LADY BLESSINGTON AND COUNT D'ORSAY
Often there has arisen some man who, either by his natural gifts or byhis impudence or by the combination of both, has made himself arecognized leader in the English fashionable world. One of the first ofthese men was Richard Nash, usually known as "Beau Nash," whoflourished in the eighteenth century. Nash was a man of doubtfulorigin; nor was he attractive in his looks, for he was a huge, clumsycreature with features that were both irregular and harsh.Nevertheless, for nearly fifty years Beau Nash was an arbiter offashion. Goldsmith, who wrote his life, declared that his supremacy wasdue to his pleasing manners, "his assiduity, flattery, fine clothes,and as much wit as the ladies had whom he addressed." He converted thetown of Bath from a rude little hamlet into an English Newport, ofwhich he was the social autocrat. He actually drew up a set of writtenrules which some of the best-born and best-bred people follow slavishly.
Even better known to us is George Bryan Brummel, commonly called "BeauBrummel," who by his friendship with George IV.--then PrinceRegent--was an oracle at court on everything that related to dress andetiquette and the proper mode of living. His memory has been kept alivemost of all by Richard Mansfield's famous impersonation of him. Theplay is based upon the actual facts; for after Brummel had lost theroyal favor he died an insane pauper in the French town of Caen. He,too, had a distinguished biographer, since Bulwer-Lytton's novel Pelhamis really the narrative of Brummel's curious career.
Long after Brummel, Lord Banelagh led the gilded youth of London, andit was at this time that the notorious Lola Montez made her firstappearance in the British capital.
These three men--Nash, Brummel, and Ranelagh--had the advantage ofbeing Englishmen, and, therefore, of not incurring the old-time Englishsuspicion of foreigners. A much higher type of social arbiter was aFrenchman who for twenty years during the early part of QueenVictoria's reign gave law to the great world of fashion, besidesexercising a definite influence upon English art and literature.
This was Count Albert Guillaume d'Orsay, the son of one of Napoleon'sgenerals, and descended by a morganatic marriage from the King ofWurttemburg. The old general, his father, was a man of high courage,impressive appearance, and keen intellect, all of which qualities hetransmitted to his son. The young Count d'Orsay, when he came of age,found the Napoleonic era ended and France governed by Louis XVIII. Theking gave Count d'Orsay a commission in the army in a regimentstationed at Valence in the southeastern part of France. He had alreadyvisited England and learned the English language, and he had made somedistinguished friends there, among whom were Lord Byron and ThomasMoore.
On his return to France he began his garrison life at Valence, where heshowed some of the finer qualities of his character. It is not merelythat he was handsome and accomplished and that he had the gift ofwinning the affections of those about him. Unlike Nash and Brummel, hewas a gentleman in every sense, and his courtesy was of the highestkind. At the balls given by his regiment, although he was more courtedthan any other officer, he always sought out the plainest girls andshowed them the most flattering attentions. No "wallflowers" were leftneglected 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 thevalley of the Rhone. Who would have supposed that he was destined tobecome not only a Londoner, but a favorite at the British court, amodel of fashion, a dictator of etiquette, widely known for hisaccomplishments, the patron of literary men and of distinguishedartists? But all these things were to come to pass by a mere accidentof fortune.
During his firsts visit to London, which has already been mentioned,Count d'Orsay was invited once or twice to receptions given by the Earland Countess of Blessington, where he was well received, though thiswas only an incident of his English sojourn. Before the story proceedsany further it is necessary to give an account of the Earl and of LadyBlessington, since both of their careers had been, to say the least,unusual.
Lord Blessington was an Irish peer for whom an ancient title had beenrevived. He was remotely descended from the Stuarts of Scotland, andtherefore had royal blood to boast of. He had been well educated, andin many ways was a man of pleasing manner. On the other hand, he hadearly inherited a very large property which yielded him an income ofabout thirty thousand pounds a year. He had estates in Ireland, and heowned nearly the whole of a fashionable street in London, with thebuildings erected on it.
This fortune and the absence of any one who could control him had madehim wilful and extravagant and had wrought in him a curious love ofpersonal display. Even as a child he would clamor to be dressed in themost gorgeous uniforms; and when he got possession of his property hislove of display became almost a monomania. He built a theater as anadjunct to his country house in Ireland and imported players fromLondon and elsewhere to act in it. He loved to mingle with the mummers,to try on their various costumes, and to parade up and down, now as anoriental prince and now as a Roman emperor.
In London he hung about the green-rooms, and was a well-known figurewherever actors or actresses were collected. Such was his love of thestage that he sought to marry into the profession and set his heart ona girl named Mary Campbell Browne, who was very beautiful to look at,but who was not conspicuous either for her mind or for her morals. WhenLord Blessington proposed marriage to her she was obliged to tell himthat she already had one husband still alive, but she was perfectlywilling to live with him and dispense with the marriage ceremony. Sofor several years she did live with him and bore him two children.
It speaks well for the earl that when the inconvenient husband died amarriage at once took place and Mrs. Browne became a countess. Then,after other children had been born, the lady died, leaving the earl awidower at about the age of forty. The only legitimate son born of thismarriage followed his mother to the grave; and so for the third timethe earldom of Blessington seemed likely to become extinct. The deathof his wife, however, gave the earl a special opportunity to displayhis extravagant tastes. He spent more than four thousand pounds on thefuneral ceremonies, importing from France a huge black velvetcatafalque which had shortly before been used at the public funeral ofNapoleon's marshal, Duroc, while the house blazed with enormous waxtapers and glittered with cloth of gold.
Lord Blessington soon plunged again into the busy life of London.Having now no heir, there was no restraint on his expenditures, and heborrowed large sums of money in order to buy additional estates andhouses and to experience the exquisite joy of spending lavishly. Atthis time he had his lands in Ireland, a town house in St. James'sSquare, another in Seymour Place, and still another which was afterwardto become famous as Gore House, in Kensington.
Some years before he had met in Ireland a lady called Mrs. MauriceFarmer; and it happened that she now came to London. The earlier storyof her still young life must here be told, because her name afterwardbecame famous, and because the tale illustrates wonderfully well theraw, crude, lawless period of the Regency, when England was fightingher long war with Napoleon, when the Prince Regent was imitating allthe vices of the old French kings, when prize-fighting, deep drinking,dueling, and dicing were practised without restraint in all the largecities and towns of the United Kingdom. It was, as Sir Arthur ConanDoyle has said, "an age of folly and of heroism"; for, while itproduced some of the greatest black-guards known to history, itproduced also such men as Wellington and Nelson, the two Pitts,Sheridan, Byron, Shelley, and Sir Walter Scott.
Mrs. Maurice Farmer was the daughter of a small Irish landowner namedRobert Power--himself the incarnation of all the vices of the time.There was little law in Ireland, not even that which comes from publicopinion; and Robert Power rode hard to hounds, gambled recklessly, andassembled in his house all sorts of reprobates, with whom he heldfrightful orgies that lasted from sunset until dawn. His wife and hisyoung daughters viewed him with terror, and the life they led was aperpetual nightmare because of the bestial carousings in which theirfather engaged, wasting his money
and mortgaging his estates until theend of his wild career was in plain sight.
There happened to be stationed at Clonmel a regiment of infantry inwhich there served a captain named Maurice St. Leger Farmer. He was aman of some means, but eccentric to a degree. His temper was so utterlyuncontrolled that even his fellow officers could scarcely live withhim, and he was given to strange caprices. It happened that at a ballin Clonmel he met the young daughter of Robert Power, then a mere childof fourteen years. Captain Farmer was seized with an infatuation forthe girl, and he went almost at once to her father, asking for her handin marriage and proposing to settle a sum of money upon her if shemarried him.
The hard-riding squireen jumped at the offer. His own estate was beingstripped bare. Here was a chance to provide for one of his daughters,or, rather, to get rid of her, and he agreed that she should be marriedout of hand. Going home, he roughly informed the girl that she was tobe the wife of Captain Farmer. He so bullied his wife that she wascompelled to join him in this command.
What was poor little Margaret Power to do? She was only a child. Sheknew nothing of the world. She was accustomed to obey her father as shewould have obeyed some evil genius who had her in his power. There weretears and lamentations. She was frightened half to death; yet for herthere was no help. Therefore, while not yet fifteen her marriage tookplace, and she was the unhappy slave of a half-crazy tyrant. She hadthen no beauty whatsoever. She was wholly undeveloped--thin and pale,and with rough hair that fell over her frightened eyes; yet Farmerwanted her, and he settled his money on her, just as he would havespent the same amount to gratify any other sudden whim.
The life she led with him for a few months showed him to be more of adevil than a man. He took a peculiar delight in terrifying her, insubjecting her to every sort of outrage; nor did he refrain even frombeating her with his fists. The girl could stand a great deal, but thiswas too much. She returned to her father's house, where she wasreceived with the bitterest reproaches, but where, at least, she wassafe from harm, since her possession of a dowry made her a person ofsome small importance.
Not long afterward Captain Farmer fell into a dispute with his colonel,Lord Caledon, and in the course of it he drew his sword on hiscommanding officer. The court-martial which was convened to try himwould probably have had him shot were it not for the very generalbelief that he was insane. So he was simply cashiered and obliged toleave the service and betake himself elsewhere. Thus the girl whom, hehad married was quite free--free to leave her wretched home and even toleave Ireland.
She did leave Ireland and establish herself in London, where she hadsome acquaintances, among them the Earl of Blessington. As alreadysaid, he had met her in Ireland while she was living with her husband;and now from time to time he saw her in a friendly way. After the deathof his wife he became infatuated with Margaret Farmer. She was a gooddeal alone, and his attentions gave her entertainment. Her pastexperience led her to have no real belief in love. She had become,however, in a small way interested in literature and art, with an eagerambition to be known as a writer. As it happened, Captain Farmer, whosename she bore, had died some months before Lord Blessington had decidedto make a new marriage. The earl proposed to Margaret Farmer, and thetwo were married by special license.
The Countess of Blessington--to give the lady her new title--was nowtwenty-eight years of age and had developed into a woman of greatbeauty. She was noted for the peculiarly vivacious and radiantexpression which was always on her face. She had a kind of vividloveliness accompanied by grace, simplicity, and a form of exquisiteproportions. The ugly duckling had become a swan, for now there was notrace of her former plainness to be seen.
Not yet in her life had love come to her. Her first husband had beenthrust upon her and had treated her outrageously. Her second husbandwas much older than she; and, though she was not without a certainkindly feeling for one who had been kind to her, she married him, firstof all, for his title and position.
Having been reared in poverty, she had no conception of the value ofmoney; and, though the earl was remarkably extravagant, the newcountess was even more so. One after another their London houses wereopened and decorated with the utmost lavishness. They gave innumerableentertainments, not only to the nobility and to men of rank,but--because this was Lady Blessington's peculiar fad--to artists andactors and writers of all degrees. The American, N. P. Willis, in hisPencilings by the Way, has given an interesting sketch of the countessand her surroundings, while the younger Disraeli (Lord Beaconsfield)has depicted D'Orsay as Count Mirabel in Henrietta Temple. Willis says:
In a long library, lined alternately with splendidly bound books andmirrors, and with a deep window of the breadth of the room opening uponHyde Park, I found Lady Blessington alone. The picture, to my eye, asthe door opened, was a very lovely one--a woman of remarkable beauty,half buried in a fauteuil of yellow satin, reading by a magnificentlamp suspended from the center of the arched ceiling. Sofas, couches,ottomans, and busts, arranged in rather a crowded sumptuousness throughthe room; enameled tables, covered with expensive and elegant triflesin every corner, and a delicate white hand in relief on the back of abook, to which the eye was attracted by the blaze of diamond rings.
All this "crowded sumptuousness" was due to the taste of LadyBlessington. Amid it she received royal dukes, statesmen such asPalmerston, Canning, Castlereagh, Russell, and Brougham, actors such asKemble and Matthews, artists such as Lawrence and Wilkie, and men ofletters such as Moore, Bulwer-Lytton, and the two Disraelis. Tomaintain this sort of life Lord Blessington raised large amounts ofmoney, totaling about half a million pounds sterling, by mortgaging hisdifferent estates and giving his promissory notes to money-lenders. Ofcourse, he did not spend this vast sum immediately. He might have livedin comparative luxury upon his income; but he was a restless, eager,improvident nobleman, and his extravagances were prompted by theurgings of his wife.
In all this display, which Lady Blessington both stimulated and shared,there is to be found a psychological basis. She was now verging uponthe thirties--a time which is a very critical period in a woman'semotional life, if she has not already given herself over to love andbeen loved in return. During Lady Blessington's earlier years she hadsuffered in many ways, and it is probable that no thought of love hadentered her mind. She was only too glad if she could escape from theharshness of her father and the cruelty of her first husband. Then cameher development into a beautiful woman, content for the time to belanguorously stagnant and to enjoy the rest and peace which had come toher.
When she married Lord Blessington her love life had not yet commenced;and, in fact, there could be no love life in such a marriage--amarriage with a man much older than herself, scatter-brained, showy,and having no intellectual gifts. So for a time she sought satisfactionin social triumphs, in capturing political and literary lions in orderto exhibit them in her salon, and in spending money right and left witha lavish hand. But, after all, in a woman of her temperament none ofthese things could satisfy her inner longings. Beautiful, full ofCeltic vivacity, imaginative and eager, such a nature as hers would inthe end be starved unless her heart should be deeply touched and unlessall her pent-up emotion could give itself up entirely in the greatsurrender.
After a few years of London she grew restless and dissatisfied. Hersurroundings wearied her. There was a call within her for somethingmore than she had yet experienced. The earl, her husband, was by natureno less restless; and so, without knowing the reason--which, indeed,she herself did not understand--he readily assented to a journey on theContinent.
As they traveled southward they reached at length the town of Valence,where Count d'Orsay was still quartered with his regiment. A vague,indefinable feeling of attraction swept over this woman, who was now awoman of the world and yet quite inexperienced in affairs relating tothe heart. The mere sound of the French officer's voice, the mere sightof his face, the mere knowledge of his presence, stirred her as nothinghad ever stirred her until that time. Yet neither he nor she appe
ars tohave been conscious at once of the secret of their liking. It wasenough that they were soothed and satisfied with each other's company.
Oddly enough, the Earl of Blessington became as devoted to D'Orsay asdid his wife. The two urged the count to secure a leave of absence andto accompany them to Italy. This he was easily persuaded to do; and thethree passed weeks and months of a languorous and alluring intercourseamong the lakes and the seductive influence of romantic Italy. Justwhat passed between Count d'Orsay and Margaret Blessington at this timecannot be known, for the secret of it has perished with them; but it iscertain that before very long they came to know that each wasindispensable to the other.
The situation was complicated by the Earl of Blessington, who, entirelyunsuspicious, proposed that the Count should marry Lady HarrietGardiner, his eldest legitimate daughter by his first wife. He pressedthe match upon the embarrassed D'Orsay, and offered to settle the sumof forty thousand pounds upon the bride. The girl was less than fifteenyears of age. She had no gifts either of beauty or of intelligence;and, in addition, D'Orsay was now deeply in love with her stepmother.
On the other hand, his position with the Blessingtons was daily growingmore difficult. People had begun to talk of the almost open relationsbetween Count d'Orsay and Lady Blessington. Lord Byron, in a letterwritten to the countess, spoke to her openly and in a playful way of"YOUR D'Orsay." The manners and morals of the time were decidedlyirregular; yet sooner or later the earl was sure to gain some hint ofwhat every one was saying. Therefore, much against his real desire, yetin order to shelter his relations with Lady Blessington, D'Orsay agreedto the marriage with Lady Harriet, who was only fifteen years of age.
This made the intimacy between D'Orsay and the Blessingtons appear tobe not unusual; but, as a matter of fact, the marriage was no marriage.The unattractive girl who had become a bride merely to hide theindiscretions of her stepmother was left entirely to herself; while thewhole family, returning to London, made their home together in SeymourPlace.
Could D'Orsay have foreseen the future he would never have done whatmust always seem an act so utterly unworthy of him. For within twoyears Lord Blessington fell ill and died. Had not D'Orsay been marriedhe would now have been free to marry Lady Blessington. As it was, hewas bound fast to her stepdaughter; and since at that time there was nodivorce court in England, and since he had no reason for seeking adivorce, he was obliged to live on through many years in a mostambiguous situation. He did, however, separate himself from hischildish bride; and, having done so, he openly took up his residencewith Lady Blessington at Gore House. By this time, however, thecompanionship of the two had received a sort of general sanction, andin that easy-going age most people took it as a matter of course.
The two were now quite free to live precisely as they would. LadyBlessington became extravagantly happy, and Count d'Orsay was acceptedin London as an oracle of fashion. Every one was eager to visit GoreHouse, and there they received all the notable men of the time. Theimprovidence of Lady Blessington, however, was in no respectdiminished. She lived upon her jointure, recklessly spending capital aswell as interest, and gathering under her roof a rare museum ofartistic works, from jewels and curios up to magnificent pictures andbeautiful statuary.
D'Orsay had sufficient self-respect not to live upon the money that hadcome to Lady Blessington from her husband. He was a skilful painter,and he practised his art in a professional way. His portrait of theDuke of Wellington was preferred by that famous soldier to any otherthat had been made of him. The Iron Duke was, in fact, a frequentvisitor at Gore House, and he had a very high opinion of Count d'Orsay.Lady Blessington herself engaged in writing novels of "high life," someof which were very popular in their day. But of all that she wrotethere remains only one book which is of permanent value--herConversations with Lord Byron, a very valuable contribution to ourknowledge of the brilliant poet.
But a nemesis was destined to overtake the pair. Money flowed throughLady Blessington's hands like water, and she could never be brought tounderstand that what she had might not last for ever. Finally, it wasall gone, yet her extravagance continued. Debts were heaped upmountain-high. She signed notes of hand without even reading them. Sheincurred obligations of every sort without a moment's hesitation.
For a long time her creditors held aloof, not believing that herresources were in reality exhausted; but in the end there came a crashas sudden as it was ruinous. As if moved by a single impulse, those towhom she owed money took out judgments against her and descended uponGore House in a swarm. This was in the spring of 1849, when LadyBlessington was in her sixtieth year and D'Orsay fifty-one.
It is a curious coincidence that her earliest novel had portrayed thewreck of a great establishment such as her own. Of the scene in GoreHouse Mr. Madden, Lady Blessington's literary biographer, has written:
Numerous creditors, bill-discounters, money-lenders, jewelers,lace-venders, tax-collectors, gas-company agents, all persons havingclaims to urge pressed them at this period simultaneously. An executionfor a debt of four thousand pounds was at length put in by a houselargely engaged in the silk, lace, India-shawl, and fancy-jewelrybusiness.
This sum of four thousand pounds was only a nominal claim, but itopened the flood-gates for all of Lady Blessington's creditors. Mr.Madden writes still further:
On the 10th of May, 1849, I visited Gore House for the last time. Theauction was going on. There was a large assemblage of people offashion. Every room was thronged; the well-known library-salon, inwhich the conversaziones took place, was crowded, but not with guests.The arm-chair in which the lady of the mansion was wont to sit wasoccupied by a stout, coarse gentleman of the Jewish persuasion, busilyengaged in examining a marble hand extended on a book, the fingers ofwhich were modeled from a cast of those of the absent mistress of theestablishment. People, as they passed through the room, poked thefurniture, pulled about the precious objects of art and ornaments ofvarious kinds that lay on the table; and some made jests and ribaldjokes on the scene they witnessed.
At this compulsory sale things went for less than half their value.Pictures by Lawrence and Landseer, a library consisting of thousands ofvolumes, vases of exquisite workmanship, chandeliers of ormolu, andprecious porcelains--all were knocked down relentlessly at farcicalprices. Lady Blessington reserved nothing for herself. She knew thatthe hour had struck, and very soon she was on her way to Paris, whitherCount d'Orsay had already gone, having been threatened with arrest by aboot-maker to whom he owed five hundred pounds.
D'Orsay very naturally went to Paris, for, like his father, he hadalways been an ardent Bonapartist, and now Prince Louis Bonaparte hadbeen chosen president of the Second French Republic. During theprince's long period of exile he had been the guest of Count d'Orsay,who had helped him both with money and with influence. D'Orsay nowexpected some return for his former generosity. It came, but it cametoo late. In 1852, shortly after Prince Louis assumed the title ofemperor, the count was appointed director of fine arts; but when thenews was brought to him he was already dying. Lady Blessington diedsoon after coming to Paris, before the end of the year 1849.
Comment upon this tangled story is scarcely needed. Yet one may quotesome sayings from a sort of diary which Lady Blessington called her"Night Book." They seem to show that her supreme happiness lasted onlyfor a little while, and that deep down in her heart she had condemnedherself.
A woman's head is always influenced by her heart; but a man's heart isalways influenced by his head.
The separation of friends by death is less terrible than the divorce oftwo hearts that have loved, but have ceased to sympathize, while memorystill recalls what they once were to each other.
People are seldom tired of the world until the world is tired of them.
A woman should not paint sentiment until she has ceased to inspire it.
It is less difficult for a woman to obtain celebrity by her genius thanto be pardoned for it.
Memory seldom fails when its office is to show us the
tombs of ourburied hopes.