BackScandals in old Calcutta
A popular 19th century book by a British surgeon stationed in India details the affairs of a Danish beauty in Bengal who became the second lady in Napoleon's court, and other sensational tales
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Yet another surgeon makes an appearance in Endpapers, this time a brigade-surgeon of the Madras Medical Service, Henry Elmsley Busteed (1832-1912). While his medical and military career was distinguished, the good doctor is remembered primarily for a work of popular history titled Echoes From Old Calcutta, published in 1882 and reprinted in many editions. Subtitled “Reminiscences Of The Days Of Warren Hastings, Francis, & Impey", the work was a tour de force of history and gossip, reporting on some of the most sensational stories of the day.
Published by the venerable Thacker, Spink and Co. of Calcutta and London, the 300-page history encompasses four narratives. The first, predictably, concerns the so-called Black Hole of Calcutta; the second, the hanging of Maharaja Nandakumar, or “Nuncomar", as he was called. The third and fourth narratives are linked and report with relish on some of the scandals of the time. The third section is devoted entirely to Philip Francis, Whig letter-writer under the name of “Junius", sometime member of the Supreme Council of Bengal, and bête noire and ultimately duelling adversary of Warren Hastings. His duel with Hastings on the morning of 17 August 1781, in the Belvedere Gardens in Alipore (the current premises of the National Library in Kolkata) has passed into folklore. Francis was wounded in the duel but not fatally, and took a ship out of Calcutta the same year to resume his political career in London.
The last section of Busteed’s history is reserved for one of the most celebrated beauties of 18th century Bengal, Catherine Grand neé Werlee, more commonly known as Madame Grand. Possibly of Danish extraction and born in Tranquebar (now known as Tharangambadi), the young Catherine grew up in Chandannagore, where her father was capitaine de port. Catherine’s marriage with an East India Company officer, George François Grand, and her affair with Francis was one of the longest-running scandals of its time, leading to a libel action, a divorce and a duel. Busteed dwells at length on the scandal, providing a stirring account of the night on which Francis was caught breaking into Catherine’s bedroom with the aid of a foldable ladder, and accompanied by some of his friends. The jemadar of the household managed to seize Francis and tie him up, ignoring the entreaties of his friends, at least two of whom would later go on to become a knight and a peer of the realm!
The heart of Busteed’s narrative comprises the court proceedings following Grand’s plaint in the Old Supreme Court in January 1779, before Sir Elijah Impey and a group of justices. What emerged was an extraordinary account of midnight alarms, folding ladders, fisticuffs, close shaves and, on the whole, thoroughly ruffianly behaviour by four high-ranking company officials. After a month-long hearing, the judges found for the plaintiff and Francis was fined to the tune of “50,000 sicca rupees".
After Francis’ departure from Calcutta, Catherine too left the city, eventually finding herself in Paris in the mid-1780s. There, she became part of the smart set and, subsequently, the mistress of Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, foreign minister under Napoleon and one of the few survivors from the ancien regime. Their relationship created an uproar and Talleyrand—one of the most notorious libertines of his time—was ordered by Napoleon to either marry her or leave her. In 1802 they married in the presence of the first consul and his wife, Josephine de Beauharnais. But despite being a friend of Josephine, and one of the first ladies of the court, Madame Grand—now the Princesse de Benevento—was referred to in the most disparaging terms by contemporary commentators, who seem to have gone along unquestioningly with Talleyrand’s own view of Catherine as “une indienne bien belle, bien paresseuse, la plus désoccupée de toutes les femmes que j’ai jamais rencontrées"—that is, “an Indian, very beautiful, very idle, one of the laziest women I have ever known". She was widely perceived as an outsider who could not master even the rudiments of the French language.
Busteed’s fascination with the story of Catherine, who went from being a harbour-master’s daughter in Bengal to the second lady in the court of Napoleon, led him to author a pamphlet in 1903 titled The Serampore Portrait: Is It Madam Grand?, in which he was able to prove that the portrait in the Baptist Mission, Serampore, was, in fact, not hers. A contemporary review of Busteed’s history may be found in volume 76 of The Calcutta Review (No.156), which is immediately followed by a review of Sandhya Sangeet by one Rabindranath Tagore. The year was 1882, and the poet was 21 years old.
Endpapers is a monthly column on obscure books and forgotten writers.Abhijit Gupta teaches English at Jadavpur University, Kolkata, and is director, Jadavpur University Press.
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