Chapter III: Part 3

The hotel was a mere stop-gap, and the Blessingtons settled down in a house belonging to the Marquis de Lillers, which had once been the residence of Marshal Ney; it was situated in the Rue de Bourbon, the principal rooms giving on the Seine and commanding a view over the Tuileries’ gardens. The sumptuous scale of the decorations is typified by those of the bathroom, where the bath of marble was sunk in a tessellated pavement, and over it swung an alabaster lamp hanging from the beak of a dove, the ceiling being painted with Cupids and flowers; the walls were panelled alternately with mirrors and allegorical groups. Furniture, equally luxurious, was hired—dark crimson carpets with golden borders, crimson satin curtains also bordered in gold, sofas and chairs upholstered in crimson satin and richly gilded, gilt _consoles_, buhl cabinets, a multitude of mirrors; a veritable orgy of gold and glitter. But all else was surpassed by the Blessington’s _chambre à coucher_ and her dressing-room, which she found to be exquisite, at any rate, to her taste: the silvered bedstead was supported on the backs of two large silver swans, the recess in which it stood being lined with white fluted silk, bordered with blue lace; pale blue curtains, lined with white, closed in its sanctity. There was a silvered sofa, rich coffers for jewels and for lace, a pale blue carpet, a lamp of silver … “a more tasteful or elegant suite of apartments cannot be imagined!” For the housing of beauty and virtue what more fitting than silver, white and light blue? “Chastely beautiful,” so said its owner. Then, Heaven commend us to the unchaste.

Gaiety was the order of the day, as it ever was when Lady Blessington and D’Orsay were in command; drives in the Bois de Boulogne with the Duchesse de Guiche; evenings at Madame Crawford’s, whom Lady Blessington describes as gifted with “all the naïveté of a child. She possesses a quick perception of character and a freshness of feeling rarely found in a person of her advanced age.” Here is a truly touching family group at a leave-taking breakfast: “It was touching to behold Madame Crawford kissing again and again her grandchildren and great-grand-children, the tears streaming down her cheeks, and the venerable Duc de Grammont, scarcely less moved, embracing his son and daughter-in-law, and exhorting the latter to take care of her health, while the dear little Ida, his grand-daughter, not yet two years old, patted his cheek, and smiled in his face.” Doubtless Madame Crawford was not a little proud of her gallant D’Orsay; we wonder what opinion, if any, she formed of his bride, and whether she congratulated her on marrying the grandson of a king?

Among other places of interest to which expeditions were made none can have come more closely home to the heart of Lady Blessington than D’Orsay, the fortified château of the family with which she was now so closely connected.

Two letters written by members of the party to Landor are interesting, not only as showing the terms of friendship between the writers and the recipient. The first was from Blessington, dated 14th July:—

“Oh! it is an age, my dear Landor, since I thought of having
determined to write. My first idea was to defend _Vavaseur_,[5]
but the book was lent to one friend or another, and always out
of the way when the pen was in hand. My second inclination was,
to inquire after you and yours; but I knew that you were not
fond of corresponding, so that sensation passed away. And now
my third is to tell you that Lady B. has taken an apartment in
the late residence of Marshal Ney, and wishes much that some
whim, caprice, or other impelling power, should transform you
across the Alps, and give her the pleasure of again seeing you.
Here we have been nearly five weeks, and, unlike Italy and its
suns, we have no remembrance of the former, but in the rolling
of the thunder; and when we see the latter, we espy at the
same time the threatening clouds on the horizon. To balance or
assist such pleasure, we have an apartment _bien décoré_ with
_Jardin de Tuileries en face_, and our apartment being at the
corner, we have the double advantage of all the _row_, from
morn till night. Diligences and fiacres—coachmen cracking their
whips, stallions neighing—carts with empty wine-barrels—all
sorts of discordant music, and all sorts of cries, songs, and
the jingling of bells.…”

The second letter is from D’Orsay, who dates his note 4th September, and writes from the Hôtel Ney:—

“J’ai reçu, mon cher M. Landor, votre lettre. Elle nous a fait
le plus grand plaisir. Vous devriez être plus que convaincu
que j’apprécirois particulièrement une lettre de vous, mais
il paroit que notre intimité de Florence ne compte pour rien
à vos yeux, si vous doutez du plaisir que vos nouvelles
doivent produire dans notre intérieur. Sitôt que je recevrai
les tableaux je ferai votre commission avec exactitude. Je
desirerois bien que vous veniez à Paris, car nous avons de
belles choses à vous montrer; surtout en fait de tableaux. A
propos de cela, je vous envoye ci joint le portrait du Prince
Borghése que vous trouverez j’espère ressemblant.… Nous parlons
et pensons souvent de vous, il est assez curieux que vous soyez
en odeur de sainteté dans cette famille, car il me semble que
ce n’est pas la chose dont nous vous piquiez particulièrement
d’être. Lady B. et toutes nos dames vous envoye mille amitiés,
et moi je ne fais que renouveller l’assurance de la sincérité
de la mienne. Votre très affectionné,

“D’ORSAY.”

Of a visit to the opera this is a pleasant reminiscence:—“Went to the Opera last night, where I saw the _début_ of the new _danseuse_ Taglioni. Hers is a totally new style of dancing; graceful beyond all comparison, wonderful lightness, an absence of all violent effort, or at least of the appearance of it, and a modesty as new as it is delightful to witness in her art.… The Duc de Gazes, who came into the Duchesse de Guiche’s box, was enthusiastic in his praises of Mademoiselle Taglioni, and said hers was the most poetical style of dancing he had even seen. Another observed that it was indeed the poetry of motion. I would describe it as the epic of dancing,” a not very brilliant remark for a woman of reputed wit.

Henry Greville writing in 1832 says: “Taglioni is dancing at Covent Garden; it is impossible to conceive the perfection to which she has brought the art. She is an animated statue; her motions are the perfection of grace and decency, and her strength quite marvellous.” And again in Paris, four years later, when she was still highly proper: “Her grace and _décence_ are something that no one can imagine who has not seen her.” The actor complains that nothing remains of his art by which posterity can judge him; but the dancer can, at any rate, leave behind a reputation for propriety—while on the stage.

A welcome visitor was Charles Kemble, who dined with the Blessingtons, and after dinner read to the party his daughter’s, Fanny Kemble’s play, _Francis the First_. “I remembered,” says Lady Blessington, “those pleasant evenings when he used to read to us in London, hour after hour, until the timepiece warned us to give over. I remembered, too, John Kemble—‘the great John Kemble,’ as Lord Guildford used to call him—twice or thrice reading to us with Sir T(homas) Lawrence; and the tones of Charles Kemble’s voice, and the expression of his face, forcibly reminded me of our departed friend.”

In 1829 an event befell, which probably altered the course of D’Orsay’s career, and which may be counted as a nice stroke of irony on the part of Fate, that past-mistress of the ironical.

The question of the repeal of the civil disabilities inflicted upon the Irish Catholics had grown to be a burning question, and Lord Rosslyn wrote anxiously to Paris, urging Blessington to go over to London to support in the House of Lords the Duke of Wellington’s Catholic Emancipation Act. On July 15th, Blessington set out for England; “his going,” wrote his wife, “at this moment, when he is far from well, is no little sacrifice of personal comfort; but never did he consider himself when a duty was to be performed. I wish the question was carried, and he safely back again.” While in town he presided at the Covent Garden Theatrical Fund annual dinner. After an absence of only a few days he returned to Paris, apparently in improved health, and—indulgent husband that he was—laden with gifts for his lovely wife.

But disaster was at hand. While riding out in the heat he was seized with apoplexy in the Champs Elysées. He lingered, speechless, until half-past four on the following Monday morning when he breathed his last. Lady Blessington was stunned with grief by the sudden calamity.

The remains were conveyed to Dublin, where they were interred in Saint Thomas’ Church, Marlborough Street.

What epitaph are we to write? What character to paint of this man, so well-beloved, yet possessing so little strength, so little self-restraint, such a pittance of ability? Landor wrote of him to Lady Blessington—

“DEAR LADY BLESSINGTON,—If I defer it any longer, I know not
how or when I shall be able to fulfil so melancholy a duty.
The whole of this day I have spent in that torpid depression,
which you may feel without a great calamity, and which others
can never feel at all. Every one that knows me, knows the
sentiments I bore towards that disinterested, and upright,
and kind-hearted man, than whom none was ever dearer, or more
delightful to his friends. If to be condoled with by many, if
to be esteemed and beloved by all whom you have admitted to
your society is any comfort, that comfort at least is yours. I
know how inadequate it must be at such a moment, but I know too
that the sentiment will survive when the bitterness of sorrow
shall have passed away.”

And again he writes to her:

“Too well was I aware how great my pain must be in reading your
letter. So many hopes are thrown away from us by this cruel
and unexpected blow. I cannot part with the one of which the
greatness and the justness of your grief almost deprives me,
that you will recover your health and spirits. If they could
return at once, or very soon, you would be unworthy of that
love which the kindest and best of human beings lavished on
you. Longer life was not necessary for him to estimate your
affection for him, and those graces of soul which your beauty
in its brightest day but faintly shadowed. He told me that you
were requisite to his happiness, and that he could not live
without you. Suppose that he had survived you, his departure in
that case could not have been so easy as it was, unconscious of
pain, of giving it, or of leaving it behind. I am comforted at
the reflection that so gentle a heart received no affliction
from the anguish and despair of those he loved.”

Five years later Lady Blessington writes to Landor:—

“I have often wished that you would note down for me your reminiscences of your friendship, and the conversations it led to with my dear and ever-to-be-lamented husband; he who so valued and loved you, and who was so little understood by the common herd of mankind. We, who knew the nobleness, the generosity, and the refined delicacy of his nature, can render justice to his memory.…”

Amid all this sugar, it is quite refreshing to come across a little acid, and Cyrus Redding speaks out quite plainly of Lady Blessington. He says: “She was a fine woman; she had understood too well how to captivate the other sex. She had won hearts, never having had a heart to return. No one could be more bland and polished, when she pleased. She understood from no short practice, when it was politic to be amiable, and yet no one could be less amiable, bland and polished when her temper was roused, and her language being then well suited to the circumstances of the provocation, both in style and epithet.… The gentry of this country, of all political creeds, are frequently censured for their pride and exclusiveness; but they may sometimes be proud and exclusive to no ill end. The higher ranks have their exceptions, as well as others, of which Lord Blessington himself was an instance. The dissipation of Lord Blessington’s fortune, and the reception of Lady Blessington’s favourite, the handsome youth, D’Orsay, into Lord Blessington’s house, ran together, it has been said, before the finish of his education. Old Countess d’Orsay was scarcely able to do much for her son, owing to the narrowness of her income; but no family could be more respectable than hers. Lord Blessington was a weak-minded creature, and his after-dinner conversations, when the wine was in, became wretchedly maudlin.”

However, exit Lord Blessington and end Act One of our tragi-comedy.

X

A SOLEMN UNDERTAKING

Our hero henceforth will occupy the centre of the stage, as a right-minded hero should do, beside him the shadowy figure of his wife gradually fading away into the background until at last quite invisible, and that of the flamboyant personage of the widow of our hero’s dead patron. Truly ironical; while Blessington lived and was an “obstacle” in the way of the course of true love there had seemed to D’Orsay to be no other way of settling his fortunes than to marry one or other of Blessington’s daughters, he cared not which. Now that the obstacle had been removed and the widow was free to be openly wooed and won, the path he had chosen to pursue appeared of those ways that had been open to him to be the most stupid. The lady who had been shackled was free; the lover who had been free was now shackled. Fortune is a humorist and her jokes are always at our expense, which makes it difficult for us to laugh with her.

Lady Blessington was clever in the choice of her physician, who prescribed company as a cure for depression of spirits. So we read in her ladyship’s Diary:—

“My old friends Mr and Mrs Mathews, and their clever son have arrived in Paris, and dined here yesterday. Mr Mathews is as entertaining as ever, and his wife as amiable and _spirituelle_. They are excellent as well as clever people, and their society is very agreeable. Charles Mathews, the son, is full of talent, possesses all his father’s powers of imitation, and sings comic songs of his own composition that James Smith himself might be proud to have written.”

Old and young Mathews delighted with their songs and recitations a party attended among others by the Duc and Duchesse de Guiche Madame Crawford and Count Walewski.

Later on we find Rogers and Luttrell calling upon her, and the former chatting of Byron. Lady Blessington mentions a lampoon which the great had written on the little poet, and which Byron had read to her and D’Orsay one day at Genoa.

“I thought you were one of Mr Rogers’s most intimate friends, and so all the world had reason to think, after reading your dedication of the _Giaour_ to him.”

“Yes,” said Byron, with a laugh, “and it is our friendship that gives me the privilege of taking a liberty with him.”

“If it is thus you evince your friendship, I should be disposed to prefer your enmity.”

“Oh!” said Byron, “you could never excite this last sentiment in my heart, for you neither say nor do spiteful things.”

Of Luttrell, Lady Blessington held a high opinion: “His conversation, like a limpid stream, flows smoothly and brightly along, revealing the depths beneath its current, now sparkling over the objects it discloses or reflecting those by which it glides. He never talks for talking’s sake; but his mind is so well filled that, like a fountain which when stirred sends up from its bosom sparkling showers, his mind, when excited, sends forth thoughts no less bright than profound, revealing the treasures with which it is so richly stored. The conversation of Mr Luttrell makes me think, while that of many others only amuses me.”

Luttrell, who was a natural son of Lord Carhampton, was born about 1765, dying in 1851.

Charles Greville tells us of these two friends, they were “always bracketed together, intimate friends, seldom apart, and always hating, abusing, and ridiculing each other. Luttrell’s _bons mots_ and repartees were excellent, but he was less caustic, more good-natured, but in some respects less striking in conversation than his companion, who had more knowledge, more imagination, and though in a different way, as much wit.”

An entry in Henry Greville’s “Diary” is amusing, bearing in mind the above about Rogers and Byron:—

“_Thursday, October 27_ (1836).—Dined with Lady Williams, Lord Lyndhurst, and Rogers. The latter said Lord Byron was very affected, and his conversation rarely agreeable and a constant effort at wit. I said I supposed he knew a great deal and had read. He answered: ‘If you believe Moore he has read everything. I don’t believe he ever read at all!’ Rogers hated Byron, and was absurd enough to be jealous of him.”

Poets do not dwell together in unity.

Rogers even in his young days was known, by reason of his corpse-like appearance, as the Dead Dandy; and later on a wag said to him: “Rogers, you’re rich enough, why don’t you keep your hearse?”

This is a dinner-party that must have been interesting, Lord John Russell, Rogers, Luttrell, Thiers, Mignet, and Poulett Thomson; Lady Blessington says:—

“Monsieur Thiers is a very remarkable person—quick, animated, and observant; nothing escapes him, and his remarks are indicative of a mind of great power. I enjoy listening to his conversation, which is at once full of originality, yet free from the slightest shade of eccentricity.

“Monsieur Mignet, who is the inseparable friend of Monsieur Thiers, reminds me every time I see him of Byron, for there is a striking likeness in the countenance.”

The following reads strangely, so much have our habits and manners changed since 1829:—

“We dined at the Rocher de Cancale yesterday; and Counts S⸺ and Valeski (Walewski) composed our party. The Rocher de Cancale is the Greenwich of Paris; the oysters and various other kinds of fish served up _con gusto_, attracting people to it, as the white-bait draw visitors to Greenwich. Our dinner was excellent, and our party very agreeable.

“A _dîner de restaurant_ is pleasant from its novelty. The guests seem less ceremonious and more gay; the absence of the elegance that marks the dinner-table appointments in a _maison bien montée_, gives a homeliness and heartiness to the repast; and even the attendance of two or three ill-dressed _garçons_ hurrying about, instead of half-a-dozen sedate servants in rich liveries, marshalled by a solemn-looking _maître d’hôtel_ and groom of the chambers, gives a zest to the dinner often wanted in more luxurious feasts.”

Then what shall we say to this for a sleighing-party, save that we would that we also had been there?

“The prettiest sight imaginable was a party of our friends in sledges.… Count A. d’Orsay’s sledge presented the form of a dragon, and the accoutrements and horse were beautiful; the harness was of red morocco, embroidered in gold.… The dragon of Comte A. d’Orsay looked strangely fantastic at night. In the mouth, as well as the eyes, was a brilliant red light; and to a tiger-skin covering, that nearly concealed the cream-coloured horse, revealing only the white mane and tail, was attached a double line of silver-gilt bells, the jingle of which was very musical and cheerful.”

[TO FACE PAGE 96]

Lady Blessington, the D’Orsays, and Marianne Power remained on for some considerable time in Paris after the death of Lord Blessington, the Revolution of 1830 providing them with some excitement. D’Orsay was always out and about, and though his brother-in-law de Guiche was a well-known legitimist and he himself a Bonapartist, the crowd was quite ready to greet the dandy with good-humoured shouts of “Vive le Comte d’Orsay.” Your crowd of _sans-culottes_ dearly loves a dandy.

Here is a quite pretty picture by Lady Blessington:—

“_6th August._—I walked with Comte d’O(rsay) this evening into the Champs Elysées, and great was the change effected there within the last few days. It looks ruined and desolate, the ground cut up by the pieces of cannon and troops as well as the mobs that have made it a thoroughfare, and many of the trees greatly injured, if not destroyed.

“A crowd was assembled around a man who was reading aloud for their edification a proclamation nailed to one of the trees. We paused for a moment to hear it, when some of the persons, recognising my companion, shouted aloud, ‘_Vive le Comte d’Orsay! Vive le Comte d’Orsay!_’ and the cry being taken up by the mass, the reader was deserted, the fickle multitude directing all their attention and enthusiasm to the new-comer.”

D’Orsay’s love of the fine arts induced him to make an effort to save the portrait of the Dauphin by Lawrence which hung in the Louvre. To achieve this he sent two of his servants, Brement, formerly a drill-sergeant in the Guards, and Charles, an ex-Hussar; they found the picture, torn to ribbons and the fragments strewn upon the floor.

As another example of his epistolary style we will quote this following from D’Orsay to Landor, dated Paris, 22nd Août, 1830:—

“Je viens de recevoir votre lettre du 10. Il falloit un aussi
grand événement pour avoir de vos nouvelles. Le fait est que
c’est dans ces grandes circonstances que les gens bien pensant
se retrouvent. Vous donner des détails de tout l’héroïsme qui
a été déployé dans ces journées mémorables, et difficiles il
faudroit un Salluste pour rendre justice, et d’écrire cette
plus belle page de l’histoire des temps modernes. On ne sait
quoi admirer de plus, de la valeur dans l’action, ou de la
modération après la victoire. Paris est tranquille comme la
veille d’un jour de fête, it seroit injuste de dire comme
le lendemain, car la réaction de la veille donne souvent
une apparence _unsettled_, tandis qu’ici tout est digne et
noble, le grand peuple sent sa puissance. Chaque homme se sent
relevé à ses propres yeux, et croiroit manquer à sa nation en
commettant le moindre excès. Vous, véritable philosophe, serait
heureux de voir ce qu’a pu faire l’éducation en 40 années; voir
ce peuple après, ou à l’époque où La Fayette le commanda pour
la première fois, est bien différent; en 1790—l’accouchement
laborieux de la liberté eut des suites funestes, maintenant
l’on peut dire que la mère et l’enfant se portent bien. Notre
présent Roi est le premier citoyen de son pays, il sent bien
que les Rois sont faits pour les peuples, et non les peuples
pour les Rois. Si Charles Dix eut pensé de même s’il eut été
moins Jésuite, nous aurions encore cette Race Capétienne. Ainsi
comme il n’y a aucun moyen curatif connu pour guérir de cette
maladie, il est encore très heureux qu’il ait donné l’excuse
légale pour qu’on renvoye.… La Comtesse et Lady B. ont été d’un
courage sublime, elles se portent bien.… Adieu, pour le moment.
Votre très affectionné,

“D’ORSAY.”

Before leaving Paris for London we must quote from Madden a passage which proves conclusively that not every Irishman has a saving sense of humour. “Shortly before the death of Count d’Orsay’s mother,” he writes, “who entertained feelings of strong attachment for Lady Blessington, the former had spoken with great earnestness of her apprehensions for her son, on account of his tendency to extravagance, and of her desire that Lady Blessington would advise and counsel him, and do her utmost to counteract those propensities which had already been attended with embarrassments, and had occasioned her great fears for his welfare. The promise that was given on that occasion was often alluded to by Lady Blessington, and after her death, by Count d’Orsay.”

Such a solemn undertaking must of course be carried out by an honourable woman, so when the Paris establishment was broken up by Lady Blessington, Count and Countess d’Orsay followed in her train, so that they might be near by to receive her counsel and advice.

XI

SEAMORE PLACE

The London in which D’Orsay was destined to spend the majority of his remaining years, and of which he became so distinguished an ornament is far away from modern London, farther away from us, in fact, in manners, customs and appearance than it was from the metropolis of the England of Queen Elizabeth. Astounding is the change that has come about since the year 1830; the advent of steam and electricity, the stupendous increase of wealth, the extension of education if not of culture, wrought a revolution during the nineteenth century. The first half of that century has rightly been described as “cruel, unlovely, but abounding in vital force.” London was then a city very dull to look upon, very dirty, very dismal; hackney coaches were the chief means of locomotion for those who could not afford to keep their own chariot, and were rumbling, lumbering, bumpy vehicles, whose drivers were dubbed jarvies. Fast young men were beginning to sport a cabriolet or cab; omnibuses were of the future. “Bobbies” had only come into being recently, taking the place of the watchmen and Bow Street runners, who hitherto had taken charge of the public morals. Debtors were treated worse than we now treat criminals; gaming-houses were in abundance, and to their proprietors profitable institutions. Drinking shops were open to any hour of the night, and drinking to excess was only gradually ceasing to be a gentlemanly, even a lordly, diversion; clubs in our modern sense of the word were comparatively few, coffee-houses, chop-houses, and taverns occupying their place to some extent. Restaurants and fashionable hotels were not, and ladies dined at home when their husbands disported themselves abroad. Prize-fighting was in its heyday; duelling was the fashion.

[TO FACE PAGE 100]

To this London, which, however, was not so dull as it looked, D’Orsay came in November 1830, taking up his residence with Lady Blessington and his wife in St James’ Square. But Lady Blessington soon found that her jointure of £2000 a year could not by any stretching meet the expenses of such an establishment, and that a removal to cheaper quarters was compulsory. D’Orsay and his wife took furnished lodgings in Curzon Street, but later on joined Lady Blessington in the house in Seamore Place, which she had rented from Lord Mountford and furnished with an extravagance worthy of an ill-educated millionaire. As for example, let us take a peep into the library—Lady Blessington was very literary—which looked out upon Hyde Park; the ceiling was arched and from it hung a lamp of splendour; there were enamelled tables crowded with costly trinkets and knick-knacks; the walls were lined with a medley of mirrors and book-cases, with as chief adornment Lawrence’s delightful portrait of the mistress of the house, now in the Wallace Collection. The dining-room was octagonal, and environed by mirrors; it was an age of mirrors and cut glass.

Joseph Jekyll writes on June 20th, 1831: “_Nostra senora_, of Blessington, has a house of _bijoux_ in Seymour (_sic_) Place. Le Comte d’Orsay, an Antinous of beauty and an exquisite of Paris, married the rich daughter of Lord Blessington, and they live here with _la belle mère_.” And on 18th July:—“The Countess of Blessington gave a dinner to us on Friday. Lord Wilton, General Phipps, Le Comte d’Orsay, and myself—_Cuisine de Paris exquise_. The pretty melancholy Comtesse glided in for a few minutes, and then left us to nurse her influenza. The Misses Berry tell me they have dined with the Speaker and wife, who have thrown my Blessington overboard.[6] The English at Naples called my friend the Countess of Cursington.”

In January of the next year Jekyll was again present at a dinner in Seamore Place, other guests being George Colman, James Smith, Rogers and Campbell; “There was wit, fun, epigram, and raillery enough to supply fifty county members for a twelvemonth. _Miladi_ has doffed her widow’s weeds, and was almost in pristine beauty. Her house is a _bijou_, or, as Sir W. Curtis’ lady said, ‘a perfect bougie.’”

At Seamore Place Lady Blessington, with D’Orsay as ally and master of the ceremonies, gathered around her many of the most interesting and distinguished men of the time—statesmen, soldiers, writers, painters, musicians, actors, and many gay butterflies of fashion.

But the triple alliance was soon reduced to a dual, Lady Harriet leaving Seamore Place, her husband and her stepmother—who doubtless had given her much good counsel and advice—in August, 1831. It was not, however, until February, 1838, that a formal deed of separation was executed. This diminution of the number of the household in nowise damped the gaiety of the two who were left behind, indeed the presence of the child-wife must often have been a wet-blanket. As far as D’Orsay was concerned, she had fulfilled her fate by supplying him with an income, which he speedily overspent and frittered away. It is surely a blot upon our social economy that such a man should have been driven to such a course in order to secure the means of living. There ought to be a young-age pension for dandies, and their debts ought to be paid by the State, thus leaving them free to do their duty without harassing cares as to ways and means. A dandy of the first water is a public benefactor and as such should be subsidised.

Nathaniel Parker Willis, an American journalist and verse writer, who wrote much that is now little read, has given accounts of various visits paid by him to Lady Blessington and D’Orsay, to the mistress and to her master, at Seamore Place, and, as was the case with others who went there, apparently accepted the Count’s constant presence as quite natural. In truth, why should he not frequent the house of his adorable stepmother-in-law? Even when he was not chaperoned by his wife?

On the occasion of his first call Willis found Lady Blessington reclining on a yellow satin sofa, book in hand, her bejewelled fingers blazing with diamonds. He tells us that he judged her ladyship to be on the sunny side of thirty, being more than ten years out in his surmise, which proves that either the lady was extremely well preserved or the visitor too dazzled by her beauty or her diamonds to be in full possession of his powers of observation. But then, what man could be so ungallant as to guess any pretty woman’s age at more than thirty?

She was dressed in blue satin, which against the yellow of the couch must have produced an hysterically Whistlerian fantasia. Willis describes her features as regular and her mouth as expressive of unsuspecting good-humour; her voice now sad, now merry, and always melodious.

To them enter D’Orsay in all his splendour, to whom the fascinated Willis was presented.

Thereon followed tea and polite conversation, the talk very naturally turning upon America and the Americans, Lady Blessington being anxious to learn in what esteem such writers as the young Disraeli and Bulwer were held in the States.

“If you will come to-morrow night,” she said, “you will see Bulwer. I am delighted that he is popular in America. He is envied and abused—for nothing, I believe, except for the superiority of his genius, and the brilliant literary success it commands; and knowing this, he chooses to assume a pride which is only the armour of a sensitive mind afraid of a wound. He is to his friends the most frank and noble creature in the world, and open to boyishness with those whom he thinks understand and value him. He has a brother, Henry,[7] who is also very clever in a different vein, and is just now publishing a book on the present condition of France.[8] Do they like the D’Israelis in America?”

Willis replied that the _Curiosities of Literature_, _Vivian Grey_ and _Contarini Fleming_ were much appreciated.

To which Lady Blessington graciously responded:

“I am pleased at that, for I like them both. D’Israeli the elder came here with his son the other night. It would have delighted you to see the old man’s pride in him, and the son’s respect and affection for his father. D’Israeli the elder lives in the country, about twenty miles from town; seldom comes up to London, and leads a life of learned leisure, each day hoarding up and dispensing forth treasures of literature. He is courtly, yet urbane, and impresses one at once with confidence in his goodness. In his manners, D’Israeli the younger is quite his own character of ‘Vivian Grey’; full of genius and eloquence, with extreme good-nature, and a perfect frankness of character.”

After some further desultory chat, Willis asked Lady Blessington if she knew many Americans, to which the reply was—

“Not in London, but a great many abroad. I was with Lord Blessington in his yacht at Naples when the American fleet was lying there … and we were constantly on board your ships. I knew Commodore Creighton and Captain Deacon extremely well, and liked them particularly. They were with us frequently of an evening on board the yacht or the frigate, and I remember very well the bands playing always ‘God save the King’ as we went up the side. Count d’Orsay here, who spoke very little English at the time, had a great passion for ‘Yankee Doodle,’ and it was always played at his request.”

Thereupon D’Orsay, in his pleasant, broken English, inquired after several of the officers, who, however, it turned out were not known to Willis. The conversation afterward turned upon Byron, and Willis asked Lady Blessington if she knew the Countess Guiccioli.

“Yes, very well. We were at Genoa when they were living there, but we never saw her. It was at Rome, in 1828, that I first knew her, having formed her acquaintance at Count Funchal’s, the Portuguese Ambassador.”

In the evening Willis availed himself of the invitation he had received, finding Lady Blessington now in the drawing-room, with some half dozen or so of men in attendance. Among these was James Smith, an intimate of D’Orsay’s, in whose gaiety and _savoir-faire_ he delighted. A pleasant story is this of later days, when Smith met the Countess Guiccioli at Gore House. After dinner these two chatted confidentially for the remainder of the evening, chiefly of their reminiscences of Byron, Leigh Hunt and Shelley. D’Orsay saw Smith home to his residence in Craven Street, and as he parted with him, asked—

“What was all that Madame Guiccioli was saying to you just now?”

“She was telling me her apartments are in the Rue de Rivoli, and that if I visited the French capital she hoped I would not forget her address.”

“What! It took all that time to say that? Ah! Smeeth, you old humbug! That won’t do!”

James Smith, who, with his brother Horace, was the author of the _Rejected Addresses_, was born in 1775.[9] He was a wit in talk and in prose as well as on paper and in verse. Here are some lines he addressed to Lady Blessington when she moved westward to Gore House—

“You who erst, in festive legions,
Sought in _May Fair_, _Seamore_ Place,
Henceforth in more westward regions
Seek its ornament and grace.

“Would you _see more_ taste and splendour,
Mark the notice I rehearse—
Now at Kensington attend her—
Farther on, you _may fare_ worse.”

Gout and rheumatism afflicted him sorely in his latter years, though his face retained its hale good looks. At Seamore Place—and on similar occasions—he was compelled to move about with the aid of a crutch, or in a wheel-chair, which he could manœuvre himself, his feet sometimes encased in india-rubber shoes. Despite his infirmities his smile was always bright and his tongue ready with a witticism.

When Jekyll asked him why he had never married, the response came in verse—

“Should I seek Hymen’s tie?
As a poet I die,
Ye Benedicts mourn my distresses.
For what little fame
Is annexed to my name,
Is derived from _Rejected Addresses_.”

But we must return to the drawing-room in Seamore Place.

On the other side of the hostess, busily discussing a speech of Dan O’Connell, stood a dapper little man, rather languid in appearance, but with winning, prepossessing manners, and a playful, ready tongue; Henry Bulwer. There were others, such as a German prince and a French duke and a famous traveller. And—there was D’Orsay, a host in himself in both senses of the word, the best-looking, best-dressed, most fortunate man in the room; yet despite it all—there he sat in a careless attitude upon an ottoman.

It was nearly twelve o’clock, the witching hour, before Mr Lytton Bulwer (“Pelham”) was announced, who ran gaily up to his hostess, and was greeted with a cordial chorus of “How d’ye, Bulwer?” Gay, quick, partly satirical, his conversation was fresh and buoyant. A dandy, too!

Toward three o’clock i’ the morn James Smith made a move and Willis his exit.

In June 1834, Willis dined at Seamore Place, the hour appointed being the then unusually late one of eight o’clock. Again the company, who were awaiting the arrival of Tom Moore, was of mingled nationalities—a Russian count, an Italian banker, an English peer, Willis an American, and for host and hostess, a French count and an Irish peeress. Lady Blessington took the lead—so says Willis, and he should know for he was there, lucky dog—in the war of witty words that waged round the dinner-table, and we may be sure that D’Orsay was not among the hindmost.

The talk was turned by Moore upon duelling—

“They may say what they will of duelling; it is the great preserver of the decencies of society. The old school, which made a man responsible for his words, was the better. I must confess I think so.” He then told an amusing story of an Irishman—of all men on earth!—who “refused a challenge on account of the illness of his daughter,” and one of the Dublin wits made a good epigram on the two—

“Some men, with a horror of slaughter,
Improve on the Scripture command;
And ‘honour their’—wife and their daughter—
‘That their days may be long in the land.’”

The “two” being the gentleman above referred to, and O’Connell, who had pleaded his wife’s illness as an excuse upon a similar occasion.

“The great period of Ireland’s glory,” continued Moore, “was between ’82 and ’98, and it was a time when a man almost lived with a pistol in his hand. Grattan’s dying advice to his son was: ‘Be always ready with the pistol!’ He himself never hesitated a minute.”

This we must take as a mere spark from the coruscations of brilliancy that fell from the lips of the beautiful hostess and her clever guests, from whom she had the art of drawing their best.

Coffee was served in the drawing-room. Moore was persuaded to sing. Singing always to his own accompaniment and in a fashion that more nearly approached to recitation than to ordinary singing, Moore was possessed of peculiar gifts in the arousing of the emotions of his hearers, and accounted any performance a failure that did not receive the award of tears. On this occasion, after two or three songs chosen by Lady Blessington, his fingers wandered apparently aimlessly over the keys for a while, and then with poignant pathos he sang—

“When first I met thee, warm and young,
There shone such truth about thee,
And on thy lip such promise hung,
I did not dare to doubt thee.
I saw thee change, yet still relied,
Still clung with hope the fonder,
And thought, though false to all beside,
From me thou could’st not wander.
But go, deceiver! go—
The heart, whose hopes could make it
Trust one so false, so low,
Deserves that thou should’st break it.”

Then when the last note had died away, he said “Good-night” to his hostess, and before the silence was otherwise broken—was gone.

Dizzy was party to a famous duel which did not come off, consequent on fiery language used by O’Connell, who courteously rated him thus: “He is the most degraded of his species and his kind, and England is degraded in tolerating and having on the face of her society a miscreant of his abominable, foul and atrocious nature. His name shows that he is by descent a Jew. They were once the chosen people of God. There were miscreants amongst them, however, also, and it must certainly have been from one of these that Disraeli descended. He possesses just the qualities of the impenitent thief that died upon the cross, whose name I verily believe must have been Disraeli.”

Dizzy put himself in D’Orsay’s hands, but the latter thought that it would scarcely be becoming for a foreigner to be mixed up in a political duel, though he consented to “stage-manage” the affair, which never came off, owing to O’Connell’s oath never again to fight a duel.

D’Orsay was exceedingly ingenious in drawing out the peculiarities of any eccentric with whom he came in contact, among his principal butts being M. Julien le Jeune de Paris, as he dubbed himself; he had played his small part in the French Revolution and had been employed by Robespierre. This queer old gentleman had perpetrated a considerable quantity of fearful poetry, portions of which it was his delight to recite. These effusions he called “_Mes Chagrins_,” and carried about with him written out upon sheets of foolscap, which peeped out modestly from the breast-pocket of his coat. It was D’Orsay’s delight when M. Julien visited Seamore Place to induce him to recite a “_Chagrin_,” the doing of which reduced the old man to tears of sorrow and the listeners to tears of laughter. One evening a large party was assembled, among whom were M. Julien, James Smith, Madden, and Dr Quin, a physician whom young Mathews describes as “The ever genial Dr Quin … inexhaustible flow of fun and good-humour.” D’Orsay gravely begged Julien to oblige the company, and overcame his assumed reluctance, by the appeal—

“N’est ce pas Madden vous n’avez jamais entendu les Chagrins politiques de notre cher ami, Monsieur Julien?”

“Jamais,” Madden stammered out, stifling a laugh.

“Allons, mon ami,” D’Orsay continued, turning again to his victim, “ce pauvre Madden a bien besoin d’entendre vos Chagrins politiques—il a les siens aussi—il a souffert—lui—il a des sympathies pour les blessés, il faut lui donner ce triste plaisir—n’est ce pas, Madden?”

“Oui,” gurgled Madden.

Then the funereal fun began. Julien planted himself at the upper end of the room, near to a table upon which some wax candles were burning, and drew forth his “_Chagrins_” from his breast. Lady Blessington seated herself at his left hand, gazing solicitously into his face; at his other hand stood D’Orsay, ever and anon pressing his handkerchief to his eyes, and turning at one of the saddest moments to Madden, and whispering, “Pleurez donc!”

Quin, looking amazingly youthful, made his appearance during a particularly melting “_Chagrin_,” wherein the author, supposed to be in chase of capricious happiness, exclaimed:—

“Le bonheur! le voilà!
Ici! Ici! La! La!
En haut, en bas! En bas!”

The doctor entered into the spirit of the affair, and whenever D’Orsay acclaimed any passage, would chime in with “Magnifique!” “Superbe!” “Vraiment beau!”

The recital ended as usual in a flood of tears.

But D’Orsay was not yet contented, but must be further plaguing the tearful old gentleman. He whispered mysteriously to him, drawing his attention to Quin and James Smith.

“Ah! Que c’est touchant!” exclaimed Julien. “Ah! mon Dieu! Ce tendre amour filial comme c’est beau! comme c’est touchant!”

Then D’Orsay went up to Quin, and to his amazement said—

“Allez, mon ami, embrassez votre père! Embrassez le, mon pauvre enfant,” then added, pointing to Smith, who was holding out his arms, “C’est toujours comme ça, toujours comme ça, ce pauvre garçon—avant le monde il a honte d’embrasser son père.”

Quin took the cue; jumped from his chair, and flung himself violently in Smith’s arms, nearly upsetting the gouty old gentleman. Locked in each other’s arms, they exclaimed—“Oh, fortunate meeting! Oh, happy reconciliation! Oh, fond father! Oh, affectionate son!” while D’Orsay stood beside them overwhelmed with emotion, Julien equally and really affected, sobbing, gasping, and exclaiming—

“Ah! Mon Dieu! Que c’est touchant! Pauvre jeune homme! Pauvre père!”

[TO FACE PAGE 114]

Lord William Pitt Lennox first met Louis Napoleon at Seamore Place, also the Countess Guiccioli:—

“My first acquaintance with Napoleon,” he says, “was at an evening party at the Countess of Blessington’s, in Seymour Place. On arriving there my attention was attracted to two individuals, whom I had never previously seen. The one was a lady, who appeared to have numbered nearly forty years, with the most luxuriant gold-coloured hair, blue eyes and fresh complexion, that I ever saw. The other a gentleman, who, from the deference paid him, was evidently a distinguished foreigner. Before I had time to ascertain the name of the latter, a friend remarked: ‘How handsome the Guiccioli is looking this evening!’

“‘Splendidly,’ I replied, as the idea flashed across my mind that the _incognita_ must be Byron’s ‘fair-haired daughter of Italia,’ Teresa Gamba, Countess Guiccioli. ‘Do you know Madame Guiccioli?’ I asked.

“‘Yes,’ responded my companion; ‘I met her at Venice, and shall be delighted to present you.…’”

“While conversing with the Guiccioli, Count d’Orsay approached us, and, apologising for his intrusion, said that Prince Louis Napoleon was anxious to be introduced to me, with a view to thanking me for my kind advice. Accordingly, I took leave of madame, but not before I had received her permission to call upon her at Sablonière’s Hotel, in what the ordinary frequenters of Leicester Square call ‘_le plus beau quartier de Londres_.’”

The advice referred to had come in a round-about way to Louis Napoleon, and had reference to the projected duel with Léon.[10]

XII

HANDSOME IS—

What manner of man was D’Orsay at this period of his life, when he was treading so gaily the primrose way of pleasure as a man about London town? What were his claims to the reputation he gained as a dandy and a wit? How did he appear to his contemporaries?

That he was generally liked and by many looked on with something approaching to affection there is ample evidence to prove. Was ever a social sinner so beloved? Was dandy ever so trusted?

He was strikingly handsome in face and figure, of that his portraits assure us. One enthusiast tells us: “He was incomparably the handsomest man of his time … uniting to a figure scarcely inferior in the perfection of its form to that of Apollo, a head and face that blended the grace and dignity of the Antinous with the beaming intellect of the younger Bacchus, and the almost feminine softness and beauty of the Ganymede.”

He was an adept in the mysteries of the toilet, as careful of his complexion as a professional _belle_; revelling in perfumed baths; equipped with an enormous dressing-case fitted in gold, as became the prince of dandies, which he carried everywhere, though it took two men to lift it.

As to clothes, he led the fashion by the nose, and led it whithersoever he wished. He indulged in extravagances, which he knew his reputation and his figure could carry off, and then laughed to see his satellites and toadies making themselves ridiculous by adopting them. His tailor, Herr Stultz, is reported to have proudly described himself as “Tailor to M. le Comte d’Orsay,” full well knowing that the recommendation of mere royalty could carry no such weight. Where D’Orsay led the way all men of fashion must follow. Indeed, it was said that D’Orsay was fully aware of the value of his patronage, and that he expected his tailors to express substantial gratitude for it. When clothes arrived at Seamore Place, in the most mysterious manner banknotes had found their way into their pockets. Once when this accident had not happened, D’Orsay bade his valet return the garment with the message that “the lining of the pockets had been forgotten.”

The ordinary man, as regards his costume, takes care about the main points and permits the details to take care of themselves. Not so your true dandy. Thus we find D’Orsay writing to Banker Moritz Feist at Frankfort: “Will you send me a dozen pair of gloves colour ‘feuille-morte,’ such as they have on sale at the Tyrolean glove shops? They ought to fit your hand (that’s a compliment!), and (this is a fib!) I’ll send along the cash.”

D’Orsay was sometimes quite unkind when friends spoke to him on the subject of some new garment he was sporting.

Gronow meeting D’Orsay one day arrayed in a vest of supreme originality, exclaimed: “My dear Count, you really must give me that waistcoat.”

“Wiz pleasure, Nogrow,”—the Count’s comical misrendering of Gronow’s name—“but what shall you do wiz him? Aha! he shall make you an dressing-gown.”

What the Count could carry off would have extinguished the less-distinguished Gronow.

In Hyde Park, at the happy hour when all “the world” assembled there, some driving, some riding, some strolling, some leaning on the railings and quizzing the passers-by, D’Orsay was to be seen in all his glory. An afternoon lounge in the Park was as delightful then as it is nowadays.

To quote Patmore:—

“See! what is this vision of the age of chivalry, that comes careering towards us on horseback, in the form of a stately cavalier, than whom nothing has been witnessed in modern times more noble in air and bearing, more splendid in person, more _distingué_ in dress, more consummate in equestrian skill, more radiant in intellectual expression, and altogether more worthy and fitting to represent one of those knights of the olden time, who warred for truth and beauty, beneath the banner of Cœur de Lion. It is Count D’Orsay.”

This language is as dazzling as the vision itself must have been!

Writing of various fashions in horsemanship, Sidney says:—

“As late as 1835 it was the fashion for the swells or dandies of the period—Count d’Orsay, the Earl of Chesterfield, and their imitators—to tittup along the streets and in the Park with their toes just touching the stirrups, which hung three inches lower than in the hunting-field.”

Abraham Hayward rode in the Park with D’Orsay in March 1838, “to the admiration of all beholders, for every eye is sure to be fixed upon him, and the whole world was out, so that I began to tremble for my character.”

Here is another contemporary account, which deals rather with the outer habit than with knight-like man:—

“From the colour and tie of the kerchief which adorned his neck, to the spurs ornamenting the heels of his patent boots, he was the original for countless copyists, particularly and collectively. The hue and cut of his many faultless coats, the turn of his closely-fitting inexpressibles, the shade of his gloves, the knot of his scarf, were studied by the motley multitude with greater interest and avidity than objects more profitable and worthy of their regard, perchance, could possibly hope to obtain. Nor did the beard that flourished luxuriantly upon the delicate and nicely-chiselled features of the Marquis (Count) escape the universal imitation. Those who could not cultivate their scanty crops into the desirable arrangement, had recourse to art and stratagem to supply the natural deficiency.”

D’Orsay was indeed the Prince of the Dandies, it might be more truthfully said, the Tyrant. What he did and wore, they must do and wear; the cut of his coat and the cut of his hair, the arrangement of his tie—the Prince could do no wrong. Of this sincere form of flattery a comical tale is told. Riding back to town one day, as usual capitally mounted, D’Orsay was overtaken by a downpour of rain. The groom, who usually carried an overcoat for his master, had this day forgotten to bring it. D’Orsay was equal to this as to most occasions. He spied a sailor who wore a long, heavy waistcoat which kept him snug.

“Hullo, friend,” called out D’Orsay, pulling up, “would you like to go into that inn and drink to my health until the rain’s over?”

The sailor was naturally enough somewhat surprised, and asked D’Orsay why he was chaffing him.

“I’m not,” said D’Orsay, dismounting and going into the inn, followed by the sailor, “but I want your vest, sell it me.”

He took out and offered the poor devil ten guineas, assuring him at the same time that he “could buy another after the rain was over.”

D’Orsay put on the vest over his coat, buttoned it from top to bottom, remounted and rode on to town.

The rain passed over, the sun came out again, and as it was the proper hour to show himself in Hyde Park, D’Orsay showed himself.

“How original! How charming! How delicious!” cried the elegant dandies, astonished by D’Orsay’s new garment, “only a D’Orsay could have thought of such a creation!”

The next day dandies similarly enveloped were “the thing,” and thus the paletot was invented.