Chapter 1
Port Louis, Mauritius, September 1847
Notice to persons attending Balls: â Monsieur F. has the honour to inform the public and his clients, that he will keep his hair-dressing room open on all such occasions in the evening.
Nineteenth-century newspaper advertisement, Port Louis
Late in November 1842, Sir William Gomm was en route to take up the position of sixth British Governor of Mauritius. His party caught their first sight of the magnificent volcanic mountains of Port Louis â a riveting spectacle from any angle and particularly so from the harbour. The town spread from the seaboard to the green foothills of the mountains, Pieter Both and Le Pouce (the thumb), which stood out in bold relief against the jumbled rooflines of churches, forts and other buildings.
The news of the Gommsâ arrival spread quickly, as the signal passed from their ship, the Cleopatra, to the signal station on Long Mountain and across the valley to Port Louis. Everybody knew the significance of the Union flag hoisted on Signal Mountain, clearly visible from the streets in the town: a frigate was approaching the harbour. At three oâclock in the afternoon, according to the pages of the local bilingual newspaper, Le CernĂ©en, the guns on the frigate sounded and Sir William âcrossed the Place dâArmes between a double file of soldiers extending from the Port to Government House, and accompanied by all the authorities of the place, amidst the discharges of Artillery from the Citadelâ. It was a grand arrival. High hopes were held for Sir Williamâs governorship, based on the reputation that preceded him from his time in colonial administraÂtion in Jamaica (1839â42), and his military service during the Peninsular Wars and at Waterloo. The colony was certainly in need of a head, since the previous Governor, Sir Lionel Smith, had died of pneumonia ten months earlier.
High hopes were also held for Lady Elizabeth Gomm â âla moitiĂ© gracieuseâ (the charming half), as Sir William liked to call his wife. The editors of Le CernĂ©en anticipated that she would âassemble around her the distinguished persons of our society and will thus be instrumental in establishing, between all parties, those bonds of sympathy and friendship, the formation of which the apathy of our former rulers has alone delayedâ. Sir William, in a diplomatic gesture towards facilitating those bonds, gave his first address to the colonyâs legislative assembly in French.
Ruisseau du Pouce (Pouce stream), Port Louis, Mauritius. Le Pouce, the thumb-shaped mountain, can be seen in the background.
Colonial Mauritius was still at this time, after more than thirty years of British rule, the âĂle de Franceâ to many of its inhabitants. A small Indian Ocean island east of Madagascar, Mauritius was uninhabited before the arrival in 1598 of the Dutch, who named their new possession after their Prince, Maurits van Nassau. In little over 100 years, they had decimated the dodo, exploited the thousand-year-old ebony forests and founded the sugar industry on the back of black slavery. The island was abandoned by them in 1710, and annexed by the French East India Company a few years later, when it was renamed Ăle de France. Control eventually passed to the French Crown in 1764. Little more than an outpost settlement of several hundred inhabitants during the Dutch period, the island prospered under the French. However, despite defeating the British in 1810 in a famous naval battle at Grand Port in the islandâs south, the French shortly after ceded Ăle de France to the British. They were militarily outnumbered, the island was suffering from the British naval blockades and the population was largely indifferent to who ruled them, as long as normal trade was able to flourish again. The victorious British renamed the island Mauritius, and agreed to respect the culture, language, legal system and religion of the incumbent French.
Mrs Fenton, an Englishwoman who spent five months in Mauritius in 1829, noted that âhere the time of French ascendancy is still too recent to be forgottenâ. She observed the French influence in the local inhabitantsâ general courtesy, âwhich French politeness has dispersed wherever they governâ. Charles Darwin, who stopÂped at Mauritius during the voyage of the Beagle in 1836, remarked on the French character of Port Louis as particularly noticeable, he commented, in the shops. By that he may have meant the European origin of the goods, and their expense, or perhaps it was the persuasive charm of the shopkeepers, who were often French or Creole â the latter an appellation for those of French origin born in the island.
By the 1840s the racial and cultural mix of Mauritius â a blend of French, African, Indian and Chinese, with a hint of British â was firmly established. Mauritius was a veritable Babel, whose different races were evident to the visitor disembarking at the Port Louis docks. Alongside a young man of French origin in the latest Parisian fashion walked a shopkeeper wearing the loose cotton frock and trousers of China. Beside him, hailing from Madagascar, was a man âbare-headed, the hair twisted and worked into snake-looking points, which stick out and leave a very Medusa-like appearanceâ. And over there from Bengal, one of the recent immigrants wearing a cast-off soldierâs coat and a cloth tied around his middle.
When the British took possession of Mauritius in 1810 the islandâs population consisted of approximately 7,000 people of European origin, 8,000 âfree colouredsâ and 63,000 slaves. Slavery was abolished in 1835 and replaced by an apprenticeship system. This reluctant workforce was supplemented by indentured labourers from India. But amid concerns that this was just another form of slavery, Indian immigration was suspended in 1839. The issue was one of the most pressing Gomm had to contend with on his arrival in the colony, for the labour market was critical to the islandâs export economy, and the established plantocracy â the Franco-Mauritian owners of the sugar plantations â were powerÂful. Indian immigration resumed under Gomm, and there was a mass influx of labourers â more than 33,000 men in 1843 alone. By 1847 the number of indentured labourers had outstripped the number of ex-slaves working as apprentices, but the Mauritian planters continued to press for increases in immigration. Gomm, however, correctly interpreted these urgings as evidence of the plantersâ desire to keep the upper hand in wage-bargaining, and found himself in great conflict with them.
These proved to be difficult years for Gomm and Mauritius, marked by financial crises caused by the labour problem, over-trading and an excess of imports â the ultimate (and perhaps most useless) being, in 1847, the importation of a rhinoceros. The Governor was unpopular in certain quarters. It was felt that a military governor would never be able to understand the best interests of a colony made up of merchants and planters. When the Gomms gave a levee to celebrate Queen Victoriaâs birthday in May of that year it was, noted local newspaper Le Mauricien, as in other years of late, badly attended.
The promulgation of an Order in Council to replace French with English as the official language of the courts in July 1847 was far removed from the conciliatory gesture of Gommâs maiden address. Due to come into effect on the 15th, it was noted in Le CernĂ©en of 8 July that of the 150,000 souls in Mauritius (not including those of English origin) only around 500 people knew the English language. It so happened that a young French lawyer, CĂ©licourt Antelme, was presenting a case in Port Louis on the 14th and he prolonged the hearing until midnight, when he dramatically paused â it is said â and switched from French to English. But perhaps it is wise to remember of this anecdote that in Mauritian history (in the words of local historians) it is âcommon knowledgeâ, one of those good stories where fact and mythology are equally at home. There is a small paragraph in Le CernĂ©en of 17 July noting that Monsieur Antelme, in the Court of Assizes on the evening of the 15th (not the 14th), âfinished an eloquent plea with a touching goodbye to the French language, which was greeted by such loud and prolonged applause that the Chief Judge and the Substitute Procureur-General had much trouble in re-establishing silence.
Never, in the memory of the oldest members of the staff, had the crowd displayed such enthusiasm.â Each version of Antelmeâs story, whichever day the incident took place, has something to recomÂmend it in the way of drama.
While the lawyer was inspiring the assembled crowd with his touching adieu to the French language, the second of the seasonâs winter assemblies was getting under way. These were a series of seven subscription balls, held on the second Thursday of every month of the Mauritian winter, beginning in July. Similarly styled to the Almackâs balls in London, they were managed by âpatronÂessesâ (the Mesdames Stavely, Dick, DâEpinay, de Robillard and Lloyd) and âcommissairesâ (the Messieurs Rawson, Barclay, Durant St AndrĂ©, Rudelle and Fraser). The Gomms were sure to have attended the winter assemblies, held at Port Louisâs Masonic lodge â the Loge de la Triple EspĂ©rance â and undoubtedly they attended on the 15th.
Alas, on this occasion the Loge de la Triple EspĂ©rance was transformed into the Loge de la Triste EspĂ©rance. Although both the French and the British communities were well represented on the assemblyâs organizing committee, some of the French residents of the island chose not to attend the ball as a protest at its timing, coinciding as it did with the day deemed the âdeathâ of the French language in Mauritius. Four young men ranged themselves at the door of the lodge in a picket (perhaps inspired by Antelmeâs oration) and insulted those members of the French community who had put ârejoicings and pleasureâ above a proper regard for the gravity of the day. Their insults consisted of little more than groaning and hissing, and were more a case of bad manners than anything else (according to an editorial in Le Mauricien a week later). But the incident escalated when, in an overreaction by the government, the men were arrested and thrown into prison. They were soon set free but were then rearrested, and much bickering between the families of the prisoners and the magistrates ensued to secure their liberty again.
Sir William Gommâs growing unpopularity (with the French at least) is often advanced as the reason behind his wifeâs giving her famous ball of 30 September. Easing the tensions between the British and the French communities may well have been a motiÂvating factor. However, poor Lady Gomm is popularly believed to have also been responsible for the infelicitous entertainment of 15 July, the aftermath of which long troubled the government. But it is evident from notices in Le CernĂ©en that she was not one of the earlier ballâs patronesses. The July ball was a regular event, but in this case unfortunately timed, that was all. Five more assemblies would follow before Lady Gommâs famous fancy-dress ball, and the winter of 1847 was remembered â in British circles at least â as most enjoyable. Sir John Ewart, then a young soldier in the 35th Royal Sussex Regiment, recalled in his memoirs Lady Gommâs âat homesâ, the jeunes gens balls, the winter assemblies, two delightful balls given by a Frenchman named Vigoureux, the opera, a circus, picnics and garrison theatricals. Soldiering in Mauritius was not, it seemed, a particularly onerous duty.
A version of Nashâs lithograph of Lady Gommâs ball, along with a ball envelope, appeared together in 1978 on a Mauritian postage stamp commemorating the famous event and the issuing of the âPost Officeâ stamps.
Ewart remembered Lady Gommâs fancy-dress ball as a grand occasion. The large ballroom was decadently lit by the lamps, nearly 200 in number, which clustered about the ceiling. It seemed that the lights themselves were in costume and vying for attention as the best dressed. Monsieur Fouqueraux, known as the host of some of the best balls in the island and commonly referred to as âLe Prince Charmantâ, would probably have been in attendance, nodding approval at the exhilarating scene before his eyes. The rich brocades of the dowagersâ dresses reflected the mellow glow of the lamps, mingling with the younger ladiesâ silks, tulles and laces, while the dress swords of the soldiers were as dazzling as the jewellery and as shiny as the polished wooden floor. Recalling the ball in later years, Ewart remarked that âfor some weeks everyÂbody was busy preparing for it⊠the dresses being magnificent, and the characters admirably sustainedâ. Guests who cared to dress according to the fancy theme chose from two groups of characters, the first from Walter Scottâs Ivanhoe and the other from Byronâs historical trage...