{"id":518,"date":"2026-01-29T06:21:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T11:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/?p=518"},"modified":"2026-01-27T21:37:06","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T02:37:06","slug":"%c2%a7-2-6-beau-brummell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/en\/2026\/01\/29\/%c2%a7-2-6-beau-brummell\/","title":{"rendered":"\u00a7 2.6. Beau Brummell"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">I would go out tonight<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">But I haven\u2019t got a stitch to wear<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">This man said \u201cit\u2019s gruesome<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">That someone so handsome should care\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:18px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The Smiths, <em>This Charming Man<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:61px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph translation-block\">If not the Regent and future King of England, who was the sovereign of this new secular aristocracy driven by an amalgamation of essence and appearance? (<a href=\"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/en\/2026\/01\/26\/\u00a7-2-3-etica-estetica\/\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"493\" target=\"_self\">2.3<\/a>) Indeed, it was someone close to George IV, both in heart and attitudes, who nevertheless was not born into a powerful or wealthy family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph translation-block\">George Bryan \u201cBeau\u201d Brummell was the son of a William Brummell, squire and private secretary of Prime Minister Frederick North, who steered Great Britain during the American War of Independence. Thanks to his father\u2019s contacts Brummell was sent in 1790 to Eton College, where he stood out among his colleagues \u201cthrough his careful dressing and the frigid languor of his manners.\u201d<sup data-fn=\"1768976e-a583-4b6d-b4c7-5a09b98ad9f3\" class=\"fn\"><a href=\"#1768976e-a583-4b6d-b4c7-5a09b98ad9f3\" id=\"1768976e-a583-4b6d-b4c7-5a09b98ad9f3-link\" target=\"_self\">1<\/a><\/sup> After graduating from Eton, he went to Oxford for a year and then decided to enter the cavalry regiment of Tenth Royal Hussars, which was under the command of the Prince of Wales. As with his school peers, Brummell\u2019s manners and his extraordinary sense of fashion, exerted a fascination over the future king, who took him under his wing. By 1796, with only three years in the regiment, \u201che was made a captain, to the envy and disgust of older officers who felt that \u2018our general\u2019s friend was now the general\u2019.\u201d<sup data-fn=\"450f5983-2e3c-4da9-a4b0-1212c8f9d38f\" class=\"fn\"><a href=\"#450f5983-2e3c-4da9-a4b0-1212c8f9d38f\" id=\"450f5983-2e3c-4da9-a4b0-1212c8f9d38f-link\" target=\"_self\">2<\/a><\/sup> However, his military career came to a sudden and definitive halt when his regiment was sent to Manchester, whose \u201cundistinguished ambience and want of culture and civility\u201d made him resign his commission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph translation-block\">It is difficult to estimate the extent of the fascination that Brummell exerted in the society of his time. Thanks to his personal relationship with the Prince of Wales, once Beau Brummell returned to civilian life he was able to ascend to the summit of British society, where he became the supreme arbiter of fashion and good taste. His graceful manners, says Barbey d\u2019Aurevilly, were the fusion of the movements of body and spirit. His is the invention of the pantaloon and the cravate, direct ancestors of the trousers and the modern tie that we identify today with masculine elegance. The frac was also his idea. His exquisite coldness was well-known and feared by mothers and debutants alike, the slightest smirk of disgust could turn a promising young lady into a spinster. He used to stay in the society salons long enough to be seen and then quickly disappear, like a rumor, so he would be missed. In her portrait of Brummell, Virginia Woolf said that \u201cthe French Revolution had passed over his head without disordering a single hair.\u201d Lord Byron also gave in to his spell and assured that \u201che would rather be Brummell than the emperor Napoleon.\u201d<sup data-fn=\"de3862fe-c634-4707-a76e-8d1df4235ced\" class=\"fn\"><a id=\"de3862fe-c634-4707-a76e-8d1df4235ced-link\" href=\"#de3862fe-c634-4707-a76e-8d1df4235ced\" target=\"_self\">4<\/a><\/sup> He was great because he devoted himself to his trade like no other and never meant his vanity to bear more fruit than the admiration of his peers. His coldness in this matter was such that he was never known to have shared his bed with any women (or men).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph translation-block\">Like Byron, and later on Montesquieu (<a href=\"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/en\/2026\/01\/27\/\u00a7-2-4-dandismo\/\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"499\" target=\"_self\">2.4<\/a>), Brummell quickly went from being a legendary figure in social circles to a literary character. The fashionable novels so popular during the regency and the reign of George IV (<a href=\"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/en\/2026\/01\/24\/\u00a7-2-2-los-beneficios-de-la-guerra\/\" target=\"_self\">2.2<\/a>), made him the inspiration and covert protagonist of books such as Vivian Gray (1828) by Benjamin Disraeli, Pelham, or the adventures of a gentleman (1828) by Edward Bulwer-Lytton and Granby (1826) by Thomas Henry Lister.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-footnotes has-small-font-size\"><li id=\"1768976e-a583-4b6d-b4c7-5a09b98ad9f3\" class=\"translation-block\">d\u2019Aurevilly, <em>Of Dandyism and of George Brummell<\/em>, 125. <a href=\"#1768976e-a583-4b6d-b4c7-5a09b98ad9f3-link\" aria-label=\"Jump to footnote reference 1\" target=\"_self\">\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><li id=\"450f5983-2e3c-4da9-a4b0-1212c8f9d38f\" class=\"translation-block\">John Doran, <em>Miscellaneous Works, Volume I: Habits and Men, Beau Brummell<\/em>, 380. <a href=\"#450f5983-2e3c-4da9-a4b0-1212c8f9d38f-link\" aria-label=\"Jump to footnote reference 2\" target=\"_self\">\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><li id=\"b21e63ac-bde6-49c8-9550-bc2a36b6ab01\" class=\"translation-block\">William Jesse, <em>The Life of George Brummell, Esq<\/em>., <em>commonly known Beau Brummell.<\/em> <a href=\"#b21e63ac-bde6-49c8-9550-bc2a36b6ab01-link\" aria-label=\"Jump to footnote reference 3\" target=\"_self\">\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><li id=\"de3862fe-c634-4707-a76e-8d1df4235ced\" class=\"translation-block\">d\u2019Aurevilly, <em>Of Dandyism and of George Brummell<\/em>, 116. <a href=\"#de3862fe-c634-4707-a76e-8d1df4235ced-link\" aria-label=\"Jump to footnote reference 4\" target=\"_self\">\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><\/ol>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I would go out tonight But I haven\u2019t got a stitch to wear This man said \u201cit\u2019s gruesome That someone so handsome should care\u201d The Smiths, This Charming Man Si no el Regente y futuro Rey de Inglaterra, \u00bfqui\u00e9n fue el soberano de esta nueva aristocracia secular impulsada por la amalgamaci\u00f3n de la esencia y [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":274836558,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"[{\"content\":\"d\u2019Aurevilly, <em>Del dandismo y de George Brummell<\/em>, 125.\",\"id\":\"1768976e-a583-4b6d-b4c7-5a09b98ad9f3\"},{\"content\":\"John Doran, <em>Miscellaneous Works, Volume I: Habits and Men, Beau Brummell<\/em>, 380. Traducci\u00f3n propia.\",\"id\":\"450f5983-2e3c-4da9-a4b0-1212c8f9d38f\"},{\"content\":\"William Jesse, <em>The Life of George Brummell, Esq<\/em>., <em>commonly known Beau Brummell.<\/em>\",\"id\":\"b21e63ac-bde6-49c8-9550-bc2a36b6ab01\"},{\"content\":\"d\u2019Aurevilly, <em>Del dandismo y de George Brummell<\/em>, 116.\",\"id\":\"de3862fe-c634-4707-a76e-8d1df4235ced\"}]","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[786109115],"tags":[786109146,786109140,786109147,786109148],"class_list":["post-518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-capitulo-2","tag-beau-brummell","tag-lord-byron","tag-virginia-woolf","tag-vivian-grey"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgYHfz-8m","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/274836558"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":587,"href":"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518\/revisions\/587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}