Part 19

Then on the 5th, possibly the 6th, of December 1851, D’Orsay sends over to Hayward for publication in the English Press, the letter published in Paris on the 4th by Jérôme, which was scarcely calculated to please nephew Louis. Two lines in D’Orsay’s covering note are striking:—“I always think of dear old England, that one must like every day more from what we see everywhere else.”

On 2nd January, of the year following, D’Orsay writes a long and interesting letter to Hayward, in which he says emphatically that he was and is strongly opposed to the _coup d’état_, and that on account of it Louis Napoleon had sunk in his estimation, as he had believed him to be a man as good as his word. He held that Napoleon would have “arrived” without employing illegitimate means, and that Republicanism was an almost negligible quantity. After discussing the standing of various leaders and parties, he continues:—

“Vous voyez que je suis juste et impartial, quoique je suis reconnu, depuis 40 années, d’être le plus grand et le plus sincère Napoléonien qui existe.” And: “Vous ne pouvez concevoir à quel point les gens ici sont courtisans et plats valets; vanité et succès sont les deux mots d’ordres.… Tout marche à l’Empire.” In conclusion: “Ah! if I were rich, I would soon be in London. Here I am an exile.”

A few days later he writes again to much the same purport, and says: “J’ai l’air d’être dans une opposition, parce que je n’approuve pas la route que Louis a pris pour arriver où il en est maintenant.” Who can doubt that Louis Napoleon blundered in not asking for and accepting D’Orsay’s advice? But then it was natural that he should not have done so; the little seldom care to accept the aid of the great.

XXIX

DEATH

In the early part of 1852 a trouble of the spine became apparent, causing poor D’Orsay much pain and sickness, which he bore with admirable and uncomplaining patience. In July the doctors ordered him to Dieppe, whither he went accompanied by the faithful Misses Power; but it was too late; death was evidently at hand. At the end of the month he returned to Paris, to die.

On 2nd August, the Archbishop of Paris visited him, and on parting, embraced him, saying: “J’ai pour vous plus que de l’amitié, j’ai de l’affection.” The next day he received the last consolations of the Church at the hands of the curé of Chambourcy.

Madden had visited him during his last weeks, and has left a strange account of an interview with him, which must be quoted verbatim:—

“The wreck only of the _beau_ D’Orsay was there.

“He was able to sit up and walk, though with difficulty and evidently with pain, about his room, which was at once his studio, reception room, and sleeping apartment. He burst out crying when I entered the room, and continued for a length of time so much affected that he could hardly speak to me. Gradually he became composed, and talked about Lady Blessington’s death, but all the time with tears pouring down his pale wan face, for even then his features were death-stricken.

“He said with marked emphasis: ‘_In losing her I lost everything in this world—she was to me a mother! a dear, dear mother!_ a true _loving mother to me!_’ While he uttered these words he sobbed and cried like a child. And referring to them, he again said: ‘_You understand_ me, Madden.’”

Madden believed D’Orsay to have been speaking in all sincerity. What are we to believe? There is something almost terrible in this scene of the dying dandy, broken down in body and spirits, making a gallant effort to clear the name he had for years besmirched. But the statements of the dying must not be allowed to weigh against the deeds of the living. And would the dead lady have been pleased?

Madden continues:—

“I said, among the many objects which caught my attention in the room, I was very glad to see a crucifix placed over the head of his bed; men living in the world as he had done, were so much in the habit of forgetting all early religious feelings. D’Orsay seemed hurt at the observation. I then plainly said to him:—

“‘The fact is, I imagined, or rather I supposed, you had followed Lady Blessington’s example, if not in giving up your own religion, in seeming to conform to another more in vogue in England.’

“D’Orsay rose up with considerable energy, and stood erect and firm with obvious exertion for a few seconds, looking like himself again, and pointing to the head of the bed, he said:

“‘Do you see those two swords?’ pointing to two small swords (which were hung over the crucifix crosswise); ‘do you see that sword to the right? With that sword I fought in defence of my religion.’”

He then briefly narrated the story of the duel which we have already told.

During his last illness, D’Orsay received from the Emperor the appointment of Director of Fine Arts. The honour came too late.

At three o’clock in the morning of the fourth of August 1852, aged fifty-one, died Alfred, Count d’Orsay, the last and the greatest of the dandies.

He was buried at Chambourcy; the same monument covers his ashes and those of Lady Blessington. In the absence of the Duke de Grammont, who was confined to bed by illness, D’Orsay’s nephews, Count Alfred de Grammont and the Duke de Lespare, were the chief mourners; the Duchesse de Grammont, his sister, was there, and among others Prince Napoleon, Count de Montaubon, M. Emile de Girardin, M. Charles Lafitte, M. Alexandre Dumas fils, Mr Hughes Ball, and several other Englishmen.

Gronow says: “His death produced, both in London and Paris, a deep and universal regret.”

But one who did not love him, Count Horace de Viel Castel, whom we have before quoted, did not join in the chorus of regrets:—

“Count d’Orsay is dead, and all the papers are mourning his loss. He leaves behind him they say, many _chefs-d’œuvres_, and on his death-bed requested Clésinger to finish his bust of Prince Jérôme.

“D’Orsay had no talent; his statuettes are detestable and his busts very bad; but a certain set cried him up for their own purposes, and called him a great man. One newspaper goes so far as to affirm that on hearing of his death the President said: ‘I have lost my best friend,’ a statement which I know to be perfectly false.

“D’Orsay’s friends were the President’s enemies—the Jérôme Bonapartes, Emile de Girardin, Lamartine, etc. He never pardoned the Prince for not appointing him Ambassador to the Court of St James’, forgetting, or purposely ignoring, the fact that such a thing was impossible. No Government would have received him. His debts are fabulous.… The papers inform us that he has been buried at Chambourcy (on the property of his sister, the Duchesse de Grammont) in the same grave as his mother-in-law, Lady Blessington. The incident is sublime; to make it complete, perhaps they will engrave on his tombstone: ‘That his inconsolable and heart-broken widow, etc. etc.’

“He died ten years too late, for he became at last merely a ridiculous old doll. The President does not lose his best friend; on the contrary, he is well rid of, a compromising schemer.”

Clésinger one day asked D’Orsay why he did not come to see him oftener.

“Because people say that it is I who make your statues,” responded D’Orsay, with a smile.

“Really!” replied the sculptor, “I will come and see you; no one would accuse me of being guilty of _yours_.”

Dickens wrote in _Household Words_: “Count d’Orsay, whose name is publicly synonymous with elegant and graceful accomplishments; and who, by those who knew him well, is affectionately remembered and regretted, as a man whose great abilities might have raised him to any distinction, and whose gentle heart even a world of fashion left unspoiled.”

Landor writes:—

“The death of poor, dear D’Orsay fell heavily tho’ not unexpectedly upon me. Intelligence of his painful and hopeless malady reached me some weeks before the event. With many foibles and grave faults, he was generous and sincere. Neither spirits nor wit ever failed him, and he was ready at all times to lay down his life for a friend. I felt a consolation in the loss of Lady Blessington in the thought how unhappy she would have been had she survived him. The world will never more see united such graceful minds, so much genius and pleasantry, as I have met, year after year, under her roof.…”

Macready:—

“To my deep grief perceived the notice of the death of dear Count d’Orsay. No one who knew him and had affections could help loving him. When he liked he was most fascinating and captivating. It was impossible to be insensible to his graceful, frank, and most affectionate manner.… He was the most brilliant, graceful, endearing man I ever saw—humorous, witty, and clear-headed.”

D’Orsay’s good friend, Emile de Girardin, wrote in _La Presse_ of August 5th, 1852:—

Le Comte d’Orsay est mort ce matin à trois heures.

“La douleur et le vide de cette mort seront vivement ressentis par tous les amis qu’il comptait en si grand nombre en France et en Angleterre, dans tous les rangs de la société, et sous tous les drapeaux de la politique.

“A Londres, les salons de Gore House furent toujours ouverts à tous les proscrits politiques, qu’ils s’appelassent Louis Bonaparte ou Louis Blanc, à tous les naufragés de la fortune et à toutes les illustrations de l’art et de la science.

“A Paris, il n’avait qu’un vaste atelier, mais quiconque allait frapper au nom d’un malheur à secourir ou d’un progrès à encourager, était toujours assuré du plus affable accueil et du plus cordial concours.

“Avant le 2 Décembre, nul ne fit d’efforts plus réitérés pour que la politique suivît un autre cours et s’élevât aux plus hautes aspirations.

“Après le 2 Décembre, nul ne s’employa plus activement pour amortir les coups de la proscription: Pierre Dupont[38] le sait et peut le certifier.

“Le Président de la République n’avait pas d’ami à la fois plus dévoué et plus sincère que le Comte d’Orsay; et c’est quand il venait de la rapprocher de lui par le titre et les fonctions de surintendant des beaux-arts qu’il le perd pour toujours.

“C’est une perte irréparable pour l’art et pour les artistes, mais c’est une perte plus irréparable encore pour la Vérité et pour le Président de la République, car les palais n’ont que deux portes ouvertes à la Vérité: la porte de l’amitié et la porte de l’adversité, de l’amitié qui est à l’adversité ce que l’éclair est à la foudre.

“La justice indivisible, la justice égale pour tous, la justice dont la mort tient les balances, compte les jours quand elle ne mesure pas les dons. Alfred d’Orsay avait été comblé de trop de dons—grand cœur, esprit, un goût pur, beauté antique, force athlétique, adresse incomparable à tous les exercises du corps, aptitude incontestâble à tous les arts auxquels il s’était adonné; dessin, peinture, sculpture—Alfred d’Orsay avait été comblé de trop de dons pour que ses jours ne fussent pas parcimonieusement comptés. La mort a été inexorable, mais elle a été juste. Elle ne l’a pas traité en homme vulgaire. Elle ne l’a pas pris, elle l’a choisi.”

There is one more general summary of his character which must be given. Grantley Berkeley tells a pleasant story of a dinner at the Old Ship Hotel at Greenwich:—

“I remember a dinner at the Ship, where there were a good many ladies, and where D’Orsay was of the party, during which his attention was directed to a centre pane of glass in the bay-window over the Thames, where some one had written, in large letters, with a diamond, D’Orsay’s name in improper conjunction with a celebrated German _danseuse_ then fulfilling an engagement at the Opera. With characteristic readiness and _sang-froid_, he took an orange from a dish near him, and, making some trifling remark on the excellence of the fruit, tossed it up once or twice, catching it in his hand again. Presently, as if by accident, he gave it a wider cant, and sent it through the window, knocking the offensive words out of sight into the Thames.”

Then he continues:—

“D’Orsay was as clever and agreeable a companion as any in the world, and perhaps as inventive and extravagant in dress as Beau Brummel, though not so original nor so varied in the grades of costume through which his imagination carried him. There were all sorts of hats and garments named after him by their makers, more or less like those he wore, and a good many men copied him to some extent in his attire. He and I adopted the tight wristbands, turned back upon the sleeve of the coat upon the wrist, in which fashion we were not followed by others, I am happy to say.…

“Among the peculiarities and accomplishments for which D’Orsay desired to be famous was that of great muscular strength, as well as a knowledge of all weapons, and when he shook hands with his friends it was with the whole palm, with such an impressive clutch of the fingers as drove the blood from the limb he held, and sent every ring on the hand almost to the bone. The apparent frankness of manner and kind expression in his good-looking face, when he met you with the exclamation, ‘_Ah, ha, mon ami!_’ and grasped you by the hand, were charming, and we, who rather prided ourselves on being able to do strong things, used to be ready for this grasp, and exhibit our muscular powers in return. There is no man who can so well imitate D’Orsay’s method of greeting in this particular as my excellent friend, Dr Quin.

“Poor dear D’Orsay! He was a very accomplished, kind-hearted, and graceful fellow, and much in request in what may be called the fashionable world. I knew him well in his happier hours, I knew him when he was in difficulties, and I knew him in distress; and when in France I heard from Frenchmen that those in his native country to whom he looked for high lucrative employment and patronage, and from whom D’Orsay thought he had some claim to expect them, rather slighted his pretensions; and when in his last, lingering, painful illness,[39] left him to die too much neglected and alone.

“That D’Orsay was unwisely extravagant as well as not over-scrupulous in morality, we know; but that is a man’s own affair, not that of his friends. His faults, whatever they were, were covered, or at least glossed over by real kindness of heart, great generosity, and prompt good-nature, grace in manner, accomplishments, and high courage; therefore, place him side by side with many of the men with whom he lived in England, D’Orsay by comparison would have the advantage in many things.”

XXX

WHAT WAS HE?

Witnesses have been heard for the defence and for the prosecution; the defendant himself has been examined and cross-examined; what is the verdict?

Lamb has told us that we must not take the immoral comedies of the Restoration seriously. His argument does not bear precisely upon the case in point, but it is of assistance. Lamb, speaking of plays, whereas we are writing of history, says: “We have been spoiled with—not sentimental comedy—but a tyrant far more pernicious to our pleasures which has succeeded to it, the exclusive and all-devouring drama of common life.” For “comedy” substitute “history”; for “drama” put “psychology” and we can fit our text to our sermon, a thing often more easy to achieve than to fit one’s sermon to one’s text. We had been surfeited with sentimental history, with the white-washing of sinners and the super-humanising of saints; we therefore turned to what we are pleased to call real life, and taking everything seriously have made everything dull.

Let us return to our Lamb for a moment:—

“I confess for myself that (with no great delinquencies to answer for) I am glad for a season to take an airing beyond the diocese of the strict conscience—not to live always in the precincts of the law-courts—but now and then, for a dream-while or so, to imagine a world with no meddling restrictions—to get into recesses, whither the hunter cannot follow me—

‘⸺ Secret shades Of woody Ida’s inmost grave, While yet there was no fear of Jove.’

I come back to my cage and my restraint the fresher and more healthy for it.”

That is the point of view we must take if we are to judge D’Orsay justly; we must lock up our conscience for the nonce, we must get away from the unimaginative atmosphere of the law-courts, we must snap the shackles of convention which always make it impossible for us to form a fair opinion of the unconventional.

Judged by the standards of life and conduct which must control everyday men and women, D’Orsay was a monster of iniquity, and also, as _Punch_ would put it, he was worse than wicked, he was vulgar. His friends cannot have weighed him by any such standards, or they would have condemned him and scorned him. They could not then have accepted him as one of themselves, as a man to be almost loved; they would have turned cold shoulders to any ordinary mortal who treated the love of woman as a comedy and debts of honour as mere farce.

But your real dandy is not an ordinary man and must not be judged by common standards. He stands outside and above the ordinary rules of life and conduct; he has not any conscience, and questions of morality do not affect him. All that is for us to do in viewing such a one as D’Orsay is to weigh his physical and mental gifts, and to examine the uses to which he put them, to look to the opportunities which were given to him and the advantage which he took of them.

Of the multitude of witnesses whom we have summoned there is not one who denies that D’Orsay was a man of supreme physical beauty, and the portraits of him support their verdict. Good looks that were almost effeminate in their charm were supported by the physique of a perfect man, and in all manly sports and pursuits he was highly accomplished. Of his mental qualities it is not so easy justly to weigh the worth; he was an accomplished amateur in art some say, others deny it, but on the whole the evidence seems to be in his favour; he was endowed with a pleasing habit of talk, though scarcely with wit. He was good-humoured, a _bon garçon_ and good-natured. He was an accomplished _gourmet_. In the art of dress he was supreme. He was more greatly skilled, perhaps, than any other man, in the art of gaining and giving pleasure. He was brave.

Morality, as has been said, does not enter into the consideration of such a man; he was above morality, or outside it. There have been and there are others like him. They are grown-up children, utterly irresponsible; not immoral but unmoral; they “please to live and live to please” themselves. They do not realise that their actions may prove costly to others and therefore do not count the cost. They are children of impulse not of calculation. They are emotional not logical. Pleasure is their pursuit and they shun all that is unpleasing and displeasing. They are so different from us ordinary folk that we cannot appraise them or even fully understand them. Fear of consequences that would appal us have no terrors for them; they do not need to set them aside, they are not aware of them. Conventions which hamper us, for them do not exist. To fulfil the desire of to-day is their one aim and ambition and they take no heed of to-morrow.

It is as a dandy that D’Orsay must be judged, and in that _rôle_ he achieved triumph. It was as a dandy he lived and as a dandy that he is immortal. Such men as he, if indeed there are others with his genius, should—as we have said—be pensioned by the State, should be set above the carking cares of questions of want of pounds—shillings and pence do not trouble them; they should be cherished and sustained as rarely-gifted and rare beings, to whom life presents not any serious problems, and to whom life is a space of time only too brief for all the pleasures which should be crowded into it. “Life’s fitful fever” should be kept apart from such sunny souls, and our only regret should be that there are so few of them.

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”?

FOOTNOTES

[1] De Guiche. See p. 35.

[2] D’Orsay was but twenty at the time of his first appearance in London.

[3] _Cf._ Sterne, _A Sentimental Journey_, ch. i. l. 1.

[4] Sir David Wilkie.

[5] His unsuccessful three-volume novel.

[6] If any, only a temporary estrangement.

[7] Created Baron Dalling and Bulwer in 1871.

[8] _France, Social, Literary and Political._

[9] He died in 1839.

[10] See page 202.

[11] Referring to his devoted wife.

[12] The first mention of His Imperial Majesty Napoleon III., who was an _habitué_ of Gore House, and well known to all who frequented it. The A.D.C. was M. de Persigny, who accompanied the Prince everywhere.—[_Note in Greville._]

[13] Lady Blessington had a good deal more talent and reading than Mr Greville gives her credit for. Several years of her agitated life were spent in the country in complete retirement, where she had no resources to fall back upon but a good library. She was well read in the best English authors, and even in translations of the Classics; but the talent to which she owed her success in society was her incomparable tact and skill in drawing out the best qualities of her guests. What Mr Greville terms her vulgarity might be more charitably described as her Irish cordiality and _bonhomie_. I have no doubt that her _Conversations with Lord Byron_ were entirely written by herself.—[_Note in Greville._]

[14] Forster.

[15] Possibly Lady Canterbury.

[16] If Lady Blessington wrote this in good faith, “our Count” must have deceived her grossly as to the amount of his debts.

[17] Bulwer was at this time _chargé d’affaires_ at Paris.

[18] Son of Lord Tankerville.

[19] Did he love D’Orsay?

[20] The Duke de Guiche, son of D’Orsay’s sister, had been attacked by a wild boar while out hunting.

[21] The inaccuracies here are obvious.

[22] Now (1910) no more.

[23] Better known to us now as Bernal Osborne.

[24] Frederick Henry Yates, actor and theatrical manager. Father of Edmund Yates.

[25] Probably the founder of the famous menagerie.

[26] The first is meant.

[27] _Alias_ Sloman, a well-known catchpole.

[28] A shy cock being a “Sunday” man, such as D’Orsay.

[29] M.P. for Southwark.

[30] At Crockford’s.

[31] In 1880. He was born in 1796.

[32] She never was there. Seamore Place is meant.

[33] Apparently they had been pawned.

[34] See _Infra_.

[35] _I.e._ in Paris.

[36] Of Lady Blessington.

[37] _Vide supra_, p. 225.

[38] The well-known poet and lyricist.

[39] An amazing version of D’Orsay’s death has recently been made public; namely, that in addition to the disease of the spine, the Count suffered also from a carbuncle, which “was a euphemism for a bullet aimed at the Emperor as they were walking together in the gardens of the Elysée.”

Index

A

Abinger, Lord, 177

Adam, fig-leaf breeches, ix

Ainsworth, William Harrison, 191

Alcibiades, xi

Allen, Lord, 124, 140, 220

Alvanley, Lord, 125

Anglesey, Lord, 189

Anson, George, 151

Auckland, Lord, 220

Auldjo, John, 169, 170

Avignon, 46

Avillon, letter to Lady Blessington, 282

B

Ball, Hughes, 304

Ballantine, Sergeant, 204

” on _Star and Garter_, 156

Balmoral brose, 130

Baring, Hon. Francis, 203

Basanville, Comtesse de, 121

Bates, Joshua, 203

Beaconsfield, Lord, 131, 145, 186, 190

” as a dandy, xi, xii, 130, 193, 194

” at Lady Blessington’s, 140

” _Endymion_: Colonel Albert St Barbe, 207

” _Endymion_, quoted, 174

” _Henrietta Temple_, Count Alcibiades de Mirabel, 256 _seq._

” Letter to Lady Blessington, 280

” Meets D’Orsay, 142

” on Louis Napoleon, 201

” on party at Gore House, 172

” _Vivian Grey_, xii, 105, 140, 142, 193

Beauharnois, Eugène, 200

Beckford, 141

Belancour, de, 172

Belvedere Palazzo, 53, 54, 58, 68

” Routine at, 59

Belvedere, Prince and Princess, 53

Berkeley, Grantley, on D’Orsay, 37, 133, 308

” on Gore House, 157

Berry, Misses, 102