"Buried in the church yard (St Nicholas Bathampton) is the body of the French aristocrat, Adolphe, Vicomte du Barry, a nephew-by-marriage and close personal friend of, Louis XV's legendarily beautiful mistress. The Vicomte had been living in nearby Bath when he was killed in a duel with an Irish adventurer, Captain Rice." - Wikipedia
Adolphe first met Jean Becu at age 14, when he joined his father in Paris after spending his early life with his mother. Jeanne and Adolphe seem to have enjoyed a close friendship from the start; she was only six years older than he.
Jean-Baptiste was determined to get his son installed as a page at the court of Versailles. To achieve this, he needed the backing of the all-powerful Duc de Richelieu. To achieve this, he was ready to sell Jeanne's "services" to the minister.
Towards the end of 1765, there seems to have been a rift between Jean-Baptiste and Jeanne caused by his jealousy of the close relationship that had developed between his son and his mistress. However, they were soon reconciled, and Jean-Baptiste saw advantage in having his son, who had now been promoted to being a subaltern in the King’s infantry, explain court customs and the complicated protocols and etiquette of the court to Jeanne.
Once Jeanne was established at court, Adolphe's mother used the situation to try to secure an advantageous marriage for her son. After meeting considerable resistance to having a pimp and brothel operator as a father-in-law for their daughters, the Du Barrys had to satisfy themselves with a penniless, but beautiful, seventeen-year-old relation of the Prince Rahan de Soubise.
Her name was Helene de Tournon, and she arrived in Paris totally ignorant of the background to her marriage.
Adolphe du Barry was honoured to have his marriage witnessed by the entire Royal family. However, the Dauphine Marie Antoinette showed her disapproval by giving orders that effectively excluded Helene from her court. This left her trapped in the company of her husband’s aunt and the elderly women who formed her court. This experience explains why she quickly grew to detest both her husband and his family.
Following the king's death and his grandson's ascension to the throne as Louis XVI, Queen Marie Antoinette had Jeanne exiled to the Abbey du Pont-aux-Dames.
As a young man with little to recommend him other than a handsome face, Adolphe now found himself without employment. He had inherited from his father a passion for and some skill at gambling.
With the fall of his aunt, Adolphe had been forced to resign his commission and was forbidden to appear at court. This was the ultimate humiliation for his wife.
Adolphe recognised he had no future in Paris and so decided to try his luck at the gambling tables of Spa.
By 1777, Adolphe and his wife, building on their success in Spa, had moved to Bath, where they hired one of the largest houses in the Royal Crescent and kept open house for some of the smartest society in town. With them was an Irish adventurer, one Count Rice, whom they had met in the gambling houses of Spa. Rice was a soldier of fortune who had fought in the Imperial armies and had been given the title of Count by the Emperor.
The Du Barrys seem to have used their seat address to run Faro tables.
Faro houses were notorious for bilking their customers. Indeed, the odds of the game are such that the house could only ensure profits by cheating in some form.
The sort of money that could be made from this game by Faro house operators is illustrated by a court case reported in the Bath newspapers in 1787.
Gambling was always central to the entertainment that drew the Ton to Bath, and repeated attempts by the law to regulate it failed in the face of the Georgian obsession with gaming and the large sums of money to be made catering to it.
As the Bath Chronicle of 12th April 1787 reported:
"Yesterday Mr. John Twycross and Mr Richard Weternall were convicted before the Mayor, on several counts, of keeping a Faro and other Gambling Table and sentenced to pay, Twycross four hundred, and Wettenall fourteen hundred pounds"
The article goes on to say:
"Eighteen hundred pounds [approximately the equivalent £100,000 today] is a seemingly large sum; but when the various arts of seduction to support this Faro Table, and its immense profits, are considered, it will appear a mere trifle. Every allurement of expensive eating and the richest wines are ever speciously ready, to invite the convivial. The hounds are principally, if not solely, supported to take in country gentlemen; and the present culprits are only the ostensible members of a numerous co-partnership, amongst whom the money may be easily raised; and who, like the Syrens of old, are unceasingly employed to draw devoted victims into this dreadful vortex of destruction.”
One is tempted to see parallels with the card parties that Adolphe’s father ran in his notorious
Parisian home and his use of the beautiful Jeane Becu, then known as Madam de Vaubernier, to lure young men to lose their money at his Faro tables. Certainly, the beautiful Helene and her fifteen-year-old sister were reported to have been seen at every ball in town.
It is unclear what sparked the dispute that led Rice and Du Barry to fight a duel, but possible causes include disagreements over the allocation of funds and the treatment of Du Barry’s wife and sister-in-law.
The local newspaper reported on the duel which took place on Claverton Down as follows:
‘On arriving at the ground the Viscount gave Count Rice his sword, which he had brought with his own; and previous to his firing declared, that let what would happen he would neither give nor take quarter; he rested his pistol on his sword, fired first at Count Rice, at the distance of thirteen yards and shot him through the upper part of the thigh. Count Rice was almost brought to the ground, but soon recovered and fired at the same distance.
A letter published in Aris’s Birmingham post recounts the Dual as follows.
“They came to the Tuns, 'with their two Seconds, Capt. R-- and Mr. T--, about two o'clock in the Morning. Capt. R. ordered a Post-Chaise and Four, drove to Claverdon , where they all dismounted, and ordered the Drivers to wait behind a Wail, beside which a Clump of Firs stood between this spot and the Ground on which the fought. The Surgeon declined accompanying them to the spot, saying, he should within call if wanted; buy the Boys having secured their Horses, got within the Firs, and saw the whole. They were between two and three hours upon the the Down waiting for daylight, and just about seven o’clock the ground was marked (eight paces) and each was provided with four brace of pistols; they each discharged their first shot as nearly together as possible. Count Rice missed his aim, but Du Barry lodged his ball in Rice’s groin, or rather thigh, which made him stagger, and as he was about to drop, he took the pistol out of his left hand, levelled it and the ball entered Du Barry’s body just below the right breast, when he gave a most extraordinary spring into the air, fell down and expired immediately. The two seconds called the surgeon to the assistance of Count Rice; but what is most extraordinary, left him while while they made the best of their way to Bath. The body of the Count Du Barry lay all day unnoticed and unguarded by his friends, and scarce a man or boy in Bath; who had time of curiosity, but what listed the handkerchief of his face, opened his waistcoat, and fingered the wound. Count Rice lies at York House, and they say is now out of danger. The two seconds are off, and Cadby the Surgeon, refuses to say a word till called upon at trial if their should be one. It is very strange, that though this fatal affair was very publicly talked of in Bath as early as between seven and eight in the Morning, Count Barry’s Lady heard nothing of it till near one o’clock, when she was told of it by the Duke of Northumberland’s chaplain, which occasioned a distress easier to be conceived than described. The cause of this unhappy quarrel is said to be gaming and jealousy.”
The trial of Count Rice for the death of Viscount Du Barry started with the prosecution making the case for his conviction for the murder of Du Barry. Rice, in response, made the following statement:
‘My acquaintance with Viscount Du Barry originated in Paris in the year 1774. His family were then soliciting some favour at Vienna, and my connexion at that Court, which he thought might be serviceable to him, engaged his attention to me. We lived from that period, till the day before his death, in an intercourse of mutual good offices and civility. An expensive line of life, and considerable losses at play, frequently involved him in difficulties, to extricate himself from which he often borrowed large sums of money of me. I have in my possession letters which I shall now produce, acknowledging the receipt of various sums of money, as well as bills and notes of hand, to the amount of some thousand pounds still unpaid, and which from the embarrassed state of his affairs, I must look on as a total loss.
A gouty humour, which fell upon his bowels and legs last summer, induced some English Physicians he met at Spa to recommend the use of Bath waters. Determined as it appears by these letters written a few days before he set off for England, to play no more, and to regulate his affairs with prudence; he resolved upon this excursion in order to attend to his health and restore his peace of mind. He frequently solicited me to accompany him, to which I at last consented; and accordingly we came to England together, at mutual and proportional expense. We took a house in Bath; and lived there upon the same terms. For some weeks we continued to live in our former and accustomed intimacy; and, though the Viscount Du Barry was a man of impetuous temper, without any material disagreement till the unfortunate dispute which terminated in the loss of his life, and the imminent hazard of mine. It is needless here to enter into the origins of that dispute, or impute blame to the deceased who can no longer vindicate his conduct.”
The Count, after some pathetic observation on the suffering he had undergone from his wound, concluded by referring to the evidence already given, as some reasons, he said prevented his calling the Seconds before the Court with propriety, and committed himself with confidence into the hands of his Jury; persuaded, to use his own words, that in order to determine justly upon his conduct in the crime imputed to him, they would put themselves in his situation, and adopt those feelings by which he was necessarily actuated on the unfortunate occasion.
Mr Justice Nares addressed the jury in an affecting speech; remarked to them in particular the unusual backwardness the prisoner had shown in this transaction, and his humanity to the unfortunate Viscount after his fall, and directed a verdict for manslaughter.
