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Many worthy parents have been ruined by the sons whom they had sent thither to be made scholars of; but who have learnt only to be "gentlemen" in the popular acceptation of the word. To be a "gentleman" nowadays, is to be a gambler, a horse-racer, a card-player, a dancer, a hunter, a roué, or all combined. The "gentleman" lives fast, spends fast, drinks fast, dies fast.
Standing at the celebrated bow-window for some moments in musing silence, Lord Spendquick at last thus addressed an exceedingly cynical, sceptical old roue, "Pray, do you think there is any truth in the stories about people in former times selling themselves to the devil?" "Ugh," answered the rout, much too wise ever to be surprised. "Have you any personal interest in the question?"
As he looked at her there was a cold, hard light in his eyes which gave her the idea of a cruel and pitiless nature; and there was a kind of cynicism in his tone when he spoke which repelled her at once. He had all the air of a roué, yet even roués have often a savor of jolly recklessness about them, which conciliates.
It was true that Lord Kilcullen was a heartless roué, whereas Lord Ballindine was only a thoughtless rake; but then, Lord Kilcullen would be an earl, and a peer of parliament, and Lord Ballindine was only an Irish viscount.
Lord Blenavon's smile was evidently meant to be friendly, but his expression belied it. He was slightly taller than his father, and his cast of features was altogether different. His cheeks were pale, almost sunken, his eyes were too close together, and they had the dimness of the roue or the habitual dyspeptic. His lips were too full, his chin too receding, and he was almost bald.
But Astrardente, decayed roué and worn-out dandy as he was, was in love with his wife; and she, in all the young magnificence of her beauty, submitted to be loved by him, because she had promised that she would do so, and because, having sworn, she regarded the breaking of her faith by the smallest act of unkindness as a thing beyond the bounds of possibility.
For twenty years the destinies of the people, and the whole patronage of the Government, the right to succeed to the most sacred and exalted offices in the Church, were bartered and intrigued for in the chamber of a harlot and procuress, and under the influence of the Pompadours and the Du Barrys a crowned roué allowed the state to drift into financial, military and civil disaster.
'Oh, he has gentle blood in his veins, said Lord Bohun. 'I never heard his breeding impeached. 'And I should think, nothing else, said Miss Ponsonby. 'Oh, I never heard anything particular against Ferrers, said his lordship; 'except that he was a roué, and a little mad. That is all. 'Enough, I should think, said Major Ponsonby, with a clouded brow.
And here is Kneller's familiar portrait of John Evelyn, the other diarist of the times. And Lely's portrait of Rochester, the roue, represented in the characteristic act of crowning his monkey with laurel, laurel to which he sometimes aspired himself.
When he came to the wheel which had got entangled with Sarastro's cloak, constraining him to his regal attitude, he called it 'Le rat, instead of 'La roue. The French lady's brow clouded, her eyebrows drew together, and in her face was plainly to be read the terror which the story had produced in her, whereto conduced the circumstance that D. had 'let on' upon his face the full power of tragi-comic muscular play which it was capable of.
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