so familiarly)—you should be content with writing in your own
language, like Grammont, and succeeding in London as nobody has
succeeded since the days of Charles the Second, and the records
of Antonio Hamilton, without deviating into our barbarous
language—which you understand and write, however, much better
than it deserves. ‘My approbation,’ as you are pleased to term
it, was very sincere, but perhaps not very impartial; for,
though I love my country, I do not love my countrymen—at least,
such as they now are. And besides the seduction of talent and
wit in your work, I fear that to me there was the attraction
of vengeance. I have _seen_ and _felt_ much of what you have
described so well … the portraits are so like that I cannot
but admire the painter no less than his performance. But I am
sorry for you; for if you are so well acquainted with life at
your age, what will become of you when the illusion is still
more dissipated?”
It is much to be regretted that this vivacious journal has never seen
the light of publicity; there must have been considerable interest in a
piece of writing which so greatly attracted and excited the admiration
of Byron; but even more important, its pages would have helped to the
understanding of D’Orsay and have brought us closer to him in these his
young days. Further, a view of English society at that date by a candid
Frenchman must have been highly entertaining. D’Orsay, apparently having
changed his mind with regard to persons and things, or fearing that the
publication of so scathing an indictment might savour of ingratitude
toward those who had entertained him with kindness, consigned to the
flames this “very formidable production” of his ebullient days of youth.
Another account is that it was destroyed by his sister.
In 1822 D’Orsay tore himself away from the enchantments of London and
bade farewell to the beautiful enchantress of St James’ Square.
IV
THE PRIMROSE PATH
In November 1822, D’Orsay again met Lady Blessington.
Apparently it was at Blessington’s express desire that the house in
St James’ Square was shut up; its glories were dimmed with holland
sheetings; the mirrors that had reflected so much of youth and love and
beauty were covered; the windows that had so often shone with hospitable
lights were shuttered and barred. On 25th August a start was made on a
Continental tour. Blessington was satiated with the turmoil of pleasures
that London afforded, satiety held him in its bitter grasp. He had
exhausted the wild joys of the life of a man about town; he was still
thirsty for enjoyment, but the accustomed draughts no longer quenched his
thirst. It was bluntly said by one that he was “prematurely impaired in
mental energies.” Whether that were or were not the case, judging by his
conduct during the remainder of his life he must have lost all sense of
honour and of social decency.
To the party of two a third member was added in the person of Lady
Blessington’s youngest sister, Mary Anne Power, a woman pretty in a less
full-blown style than her sister, which caused her to be likened to a
primrose set beside a peach blossom. Lady Blessington, who for herself
preferred Marguerite to Margaret, renamed her sister Marianne. In 1831
Marianne married the Comte de St Marsault, but the union was disastrously
unhappy. The Comte was an aged gentleman of ancient lineage, and his
wintriness blighted the poor primrose.
The tourists travelled in great style by Dover, Calais, Rouen, St
Germain-en-Laye, and so on to Paris. At St Germain Lady Blessington’s
thoughts naturally turned toward the unhallowed fortunes of the La
Pompadour and du Barry. She pondered over the curious fact that decency
does in social estimation take from vice half its sting, and over the
coarseness displayed by Louis XV. in choosing his mistresses from outside
the ranks of the ladies of his Court, rendering the refinement of Louis
XIV. virtuous by contrast. She very truly says—and what better judge
could we wish for upon such a point than she?—“A true morality would be
disposed to consider the courtly splendour attached to the loves of Louis
XIV. as the more demoralising example of the two, from being the less
disgusting.”
In Paris they halted for some days, meeting among other distinguished
men with the volatile Tom Moore, whom Lady Blessington hits off with
the singular felicity and simplicity of language that distinguishes her
literary style. She found him to be of “a happy temperament, that conveys
the idea of having never lived out of sunshine, and his conversation
reminds one of the evolutions of some bird of gorgeous plumage, each
varied hue of which becomes visible as he carelessly sports in the air.”
Lady Blessington’s birthday, September 1st, was celebrated during this
visit to Paris, and she tells us that after a woman has passed the age of
thirty the recurrence of birthdays is not a matter for congratulation,
concluding with the striking remark: “Youth is like health, we never
value the possession of either until they have begun to decline.”
From Paris they went on to Switzerland. Their travelling equipage not
unnaturally aroused the wonderment of the onlookers who assembled to
witness their departure. Travelling carriages and a baggage wagon—a
_fourgon_—piled high with imperials and packages of all sizes; the
courier, as important in his mien as a commander of an army corps,
bustling here, bustling there; lady’s maid busily packing; valets and
footmen staggering and grumbling under heavy trunks. Lady Blessington
heard a Frenchman under her window exclaim: “How strange those English
are! One would suppose that instead of a single family, a regiment at
least were about to move!”
Move at last the regiment did, though not without dire struggling. They
are off! Amid a tornado of expostulations and exhortations; off along
the straight, dusty roads to Switzerland. Further we need not accompany
them. For us the centre of interest lies at Valence, on the Rhone,
where D’Orsay was with his regiment under orders to march with the
Duc d’Angoulême over the Pyrenees. But to war’s alarms D’Orsay was now
deaf. He heard above the din of trumpet and of drum the call of love,
and answered to it. He resigned his commission. For at the hotel where
was established the regimental mess the Blessingtons arrived on November
15th; the romance of love eclipsed the romance of war.
From this point onward there can be little doubt as to D’Orsay’s position
as regards Lady Blessington, but as concerns Blessington everything
grows more and more extraordinary, and more and more discreditable to
the blind or easy-going husband. Charles Greville says that Blessington
was really fond of the fascinating young Frenchman. He looked on him as
a charming, happy comrade. It was at his persuasion that D’Orsay threw
up his commission, Blessington making “a formal promise to the Count’s
family that he should be provided for.” At any rate such provision was
made later on. Greville adds that D’Orsay’s early connection with Lady
Blessington was a mystery; certainly it was so as far as concerns the
behaviour of the lady’s husband. D’Orsay’s conduct is explicable in two
ways: either infatuation for a beautiful woman blinded him to his real
interests and rendered him unable to count the cost of the course he now
decided to pursue, or he preferred to that of the soldier the _dolce far
niente_ life of a dependent loafer. Possibly, however, the two motives
mingled.
The company was now complete and each member of it apparently entirely
content. They moved on to Orange, and on November 20th reached Avignon,
at which place a considerable stay was made. Avignon! Petrarch and Laura!
Lady Blessington and Count d’Orsay! Glory almost overwhelming for any
one town. The battlemented walls; the ancient bridge; the swift stream
of the Rhone; the storied palace of the Pope; and the famous fountain of
Vaucluse, given to fame by Petrarch; a proper setting for the love of
Alfred and of Marguerite.
They stayed at the _Hôtel de l’Europe_, a comfortable hostelry, an inn
which many years before had been the scene of an incident which formed
the groundwork of the comedy of _The Deaf Lover_. It was now the scene
of incidents which might well have supplied the materials for a comedy
of _The Blind Husband: or, There are None so Short-sighted as those who
Won’t See!_
There was gaiety and society at Avignon, much social coming and going,
dinners, dances, receptions and routs. The Duc and Duchesse de Caderousse
Grammont, who resided in a château close to the town, were doubtless
delighted to see their young connection the Count, and to welcome
his friends. Lady Blessington enjoyed herself immensely, and it is
interesting to know that her refined taste was charmed by the decorum of
French dancing:—
“The waltz in France,” she writes, “loses its objectionable familiarity
by the manner in which it is performed. The gentleman does not clasp his
fair partner round the waist with a freedom repugnant to the modesty and
destructive to the _ceinture_ of the lady; but so arranges it, that he
assists her movements, without incommoding her delicacy or her drapery.
In short, they manage these matters better in France than with us;[3] and
though no advocate for this exotic dance, I must admit that, executed as
I have seen it, it could not offend the most fastidious eye.”
Lady Blessington was, as we know, an authority upon “objectionable
familiarity.” What would this fastidious dame have thought of the
shocking indelicacy of modern ball-room romps? Would “kitchen” Lancers
have appealed favourably to her? Would her approbation have honoured the
graceful cake-walk? But we must not linger over such nice inquiries; we
must not lose ourselves in the maze of might-have-beens, but must move on
to fact, Southward ho! To Italy, the land of Love and Olives.
V
BYRON
Genoa was reached on the last day of March 1823, and Lady Blessington, as
also doubtless D’Orsay, because of the sweet sympathy between two hearts
that beat as one, was enraptured with the beautiful situation of the
town, in her Journal breaking forth into descriptive matter which must
be the envy of every conscientious journalist. Their entrance was made
by night, and they found lodging at the _Alberga del la Villa_, a house
situated upon the sea front, bedecked with marble balconies and the rooms
adorned with a plenitude of gilding that brought comfort to the simple
heart of Lady Blessington. But it was not by matters so material as its
beauties or the comforts of its inns that her soul was really touched. To
be in Genoa was to be in the same place as Byron, of whom the very morrow
might bring the sight. The only fly in the honey was that the poet might
still be fat, as, alack, Tom Moore had reported him to be when at Venice.
An imperfect peer is sad enough; but an obese poet—Oh, fie!
On April first, auspicious date, the fair inspirer of poems met with the
writer of them, the vision being not entrancing but disappointing to the
eager lady. What it was to the poet we do not know, though there are,
indeed, quite firm grounds for surmising that Byron was not entirely
pleased by the invasion of the privacy which he so jealously guarded,
by the intrusion upon his retirement of the Blessingtons even when
accompanied by D’Orsay.
Ingenuity was practised in order to secure admission. The day selected
for the drive out to Albano was rainy, a circumstance which it was
calculated would compel even the most curmudgeonly of poets to offer
hospitality and shelter. The event proved the soundness of the
calculation. The carriage drew up to the gates of the _Casa Saluzzo_;
the two gentlemen alighted, sent in their names, were admitted, were
cordially welcomed. Outside in the downpour sat the two pretty ladies. We
know not what emotion, if any, agitated Marianne Power; but who can doubt
that painful anxiety and doubt fluttered in the bosom of her sister?
Would Byron, or would Byron not? To be admitted or not to be admitted?
Of what count were all the charms of Genoa, what weighed all the joys of
illicit love, if she could not gain admission to the presence of the poet
whose conversation—and her own—she was destined to record?
Slowly the minutes passed. Then at last came relief. Byron had learned
that the ladies were at his gates; breathless, hatless, he ran out.
“You must have thought me,” he gasped, “quite as ill-bred and _sauvage_
as fame reports in having permitted your ladyship to remain a quarter of
an hour at my door: but my old friend Lord Blessington is to blame, for I
only heard a minute ago that it was so highly honoured. I shall not think
you do not pardon (_sic_) this apparent rudeness, unless you enter my
abode—which I entreat you will do.”
So the lady reports his speech, the which is precisely the manner in
which Byron would have expressed himself—more or less.
Lady Blessington was quite easily mollified, granting the pardon so
gracefully sought, accepting his assisting hand, and, crossing the
courtyard, passed into the vestibule. Before them bowed the uniformed
_chasseur_ and other obsequious attendants, all showing in their faces
the surprise they felt at their master displaying so much cordiality in
his reception of the visitors.
The whole account in her Journal gives promise of the eminence to which
Lady Blessington afterward attained as a writer of fiction.
Lady Blessington was disappointed in Byron as Oscar Wilde was by the
Atlantic and Mr Bernard Shaw is by the world. He did not reach the ideal
she had framed of the author of _Childe Harold_ and _Manfred_. He was a
jovial, vivacious, even flippant man of the world. His brow should have
been gloomy with sardonic melancholy, and his eyes shadowed by a hidden
grief which not even love or the loveliness of Lady Blessington could
assuage. But, alas, for the evanescence of ideals!
[Illustration: LORD BYRON
(_By D’Orsay_)
[TO FACE PAGE 50]
Of this meeting we also have Byron’s version. He writes to Moore:—
“Miladi seems highly literary, to which and your honour’s acquaintance
with the family, I attribute the pleasure of having seen them. She is
also very pretty, even in a morning,—a species of beauty on which the
sun of Italy does not shine so frequently as the chandelier. Certainly
English women wear better than their Continental neighbours of the same
sex.”
Accounts differ as to whether Byron did or did not extend familiar
friendship to the Blessingtons; it really does not much matter—if at
all. But it is of importance to know that he fell before the charms of
the irresistible D’Orsay. Indeed so blinded was he with admiration that
he not only discovered the young Frenchman to be “clever, original,
unpretending,” but also stated that “he affected to be nothing that
he was not.” We fancy D’Orsay would not have counted an accusation of
modesty as a compliment. In such a man, properly conscious of his gifts,
modesty can only be a mockery. Mock modesty is to the true what mock
is to real turtle—an insolent imitation. D’Orsay was above all things
candid, when there existed no valid reason for being otherwise.
While at Genoa D’Orsay drew Byron’s portrait, which afterward formed
the frontispiece to Lady Blessington’s _Conversations of Lord Byron_,
which is quite the most realistic and skilful of her ladyship’s works of
fiction. The poet gave the painter a ring, a souvenir not to be worn for
it was too large. It was made of lava, “and so far adapted to the fire of
his years and character,” so Byron wrote to Lady Blessington, through
whose hand he conveyed the gift, perchance deeming that by so doing he
would enhance its value.
Byron’s yacht, the _Bolivar_, was purchased by Blessington for £300,
having cost many times that sum. The vessel was fitted in the most
sumptuous manner; soft cushions, alluring couches, marble baths, every
extravagance that the heart of a woman could conceive or the purse of man
pay for; suitable surroundings for our modern Antony and Cleopatra.
VI
PILGRIMS OF LOVE
“The Pilgrims from St James’ Square” travelled onward through Florence to
Rome, from which latter city they were driven in haste by the heat and
the fear of malaria; so to Naples where they arrived on July 17th. It was
from the hill above the _Campo Santo_ that they gained their first view
of the town where they were to spend so many happy hours. On the brow of
the eminence the postilions pulled up the horses, so that the travellers
might at their leisure survey the wonderful panorama; the towers, the
steeples, the domes, the palaces, the multitude of gardens, the blue
waters of the famous Bay; Vesuvius outlined against the spotless sky;
from behind the Isle of Capri the sun sending up broad shafts of light;
directly below them the high walls and the solemn cedars of the city of
the dead.
At the hotel _Gran Bretagna_, facing the sea, they secured comfortable
quarters commanding a fine view over the Bay, which enchanted Lady
Blessington. But it was quickly decided that a less noisy abode was
desirable, and after a prolonged house-hunting the Palazzo Belvedere
at Vomero was engaged. Before they could move into it English comforts
had to be superimposed upon Italian magnificence, much to the amazement
of the Prince and Princess Belvedere, who had not found their home
lacking in anything material. Blessington must have been born with the
bump of extravagance highly developed, and Lady Blessington did not do
anything to depress it. The gardens of the _Palazzo_ were superb and
delightful the views they commanded. So in these luxurious surroundings
the toil-worn travellers settled down to contentment—though the heat was
intense.
Of the rooms we may note that the _salon_ was a spacious apartment, of
which the four corners were turned into so many independent territories,
of which one was occupied by Lady Blessington’s paper-strewn table, and
another by D’Orsay’s, artistically untidy; the others were allotted to
Marianne Power and to young Charles Mathews. Blessington had his own
private sanctum, in which he busied himself with literary and artistic
enterprises, all of which were still-born, except a novel, concerning
which Jekyll gives this advice: “Don’t read Lord Blessington’s _Reginald
de Vavasour_ … duller than death.”
How charming a morning spent in that salon in that charming company: the
Lady of the House, romantic and tender; D’Orsay, debonair and gracious;
Marianne, pretty, never in the way, never out of it when her company was
wanted; and gay, young Charles Mathews intent upon his drawings. To them
enter, upon occasion fitting or otherwise, the Lord of the House, too
full of his own affairs to heed the affair that was going on before his
eyes, or heedless of it, who can say which; now bestowing a caress upon
his adoring wife, now casting a heavy jest to his young _protégé_, the
Count; now summoning Mathews to come into his room and discuss the plans
for the superb home that he was going to build in Ireland, but which
remained a castle in the air.
Charles James Mathews, who was born December 26th, 1803, was in his early
years destined for the Church, but his exuberant high spirits scarcely
foreshadowed success in that walk of life. Having evinced a decided taste
for architecture, he was articled to Augustus Pugin, whose office he
entered in 1819. Charles James was a lively lad, quick of wit and ready
of tongue, a well-read young fellow, too. In August, 1823, the elder
Mathews received a letter from Blessington, who had returned from Italy
and with whom he had long been intimately acquainted, expressing his
intention to build a house at Mountjoy Forest and to give the younger
Mathews “an opportunity of making his _début_ as an architect.” So off
to the North of Ireland went Charles James, and for a couple of months
lived a very jolly life with his “noble patron.” The plans for the new
house were approved, but it was considered necessary to consult Lady
Blessington before any final decisions were arrived at, and, eventually,
the whole scheme was shelved. Young Mathews was invited by Blessington
to accompany him on his return to Italy, and—says Mathews—“on the
twenty-first of September, 1823, eyes were wiped and handkerchiefs waved,
as, comfortably ensconced in the well-laden travelling carriage, four
post-horses rattled us away from St James’ Square.”
So it will be seen that kindly Blessington left Marguerite and Alfred
to take care of each other this summer time, with Marianne to play
gooseberry. Expeditions here, there and everywhere, were the order of the
day; drives along the coast, or in the evening down into Naples, to the
Chiaja thronged with carriages. There were many English then resident in
Naples, among them Sir William Gell, whom D’Orsay once described as “Le
brave Gell, protecteur-général des _humbugs_.” He was evidently a bit of
a “character”; a man of learning, withal, who wrote of the topography
of Troy and the antiquities of Ithaca; chamberlain to the eccentric
Queen Caroline, in whose favour he gave his evidence; an authority on
Pompeii—and an amiable man. Mathews speaks of him as “Dear, old, kind,
gay Sir William Gell, who, while wheeling himself about the room in his
chair, for he was unable to walk a step without help, alternately kept
his friends on the broad grin with his whimsical sallies” and talked
archæological “shop”; “his hand was as big as a leg of mutton and covered
with chalkstones”; nevertheless he could draw with admirable precision.
Greville tells of him, some years later, as living in “his eggshell of
a house and pretty garden, which he planted himself ten years ago, and
calls it the Boschetto Gellio.” Moore speaks of him as “still a coxcomb,
but rather amusing.”
He was a man of sound humour; he could make fun out of his own
misfortunes, as in this letter written from Rome in 1824: “I am sitting
in my garden, under the shade of my own vines and figs, my dear Lady
Blessington, where I have been looking at the people gathering the
grapes, which are to produce six barrels of what I suspect will prove
very bad wine; and all this sounds very well, till I tell you that I am
positively sitting in a wheelbarrow, which I found the only means of
conveying my crazy person into the garden. Don’t laugh, Miss Power.”
He was not always respectful to his royal mistress, for he accuses her of
being capable of saying, “O trumpery! O Moses!”
Lady Blessington was indeed fortunate in the guides who chaperoned her
on her visits to the many interesting places around Naples; Uwins,
the painter, escorted her to picture-galleries and museums; so did
Westmacott, the sculptor; Herschel, afterward Sir John, accompanied her
to the Observatory; Sir William Gell was her cicerone at Pompeii, and to
D’Orsay fell the honour of everywhere being by her side.
Pompeii inspired Lady Blessington to verse—
“Lonely city of the dead!
Body whence the soul has fled,
Leaving still upon thy face
Such a mild and pensive grace
As the lately dead display,
While yet stamped upon frail clay,
Rests the impress of the mind,
That the fragile earth refined.”
The house-party was once again complete when Blessington and Mathews
arrived in November.
Young Mathews fancied he had dropped into Paradise, and gives a glowing
description of his environment: “The Palazzo Belvedere, situated about
a mile and a half from the town on the heights of Vomero, overlooking
the city, and the beautiful turquoise-coloured bay dotted with latine
sails, with Vesuvius on the left, the island of Capri on the right,
and the lovely coast of Sorrento stretched out in front, presented an
enchanting scene. The house was the perfection of an Italian palace,
with its exquisite frescoes, marble arcades, and succession of terraces
one beneath the other, adorned with hanging groves of orange-trees and
pomegranates, shaking their odours among festoons of vines and luxuriant
creepers, affording agreeable shade from the noontide sun, made brighter
by the brilliant parterres of glowing flowers, while refreshing fountains
plashed in every direction among statues and vases innumerable.”