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CHAPTER X
MORPHY'S GREATEST BLINDFOLD FEAT

Awaiting the return of his antagonist, Paul Morphy announced his intention of playing eight blindfold games, simultaneously, in the public café. It is needless to assure my readers that the mere announcement produced the greatest excitement; the newspapers heralded the fact throughout the city, and crowds of strangers came pouring into the Régence, and asking particulars of the habitués in relation to the approaching performance. Harrwitz had already asked Morphy to join him in a public display of the same description, to which the admission was to be five francs, and Morphy felt embarrassed in answering him; but the good offices of Mr. Lequesne arranged the difficulty, without hurting any one's amour propre, and the proposed exhibition was set on one side. Morphy has an intense dislike to money-fingering in connection with chess; and he made it a sine qua non that, if he played blindfold at all, the Café de la Régence should be open to any one who chose to walk in. The proprietor, Monsieur Delaunay, was only too glad to accede to this; not merely foreseeing that the exhibition would attract crowds to his establishment, and be an admirable advertisement, but also from a friendly feeling for our hero. The frequenters of the place used to say that Delaunay would give Morphy half his café, if he asked him for it.

The blindfold struggle was publicly announced to commence at noon; but, at an early hour, the crowd was already considerable. The billiard-tables in the further room were sacrificed to the exigencies of the occasion; I requested the waiters to put a thick cord round them, so as to rail off a space for Morphy, and a large easy-chair, placed in the enceinte, made the whole arrangements as comfortable for him as could be wished. He, however, was not up to the mark, as regards bodily health. Morphy is a water-drinker, and Paris water would cure any Maine Liquor Law bigot of Teetotalism in a week. Since the outset of the match with Harrwitz, he had been ailing, but he preferred playing to making excuses. His own expression was, "Je ne suis pas homme aux excuses" – (I am no man to make excuses,) and he was always ready for Harrwitz, although obliged to ride to the café. Nothing proves so satisfactorily to me Morphy's wondrous powers in chess, as his contests in France, laboring, as he constantly did, under positive bodily suffering. A man's brain will often be more than ordinarily active and clear when the body is weak from late illness; but it is not so when there is pain existing. At breakfast, on the morning fixed for this blindfold exhibition, he said to me, "I don't know how I shall get through my work to-day. I am afraid I shall be obliged to leave the room, and some evil-minded persons may think I am examining positions outside." Yet, in spite of this, he sits down, and, during ten long hours, creates combinations which have never been surpassed on the chess-board, although his opponents were men of recognized strength, and, as a collective body, Pawn and Two Moves stronger than the Birmingham eight.

The boards for Morphy's antagonists were arranged in the principal room of the café, numbered as follows: —

Nearly all these gentlemen are well known in contemporaneous chess, and formed such a phalanx that many persons asked whether Morphy knew whom he was going to play against. Monsieur Arnoux de Rivière called the moves for the first four, and Monsieur Journoud for the others; and, all being prepared, Morphy began as usual with "Pawn to King's Fourth on all the boards."

Things went on swimmingly and amusingly. It was as good as a volume of Punch or the Charivari to hear the remarks made by the excited spectators; more especially when the "openings" were past, and the science of the combatants came out, in the middle of the game. There was the huge "Père Morel," hands in his pockets, blowing clouds from an immense pipe like smoke from Vesuvius, threading his way between the boards and actually getting fierce when anybody asked him what he thought of it. Seeing him seated at the end of the room towards evening, and looking as though dumbfoundered at the performance, I said to him, – "Well, Mr. Morel, do you believe now that Morphy can play against eight such antagonists?" He looked at me in an imploring manner and replied, – "Oh, don't talk to me; Mr. Morphy makes my head ache." It is related of Pitt that, making a speech in Parliament on a certain occasion, whilst under the influence of sundry bottles of Port, the doorkeeper of the House of Commons declared that the son of the great Chatham made his head ache, so violent was his language, and so loud his tone. This coming to Pitt's ears, he said – "Nothing could be better; I drink the wine, and the doorkeeper gets the headache." Monsieur Potier rises from his table to show on another board how Morphy had actually seen seven moves in advance; and Signor Préti gets quite nervous and agitated as our hero puts shot after shot into his bull's-eye; and I had much difficulty in assuring him that no absolute necessity existed for his playing on, until Morphy mated him; but that when he found his game was irretrievably lost, he would be justified in resigning. Monsieur Baucher was the first to give in, although one of the very strongest of the contestants; Morphy's combinations against this gentleman were so astonishing, and the finale so brilliant, that Mr. Walker declared in Bell's Life– "This game is worthy of being inscribed in letters of gold, on the walls of the London Club." Bornemann and Préti soon followed, and then Potier and Bierwirth; Messrs. Lequesne and Guibert effecting drawn battles; Monsieur Seguin alone was left. It was but natural that he should be the last, as he was the strongest of the eight combatants, and, truth to tell, he did not believe it possible for any one to beat him without seeing the board; but this Morphy finally effected in some beautiful pawn play, which would have tickled Philidor himself.

Forthwith commenced such a scene as I scarcely hope again to witness. Morphy stepped from the arm-chair in which he had been almost immovable for ten consecutive hours, without having tasted a morsel of any thing, even water, during the whole of the period; yet as fresh, apparently, as when he sat down. The English and Americans, of whom there were scores present, set up stentorian Anglo-Saxon cheers, and the French joined in as the whole crowd made a simultaneous rush at our hero. The waiters of the Café had formed a conspiracy to carry Morphy in triumph on their shoulders, but the multitude was so compact, they could not get near him, and finally, had to abandon the attempt. Great bearded fellows grasped his hands, and almost shook his arms out of the sockets, and it was nearly half an hour before we could get out of the Café. A well-known citizen of New York, Thomas Bryan, Esq., got on one side of him and M. de Rivière on the other, and "Le Père Morel," – body and soul for our hero – fought a passage through the crowd by main strength, and we finally got into the street. There the scene was repeated; the multitude was greater out of doors than in the café, and the shouting, if possible, more deafening. Morphy, Messrs. Bryan and De Rivière and myself, made for the Palais Royal, but the crowd still followed us, and when we got to the guardhouse of the Imperial Guard, sergeants de ville and soldiers came running out to see whether a new revolution was on the tapis. We rushed into the Restaurant Foy, up stairs, and into a private room; whilst, as we subsequently learned, the landlord made anxious inquiries as to the cause of all this excitement. Having done our duty to a capital supper, we got off by a back street, and thus avoided the crowd, who, we were informed, awaited our reappearance in the quadrangle of the Palais Royal.

Next morning, Morphy actually awakened me at seven o'clock, and told me, if I would get up, he would dictate to me the moves of yesterday's games. I never saw him in better spirits, or less fatigued, than on that occasion, as he showed me, for two long hours, the hundreds of variations depending on the play of the previous day, with such rapidity that I found it hard work to follow the thread of his combinations.

Harrwitz was in the café for about an hour during blindfold play, and he actually had the assurance to say to me, "You can tell Mr. Morphy, that I will continue the match to-morrow." I replied: "I feel satisfied that Mr. Morphy will be willing to do so, but I shall most certainly object, and all that lies in my power will be done to prevent his seeing a chess-board until he has had at least twenty-four hours' rest." And I added: "You had better not let it be known that you have made the proposition, or you will be badly received in the café, depend upon it."

The evening after his blindfold feat, Morphy very inconsiderately took a nap in his sitting-room, with the window open. On my arrival I awoke him, and he complained of feeling cold. Next morning he was feverish, and in any thing but a fit state to meet Harrwitz. Nevertheless I could not induce him to keep his room; he said to me: "I would sooner lose the game, than that anybody should think I had exhausted myself by a tour de force, as some will do if I am absent at the proper hour." And he rode to the Régence in a state only fit for a hot bath and sweating powder. Well might Saint Amant call him the "chivalrous Bayard of Chess."

CHAPTER XI
CONTINUATION OF THE MATCH WITH HARRWITZ

Morphy was at the Régence to the minute, but Harrwitz was not forthcoming. At last we received a message from him that he objected to play any longer in the public café, and requested Morphy to come up stairs into the rooms of the Chess Club. It would be difficult to describe the excitement caused by this announcement. Harrwitz's backers, of whom there were eight or ten, were very angry; more especially as it was at his own particular desire that the match was played in the café. The pretext was, that the warm atmosphere and noise of the crowd interfered with his game; the real fact, because everybody, even the aforementioned backers, were favorable to Morphy. What was to be done? Our hero, with his clear reasoning, soon found the correct reply, and he sent back word that "The Chess Club being a private association, it would be an impertinence on his part to use their apartments without their permission." Harrwitz would not show himself, and the entire affair was near being put a stop to, when certain members of the Cercle kindly opened the doors of their Club, and Morphy went up stairs.

The two principals being again face to face, Harrwitz commenced with his "same old two-and-sixpence" pawn to queen's fourth, and before he had got past the twentieth move, Morphy had the attack, position, and every thing. But, in process of administering the coup de grace, Morphy's feverish state told upon him, and he committed an oversight which lost him a rook, when within a move or two of winning. It was so stupid a mistake, that he immediately burst out laughing at himself. Harrwitz picked off the unfortunate rook with the utmost nonchalance, as though it were the result of his own combinations, and actually told me afterwards, "Oh, the game was a drawn one throughout." Morphy got a perpetual check upon him, and it was the only "draw" in the contest.

What does the American Chess Monthly mean by calling this palpable oversight "an imperfect combination?"

Again we had to wait some time for Mr. Harrwitz. It must not be supposed that this gentleman used his frequent "leaves of absence" for the purpose of recruiting that health which he represented as so bad. No, he came daily to the Régence at the usual hour, and played with anybody, but Morphy, until past midnight. He sat down now, in front of his adversary, for the eighth and last time, apparently in his ordinary health, and fought as tough a battle as any in the contest. The game lasted to the fifty-ninth move, and then Harrwitz resigned.

The score now stood, Morphy 5; Harrwitz 2; drawn 1. Next day Morphy received a verbal message that "Mr. Harrwitz resigns the match, on account of ill health." There was something like a row at the Café de la Régence when this was known, for the Prussian amateur had not even deigned to consult his backers, or even to inform them of his intention. Mr. Lequesne, his stake-holder, was requested by him to hand over the collected amount, two hundred and ninety francs, to our hero, and that gentleman forthwith called on Morphy at his hotel. Of course we got the fullest particulars from Mr. Lequesne. He informed us that Harrwitz's backers were furious, and that they, like himself, were confident that their principal was merely indisposed in the morale, not at all physically. Morphy replied that it never was his desire to play for stakes under any circumstances; and, taking into consideration the peculiar facts of the case, he would certainly decline receiving the money.

Some time afterwards, Mr. Lequesne returned, and stated that not merely were the different subscribers to the stakes desirous that Paul Morphy should receive what had been won by him, but that Mr. Harrwitz would, for the sake of appeasing his backers, play out the remainder of the match. Morphy immediately returned answer, that "Mr. H. having resigned the contest, there was an end of the matter, but that he (Morphy) was ready to commence a second match immediately." Harrwitz had had enough of beating, and he unhesitatingly declined this proposition.

But a difficulty arose in consequence of Morphy's refusal to receive the stakes. Letters poured in from all quarters, complaining that bets on the result of the contest were influenced by the decision, and Morphy finally took the two hundred and ninety francs from Mr. Lequesne. He then caused it to be announced publicly, that the money was deposited with the proprietor of the Café de la Régence, that any of the subscribers to the amount were at perfect liberty to withdraw their subscriptions, and that the remainder should go towards defraying Herr Anderssen's expenses to Paris. And so the money was eventually used.

Will any of my readers think it possible that Mr. Harrwitz could, after all this, publish that "he had not lost the match, but that Mr. Morphy had consented to its being annulled?"

CHAPTER XII
MORPHY IN SOCIETY

All the Paris newspapers soon took to writing about our hero, from the Moniteur to the Charivari. The latter, the oldest and most famous of all comic papers, gave cut after cut and article after article upon him; in fact, Morphy was its standing joke for a long period. One day there was a picture representing "Britannia, astonished at the checks she was receiving in India, requesting the young American to get her out of the difficulty." Another represented an individual who declined entering the Café de la Régence in company with his wife, "because there was inside a certain Mr. Morphy who would capture his queen from him." After the blindfold exhibition, the famous Taxile Delord wrote as follows:

"Well, let us have a game of chess. Shall I give you the rook? Sit down here, and I will place myself in this arm-chair."

"Oh, no! Now-a-days, no man who respects himself, thinks of playing with the board in front of him."

Upon this imaginary conversation, Delord lets loose a volley of fun, ending in this manner:

"I can understand Ecarté, I can appreciate Picquet, I can even rise to the grandeur of Tric Trac, but don't talk to me of Chess. That game will bring us back to tragedy."

What with the illustrated papers giving Morphy's portraits, no two of which were ever alike, and the innumerable articles in the "dailies," he began to be notorious. Saint Amant wrote that he supplied a want which Paris had felt for a long time – the want of a hero. Monsieur Lequesne requested him to sit for his bust, and threw so much labor of love into the work, that he produced a chef d'œuvre which all Paris went to criticize and to praise. All these various occurrences could not but cause excitement in the salons, and invitations began to pour in from the Faubourgs St. Honoré and St. Germain. The first came from the Duchess de T – . My readers must forgive me for not mentioning names where a lady is concerned. The Duchess stated that she had played at chess since a child, and that she was desirous of becoming acquainted with a gentleman whom fame heralded as so superior to all amateurs; but that she had no hope of proving an antagonist worthy of him. Well, Morphy waited on his fair challenger, and out of five games each won two, and one was drawn! Then the Princess M – expressed a desire to play our hero, and other great dames followed; and knowing, as I do, the result, I solemnly declare that, in spite of my confidence in Morphy's powers of combination, I never would bet a cent upon him when his opponent is a lady.

I am not bound to silence when gentlemen are concerned, and I am glad to mention amongst chess amateurs, such names as the Duke of Brunswick and Counts Casabianca, Isouard, and Bastorot. These gentlemen are thorough veterans in the noble game, and chess works and periodicals are no strangers to their contests. Count Casabianca was "at home" every Friday night, and, whilst some of the company were at whist, ecarté, or other games de la société, he would always be in a corner with the Duke of Brunswick, Count Isouard, Signor Préti, and other chess amateurs. Morphy played against the Duke and the Counts in consultation, and, although he almost invariably won, it was no easy matter.

H. R. H. the Duke of Brunswick is a thorough devotee to Caïssa; we never saw him but he was playing chess with some one or other. We were frequent visitors to his box at the Italian Opera; he had got a chess-board even there, and played throughout the performance. On our first visit "Norma" was performed. The Duke's box is right on the stage; so close, indeed, that you might kiss the prima donna without any trouble. Morphy sat with his back to the stage, and the Duke and Count Isouard facing him. Now it must not be supposed that he was comfortable. Decidedly otherwise; for I have already stated that he is passionately fond of music, and, under the circumstances, wished chess at Pluto. The game began and went on: his antagonists had heard Norma so often that they could, probably, sing it through without prompting; they did not even listen to most of it, but went on disputing with each other as to their next move. Then Madame Penco, who represented the Druidical priestess, kept looking towards the box, wondering what was the cause of the excitement inside; little dreaming that Caïssa was the only Casta Diva the inmates cared about. And those tremendous fellows, the "supes," who "did" the Druids, how they marched down the stage, chaunting fire and bloodshed against the Roman host, who, they appeared to think, were inside the Duke's box.

Some of the pleasantest hours passed by Paul Morphy in the French capital were spent at the Baronne de L.'s. This lady, who has long ranked as one of the great beauties of Parisian society, is renowned as a patroness of the arts. Her friendship for the lamented Pradier has passed into history, and her salons are the weekly resort of the most celebrated sculptors, painters, and authors of France. And no wonder, for the Baronne is gloriously merry and witty, a true child of the sunny South. A Creole, from the French West Indies, she immediately took a liking to Morphy, "Because," said she, "he is another lazy Creole like myself;" and she invited all her acquaintances to come and see him. She would get Morphy opposite her, and St. Amant or Lequesne by her side to stop her when she was about making too serious a mistake, and would play game after game, making us all laugh the whole time with her charming anecdotes and jeux d'esprit. How she would amuse us when she declared that parties and late hours were killing her, and that they did kill her last season, and yet she was always as fresh as a newly plucked rose. When she found how fond Morphy was of music, the principal singers from the opera would be present. I remember one night she asked that finest of living baritones, "the honey-voiced" Graziani, to play our hero at the odds of the Queen. Signor Graziani had caught the general enthusiasm, and was applying his leisure moments to chess with the energy of a Standigl, and had lately been taking lessons from Préti. He at first objected to play, from modesty, but the Baronne had determined he should, and she told him that, if he would play a game, Morphy would sing a duo with him afterwards. This was a sparkle of her fun, of course; but Graziani played, not one, but three games, and he then said: "If anybody asks me if I understand chess, I shall say, 'Oh, yes; I play sometimes with Mr. Morphy.'"

The United States minister, the Hon. Mr. Mason, took a warm interest in his young countryman, occasionally sitting at the board when Morphy was at play. The Judge is acquainted with the "Mystery of Chesse," and asked many pointed questions after the conclusion of the game, as to the why and the wherefore of different moves. It were scarcely right for the United States government to appoint a minister to the Court of the Tuileries who is ignorant of chess; it would be an insult to the memory of Franklin.