that the story
was all nonsense, and that he supposed 'the poor devil,' meaning his
late intimate friend, wanted L100 and should have it. However, it is
doubtful if the money ever reached the 'poor devil.' The story does not
tell over well, for whatever were the failings and faults of George IV.,
he seems to have had a certain amount of good nature, if not absolutely
of good heart, and possessed, at least, sufficient sense of what became
a prince, to prevent his doing so shabby an act, though he may have
defrauded a hundred tradesmen. In these days there _were_ such things as
'debts of honour,' and they were punctiliously attended to. There are,
as we have said, various versions of this story, but all tend to show
that Brummell courted the notice of his late master and patron on his
way through the place of his exile; and it is not remarkable in a man
who borrowed so freely from all his acquaintances, and who was, in fact,
in such a state of dependence on their liberality.

Brummell made one grand mistake in his career as a Beau: he outlived
himself. For some twenty-four years he survived his flight from England,
to which country he never returned. For a time he was an assiduous
writer of begging-letters and the plague of his friends. At length he
obtained the appointment of consul at the good old Norman town of Caen.
This was almost a sinecure, and the Beau took care to keep it so. But no
one can account for the extraordinary step he took soon after entering
on his consular duties. He wrote to Lord Palmerston, stating that there
were no duties attached to the post, and recommending its abolition.
This act of suicide is partly explained by a supposed desire to be
appointed to some more lively and more lucrative consulate; but in this
the Beau was mistaken. The consulate at Caen was vacated in accordance
with his suggestion, and Brummell was left penniless, in debt, and to
shift for himself. With the aid of an English tradesman, half grocer,
half banker, he managed to get through a period of his poverty, but
could not long subsist in this way, and the punishment of his vanity and
extravagance came at last in his old age. A term of existence in prison
did not cure him, and when he was liberated he again resumed his
primrose gloves, his Eau de Cologne, and his patent _vernis_ for his
boots, though at that time literally supported by his friends with an
allowance of L120 per annum. In the old days of Caen life this would
h