronounced “ Mednam”) and had been built in 1160. It had been long deserted. Sir Francis was able to purchase it with little trouble. He then set about rebuilding it, but rebuilding it still to resemble a ruin. For romantic reasons the abbey must look as though it were ready to collapse at any minute.

  The rebuilding was elaborate. The workmen were importedfrom distant parts of the British Isles, were sworn to secrecy and were kept under constant guard. The chapel was done over according to Sir Francis’ tastes. Stained glass windows were installed, which bore pictures of the “twelve apostles” in costume, each in some indecent pose. On the ceiling was painted a magnificent fresco in brilliant colors, also pornographic. Unfortunately, we don’t know the subject. People who were admitted into this Holy of Holies merely say it was too terrible to describe. John Wilkes, who heaven knows was no prude, calls it “unspeakable.” At the far end of the chapel was a tiny window and directly under it the altar made of black Italian marble. In front of it ran beautifully carved altar rails. Over the door of the chapel was engraved the Latin quotation, “Stranger, refuse, if you can, what we have to offer.”

  Sir Francis also built a Roman Room whose walls were decorated with copies of the indecent paintings from ancient Roman frescos. Along the sides of the room were arranged richly upholstered couches for the use of the monks and their sweethearts. In niches were statues of Egyptian gods. There were also paintings of famous prostitutes and the kings of England. The portrait of Henry VIII had a strip of paper pasted over the face as punishment because Henry had closed the monasteries. Over the entrance was written in Latin, “Dare to despise convention.”

  Next to the Roman Room was the library, containingwhat was generally admitted to be the finest collection of pornographic books in Great Britain. The library also contained a splendid assortment of religious books. The two collections were all mixed in together—Fanny Hillbeing sandwiched in betweenThe Book of Common PrayerandSherlock on Death, while theKama Sutra(a famous Oriental treatise showing the 365 possible positions of sexual intercourse) was bound asThe Reformed Hymnal. There was also a Robing Room and Withdrawing Room. A series of small private rooms called “cells” were connected to the Withdrawing Room. Each cell was equipped with a couch covered with green silk.

  In addition to all this, Sir Francis installed a cellar of fine wines and a larder full of delicacies, and outfitted the abbey with magnificent Gobelin tapestries and the best Chippendale, Adams, and Hepplewhite furniture. Sir Francis had excellent taste.

  A small staff of trusted servants was maintained at the abbey to wait on the monks and keepupthe place, but only the members themselves were allowed in the chapel. Not even the girls could go there. The chapel was regarded by the monks with great devotion and was a sacred spot which they never entered without due ceremony.

  Over the entrance of the abbey was inscribed“Fay ce que voudras”(“Do what thou wilt”). The writing was made in imitation of the 17th Century style and was such an accurateforgery that until recently it deceived experts. On one side of the door was a statue of Harpocrates, the Egyptian god of silence, with his finger to his lips, and on the other side a statue of Volupian Angerona (the goddess of secret passion) in the same attitude. There were no clocks in the abbey, so the brothers couldn’t mark the passing of time.

 

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