Count D'Orsay

“ The Count is an old ‘lion,’ whom nobody now knows or receives. He has lived with his [299] mother-in-law, Lady Blessington, the blue-stocking of the keepsakes, and with everyone but his wife, Lady Henrietta d’Orsay, who was the mistress of the Duke d’Orleans, of Antoine de Noailles, and a host of lesser stars.
“Count d’Orsay for twenty years lived on the aristocracy and the tradespeople of London. Steeped in debt, he has now turned artist, backed by a following of nonentities.... Every year he disfigures some contemporaneous celebrity either in marble or plaster; last time it was Lamartine. ”

“ Count d’Orsay every day regrets that he cannot go and nurse you, and we both often wish you were here, that we might try our power of alleviating your illness, if not of curing you. God bless you, and restore you speedily to health.”
Macready turns up, if we may use words so flippant of a man so serious, at Gore House in 1837. “Reached Lady Blessington’s about a quarter before eight,” he writes. “Found there Fonblanque, Bulwer, Trelawney, Procter, Auldjo, Forster, Lord Canterbury, Fred Reynolds and Mr and Mrs Fairlie, Kenney, a young Manners Sutton, Count d’Orsay and some unknown. ”

“ Fonblanque writes to Lady Blessington:—
[185]
“The falsehood that Count d’Orsay had anything to do with the hoax was sufficiently refuted by all who knew him, by the two circumstances that it was stupid and cruel; and the unique characteristic of D’Orsay is, that the most brilliant wit is uniformly exercised in the most good-natured way. He can be wittier with kindness than the rest of the world with malice.” ”

“ She and D’Orsay were very good friends; there are constant messages to her from him in Lady Blessington’s letters:—“Count d’Orsay charges me with the kindest regards for you; we often think and talk of the pleasant hours passed in your society at Anglesey, when your charming voice and agreeable conversation, gave wings to them.” And: “Comte d’Orsay charges me with mille choses aimables to you; you have, malgré all discussions, secured a very warm and sincere friend in him.” And, writing from Gore House on 15th August 1839: “Your friend Alfred charges me with his kindest regards to you. ”

“ Whatever Count d’Orsay undertakes, seems invariably to be well done. As the arbiter elegantiarum he has reigned supreme in matters of taste and fashion, confirming the attempts of others by his approbation, or gratifying them by his example. To dress, or drive, to shine in the gay world like Count d’Orsay was once the ambition of the youth of England, who then discovered in this model no higher attributes. But if time, who ‘steals our years away,’ steals also our pleasures, he replaces them with others, or substitutes a better thing ”

“ D’Orsay is most generally known as an artist by reason of his large portrait of the Duke of Wellington now in the National Portrait Gallery, upon the completion of which the Duke is said to have shaken hands with the painter, saying: “At last I have been painted like a gentleman! I’ll never sit to anyone else.” And he certainly did write to Lady Blessington:—“You are quite right. Count d’Orsay’s work is of a higher description of art than is described by the word [233] portrait! ”

“ On December 1st 1827, Count Albert d’Orsay, only son of General Count d’Orsay, was married to Lady Harriet Anne Frances Gardiner at the British Embassy at Naples. Never can nuptials have been bigger with ill-fortune, which was the only fruit they bore. ”

“ In 1845 the potato disease seriously affected her jointure, which, after rapidly dwindling, in 1848 finally disappeared. Count d'Orsay, meanwhile, who but a few months after his marriage had been separated from his young wife, had for the last dozen years been living at Gore House with the Countess of Blessington. In April 1849 the long-impending crash came upon both. To escape arrest Count d'Orsay, on the night of the 1st, fled to Paris, taking with him his valet and a single portmanteau. On the 14th Lady Blessington followed him thither. ”

“ Referring to yet another dinner, Lady Blessington writes to Forster from Gore House, on 12th April 1848:—
“Count d’Orsay repeated to me this morning the kind things you said of him when proposing his health. He, I assure you, was touched when he repeated them, and his feelings were infectious, for mine responded. To be highly appreciated by those we most highly value, is, indeed, a source of heartfelt gratification. ”

“ At Crockford’s Lord Lamington, who wrote so understandingly of the dandies, will have met D’Orsay, with whom he was upon excellent terms: “Men did not slouch through life”; he writes, [155] “and it was remarkable how highly they were appreciated by the crowd, not only of the upper but of the lower classes. I have frequently ridden down to Richmond with Count d’Orsay. A striking figure he was in his blue coat with gilt buttons, thrown well back to show the wide expanse of snowy shirt-front and buff waistcoat ”

“ HOLLAND HOUSE
After Lord Blessington died it was arranged that Count d’Orsay should marry his daughter. But the Count separated from his wife a week or two after the wedding, and returned to the widow, whom he never afterwards left, always taking a lodging near her house, and forming part of her household. The Countess d’Orsay, one need not explain, did not visit her stepmother at Gore House. ”

“ Landseer suggested Madame Tussaud’s, an Exhibition which d’Orsay had never before seen; and to Baker Street they went. The Count, charmed with the novelty of the wax figures, was childishly delighted with all he saw, until a moment when he became conscious that his footsteps were being dogged by two suspicious-looking individuals.
“Do you see those men?” said d’Orsay. “They never take their eyes from me.” ”

“ Once he was arrested at the suit of a bootmaker, and was rescued from prison by Lady Blessington's rapidly-emptying purse. The climax came when a sheriff's officer smuggled himself into Gore House, and brought down on d'Orsay's head an avalanche of angry creditors, each resolute to have his "pound of flesh." The Countess was powerless to stem the invasion; her own resources were at an end, the Count himself was penniless. The only safety was in flight; and one day Gore House was found empty. The birds had flown to Paris ”

“ I adore old England, and long to return there. Never did man so suffer as I have done for my loss. [36]
“I wonder at those religious people who hold religion so high that they quickly find consolation. They do not understand, the idiots, that there is a great, a greater faith in a true sorrow which does not heal.
“Adieu, mon brave ami, count always on my affection,
“D’Orsay.”
He found comfort in the companionship of [292] Lady Blessington’s two nieces, Margaret and Ellen. To a certain extent he avoided mixing in society, but we hear of him now and again. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In February 1840, Count Léon came over to London, it being absurdly stated afterward that he had been entrusted by the Tuileries with the pleasing duty of removing Louis Napoleon.
The Prince refused to receive the Count, from whom after some heated correspondence he received a challenge, borne by Lieutenant-Colonel Ratcliffe. Léon refused to engage with swords, so pistols were decided upon; the hour chosen being seven o’clock on the morning of 3rd March, and the place Wimbledon Common. Napoleon was accompanied by D’Orsay and Colonel Parquin. ”

“ For at least two years previous to his final departure from England he went in constant dread of arrest at the instigation of sordid persons, who had not sufficient understanding of the fact that it was an honour to them to help in the support of a great man. There are too many petty-minded people in the world! Just heavens! That a man of D’Orsay’s calibre should be confined to his house and grounds all the days of the week save Sunday, excepting that he could creep forth under cover of darkness! ”

“ Lady Blessington; but D’Orsay possessed a heart and spirit above trifles; the conqueror of to-day does not discount his present pleasure by any foreboding of defeat to-morrow. D’Orsay had conquered London society, almost all the male members of it and not a few of its female; with his wit and his good looks he could gain for love what only money could obtain for less favoured rivals.
Of the fair, frail ones who were to be met with at Gore House one of the most distinguished, if not for good looks, at any rate for the good fortune of having had a famous lover, was the Countess Guiccioli. ”

“ There was not a fashionable haunt of virtue or of vice in which D’Orsay was not quite at home. There was not any fashionable folly or accomplishment in which he was unskilled; a complete man-about-town, gambler, rake and dandy. We need not pursue him in all his pastimes; dead and gone revelries cannot be resurrected with any satisfaction; they smell musty. Let them lie. ”

“ It was an age when even the discomforts of a throne were not an unreasonable aspiration for the most humbly born. With his beauty of face and figure, fascinating manners and high family influence, young D’Orsay must have looked upon the world as a fine fat oyster which he could easily open and from which he could pluck the pearl of success. ”

“ No one but a fool would lift the cup of pleasure to his lips and then set it down before he had drained it dry. D’Orsay looked upon the externals of a luxurious life, and found them very pleasant. The Spartans pointed out the drunken helot to their children, as a warning against tippling. So we may hold out to our young men the life of D’Orsay as an example of what they should all endeavour to be, and as a warning against the sheer foolishness of taking life seriously. ”

“ His money transactions with his friends will not bear scrutiny. Yet when all is said, he counted among the multitude of his friends and admirers such men as Bulwer, Landor, Lamartine, Dickens, Byron, Disraeli and Lyndhurst. John Forster warmed to him, and said that his “pleasantry, wit and kindliness gave him a wonderful fascination.”
What did life mean to D’Orsay? Being a wise man he looked upon the world as a place of pleasant sojourning, of which it was the whole duty of man to make the very best. ”

“ In the grey of the morning, however, D’Orsay, taking every precaution against capture on the way, set out for Paris with a valet, a valise, and an umbrella. The words of a great man at any moment of crisis in his affairs are worth recording; one of D’Orsay’s last remarks in London was: “Well, at least, if I have nothing else, I will have the best umbrella!” ”

“ As a matter of course the circumstances in which he was so ostentatiously living and his general reputation kept D’Orsay outside the houses of those who did not open their doors to everybody, though most male folk were pleased enough to visit him and Lady Blessington at Seamore Place, where of womankind, however, none except relatives and exotics were to be met with. But even a dandy must find occasionally a crumpled rose-leaf in his bed. ”

“ There are mouldy-minded people who put out the finger of scorn at D’Orsay. Is it not the truth that they are jealous of him, and that at the bottom of their hearts there is a muttered prayer: “I would thank God if He had made me such a man”? ”

“ By this document D’Orsay was appointed one of three executors, each of whom received £1000; to Lady Blessington was allotted £2000 British, per annum, and all her own jewels. Then we must quote in full:—“I give to my daughter, Harriet Anne Jane Frances, commonly called Lady Harriet, born at my house in Seymour Place, London, on or about the 3rd day of August 1812, all my estates in the county and city of Dublin, subject to the following charge. Provided she intermarry with my friend, and intended son-in-law, Alfred d’Orsay, I bequeath her the sum of ten thousand pounds only. ”

“ No "wallflowers" were left neglected when D'Orsay was present.
It is strange how completely human beings are in the hands of fate. Here was a young French officer quartered in a provincial town in the valley of the Rhone. Who would have supposed that he was destined to become not only a Londoner, but a favorite at the British court, a model of fashion, a dictator of etiquette, widely known for his accomplishments, the patron of literary men and of distinguished artists? ”

“ 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. ”

“ Even the ardent D’Orsay, while he was thus preparing himself for his life-work and laying the foundation upon which he was to raise so superb a fame, could not in the hours of his highest inspiration have dreamed that Fate was deciding his future in the person of a lovely Irish peeress, the cynosure of London society. ”