Have you heard?

ABOUT eight years ago, Auberon Waugh (son of Evelyn) and I debated two high-priced lawyers at the Oxford Union. The motion, which we were defending, was, Resolved: Gossip has a place in journalism. We wiped the floor with them. The two mouthpieces got up first and read out a long list of people whose lives had been ruined by the yellow press of Fleet Street and its vicious gossip-mongers. Then we got up and went to work on them. I excused myself for arriving late by telling the audience that two stretch limos, presumably owned by the lawyers, had blocked access to the ancient town. (This was to remind the students how well paid lawyers are, although I did confess later that both had arrived by train.) Our main point was that without gossip, history as we know it would not exist.

Take, for example, the Duc de Saint-Simon. Sainte-Beuve called the duke the spy of the century, and, thank God, he was. Were it not for Saint-Simon's chronicles of life at Versailles, we would probably adhere to a Hollywood version of what went on in the ritualized society of the Sun King.

The duke, was, in effect, the Richard Johnson and Liz Smith of his day. Nigel Dempster, England's greatest gossip writer, believes that four hundred years from now, people will read the gossip columns to find out what twentieth-century life was really like. Mr. Dempster goes further. "I look at people's sex lives, especially those of prominent people, because the personal habits that manifest themselves only when observed close up are the ones that lead to detection of flaws that might influence public performance." Amen, say 1. Look what could have been prevented if we had known about Bill Clinton's love life before November 1992.

Prince Charles is another example. Before he was given away by the divine Diana, the British press took Charles at face value. Everything one read about him was like the stuff Madison Avenue puts out for its best clients. And the revelations of his philandering and cold-heartedness, although initially detrimental to the Crown, have made Charles a better heir. He now lies low and behaves like a celibate priest. It was the gossip mongers who were responsible for the new, improved Charles.

Personally, I love a good gossip. Even when I read history I find that it's the gossip that gives the flavor--and often, the substance--of who people were and what life was like. Public accomplishments are simply not enough. If they were, we'd have passport-like descriptions of the various characters in history, and c'est tout.

In Talleyrand's case, for instance, one begins to understand the amorality of his political ambitions--and his immorality in general--by reading the gossip of his having seduced Duchesses of Dino from three generations: grandmere, mere, and fille.

Homer's songs about the Trojan Wars and Ulysses' wanderings are the sort of gossip that informs and helps define the age. They could not have survived without the impulse to pass on a good story. Of course, in those days people gossiped about the bravery of their heroes--not about, say, what Barbra Streisand thinks of a certain draft-dodger in the White House.

Much of what we know of medieval history is sheer gossip, and later on it was the gossips like Voltaire, Samuel Pepys, William Hickey, and Madame de la Tour du Pin who gave us glimpses into people's private lives, thus making history intellectually honest as well as not boring.

Now, alas, we have to put up with movie stars' self-serving tales. Glossy magazines publish hagiographies of illiterate film stars in return for having access to them. In fact gossip is getting a bad name from the type of people who indulge in it today. Saint-Simon, where are you now that we really need you?