by Lyndon Orr
LADY BLESSINGTON AND COUNT D'ORSAY
Often there has arisen some man who, either by his natural gifts orby his 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," who flourishedin the eighteenth century. Nash was a man of doubtful origin; nor washe attractive in his looks, for he was a huge, clumsy creature withfeatures that were both irregular and harsh. Nevertheless, for nearlyfifty years Beau Nash was an arbiter of fashion. Goldsmith, who wrotehis life, declared that his supremacy was due to his pleasing manners,"his assiduity, flattery, fine clothes, and as much wit as the ladieshad whom he addressed." He converted the town of Bath from a rude littlehamlet into an English Newport, of which he was the social autocrat. Heactually drew up a set of written rules which some of the best-born andbest-bred people follow slavishly.
Even better known to us is George Bryan Brummel, commonly called "BeauBrummel," who by his friendship with George IV.--then Prince Regent--wasan oracle at court on everything that related to dress and etiquette andthe proper mode of living. His memory has been kept alive most of all byRichard Mansfield's famous impersonation of him. The play is based uponthe actual facts; for after Brummel had lost the royal favor he died aninsane pauper in the French town of Caen. He, too, had a distinguishedbiographer, since Bulwer-Lytton's novel Pelham is really the narrativeof 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 Queen Victoria'sreign gave law to the great world of fashion, besides exercising adefinite 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 regiment stationedat Valence in the southeastern part of France. He had already visitedEngland 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,he was 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. Herewas a young French officer quartered in a provincial town in the valleyof the Rhone. Who would have supposed that he was destined to becomenot only a Londoner, but a favorite at the British court, a model offashion, a dictator of etiquette, widely known for his accomplishments,the patron of literary men and of distinguished artists? But all thesethings were to come to pass by a mere accident of 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 this wasonly 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, and inmany ways was a man of pleasing manner. On the other hand, he had earlyinherited a very large property which yielded him an income of aboutthirty thousand pounds a year. He had estates in Ireland, and he ownednearly the whole of a fashionable street in London, with the buildingserected 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 from Londonand elsewhere to act in it. He loved to mingle with the mummers, to tryon their various costumes, and to parade up and down, now as an orientalprince 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 on agirl named Mary Campbell Browne, who was very beautiful to look at, butwho was not conspicuous either for her mind or for her morals. When LordBlessington proposed marriage to her she was obliged to tell him thatshe already had one husband still alive, but she was perfectly willingto live with him and dispense with the marriage ceremony. So for severalyears 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 time theearldom of Blessington seemed likely to become extinct. The death ofhis wife, however, gave the earl a special opportunity to display hisextravagant tastes. He spent more than four thousand pounds on thefuneral ceremonies, importing from France a huge black velvet catafalquewhich had shortly before been used at the public funeral of Napoleon'smarshal, Duroc, while the house blazed with enormous wax tapers andglittered with cloth of gold.
Lord Blessington soon plunged again into the busy life of London. Havingnow no heir, there was no restraint on his expenditures, and he borrowedlarge sums of money in order to buy additional estates and houses and toexperience the exquisite joy of spending lavishly. At this time he hadhis lands in Ireland, a town house in St. James's Square, another inSeymour Place, and still another which was afterward to become famous asGore 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 it producedsome of the greatest black-guards known to history, it produced alsosuch 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,and assembled 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 ball inClonmel he met the young daughter of Robert Power, then a mere child offourteen years. Captain Farmer was seized with an infatuation for thegirl, and he went almost at once to her father, asking for her hand inmarriage and proposing to settle a sum of money upon her if she marriedhim.
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 have spentthe same amount to gratify any other sudden whim.
The life she led with him for a few months showed him to be more ofa devil 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 was receivedwith the bitterest reproaches, but where, at least, she was safe fromharm, since her possession of a dowry made her a person of some smallimportance.
Not long afterward Captain Farmer fell into a dispute with hiscolonel, Lord Caledon, and in the course of it he drew his sword onhis commanding officer. The court-martial which was convened to try himwould probably have had him shot were it not for the very general beliefthat he was insane. So he was simply cashiered and obliged to leave theservice and betake himself elsewhere. Thus the girl whom, he had marriedwas quite free--free to leave her wretched home and even to leaveIreland.
She did leave Ireland and establish herself in London, where she hadsome acquaintances, among them the Earl of Blessington. As already said,he had met her in Ireland while she was living with her husband; and nowfrom time to time he saw her in a friendly way. After the death of hiswife he became infatuated with Margaret Farmer. She was a good dealalone, and his attentions gave her entertainment. Her past experienceled her to have no real belief in love. She had become, however, in asmall way interested in literature and art, with an eager ambition to beknown as a writer. As it happened, Captain Farmer, whose name she bore,had died some months before Lord Blessington had decided to make a newmarriage. The earl proposed to Margaret Farmer, and the two were marriedby 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 husband wasmuch older than she; and, though she was not without a certain kindlyfeeling for one who had been kind to her, she married him, first of 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 new countesswas even more so. One after another their London houses were openedand 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) hasdepicted 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 trifles inevery corner, and a delicate white hand in relief on the back of a book,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 suchas Kemble and Matthews, artists such as Lawrence and Wilkie, and men ofletters such as Moore, Bulwer-Lytton, and the two Disraelis. To maintainthis sort of life Lord Blessington raised large amounts of money,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 the urgingsof 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 upon thethirties--a time which is a very critical period in a woman's emotionallife, if she has not already given herself over to love and been lovedin return. During Lady Blessington's earlier years she had suffered inmany ways, and it is probable that no thought of love had entered hermind. She was only too glad if she could escape from the harshnessof her father and the cruelty of her first husband. Then came herdevelopment 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--a marriagewith a man much older than herself, scatter-brained, showy, and havingno intellectual gifts. So for a time she sought satisfaction in socialtriumphs, in capturing political and literary lions in order to exhibitthem in her salon, and in spending money right and left with a lavishhand. But, after all, in a woman of her temperament none of these thingscould satisfy her inner longings. Beautiful, full of Celtic vivacity,imaginative and eager, such a nature as hers would in the end be starvedunless her heart should be deeply touched and unless all her pent-upemotion could give itself up entirely in the great surrender.
After a few years of London she grew restless and dissatisfied. Hersurroundings wearied her. There was a call within her for something morethan she had yet experienced. The earl, her husband, was by nature noless restless; and so, without knowing the reason--which, indeed, sheherself 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 app
ears tohave been conscious at once of the secret of their liking. It was enoughthat 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 itis certain 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 wayof "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 to benot 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 two yearsLord Blessington fell ill and died. Had not D'Orsay been married hewould now have been free to marry Lady Blessington. As it was, he wasbound fast to her stepdaughter; and since at that time there was nodivorce court in England, and since he had no reason for seekinga divorce, he was obliged to live on through many years in a mostambiguous situation. He did, however, separate himself from his childishbride; and, having done so, he openly took up his residence with LadyBlessington at Gore House. By this time, however, the companionship ofthe two had received a sort of general sanction, and in that easy-goingage 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 respect diminished.She lived upon her jointure, recklessly spending capital as well asinterest, and gathering under her roof a rare museum of artisticworks, from jewels and curios up to magnificent pictures and beautifulstatuary.
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, andhe practised his art in a professional way. His portrait of the Duke ofWellington was preferred by that famous soldier to any other that hadbeen made of him. The Iron Duke was, in fact, a frequent visitor at GoreHouse, and he had a very high opinion of Count d'Orsay. Lady Blessingtonherself engaged in writing novels of "high life," some of which werevery popular in their day. But of all that she wrote there remains onlyone book which is of permanent value--her Conversations with Lord Byron,a very valuable contribution to our knowledge 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, itwas all 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 descendedupon Gore 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 it openedthe flood-gates for all of Lady Blessington's creditors. Mr. Maddenwrites 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 of fashion.Every room was thronged; the well-known library-salon, in which theconversaziones took place, was crowded, but not with guests. Thearm-chair in which the lady of the mansion was wont to sit was occupiedby a stout, coarse gentleman of the Jewish persuasion, busily engagedin examining a marble hand extended on a book, the fingers of whichwere 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 thousandsof volumes, 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 the prince'slong period of exile he had been the guest of Count d'Orsay, who hadhelped him both with money and with influence. D'Orsay now expectedsome return for his former generosity. It came, but it came too late. In1852, shortly after Prince Louis assumed the title of emperor, the countwas appointed director of fine arts; but when the news was brought tohim he was already dying. Lady Blessington died soon after coming toParis, 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 t
he tombs of ourburied hopes.