doleful dumps and his hours of bitterness; he was, after all, a great
_man_, not a petty god. He plucked the roses of life so recklessly that
he experienced the sharpness of the thorns, which must often have pierced
deep. The conqueror as he tosses uneasily in his sleep is assailed by
dreams that terrify. D’Orsay in his hours of greatest triumph must
sometimes have asked what would be the end of his career; when would
come his Waterloo and St Helena? His thoughts must have sometimes turned
toward the young girl he had married so light-heartedly, whose fortune
he had squandered, and whose life he had shadowed. Success has its hours
of remorse. Life is a riddle; but D’Orsay was not often so foolish as
to bother his brains or break his heart over the solution of it; let
it solve itself as far as he was concerned. If to-morrow were destined
to be overcast let not that possible mischance darken the sunshine of
to-day. Sufficient for the day are the pleasures thereof.
There was not a pleasure or extravagance to which he did not indulge
himself to the full; wine, women and song were all at his command; he
sported with love, and gambled with fortunes. It was his ambition and his
attainment to set the pace in all pursuits of folly. Did a dancer take
the fancy of the town, D’Orsay must catch her fancy and be her lover, in
gossipings always and when he so desired it in fact also.
There is not much doubt that D’Orsay followed irreligiously the following
directions for sowing wild oats and cultivating exotics:—
“Rake discreetly beds of _coryphées_—plant out chorus-singers in park
villas and Montpelier cottages—refresh _premières danseuses_ with
champagne and chicken at the Star and Garter, Richmond, varied with cold
punch and white-bait at the Crown and Sceptre, Blackwall—air _prima
donnas_ in new broughams up and down Rotten Row—carefully bind up rising
actresses with diamond rings and pearl tiaras, from Hancock’s—pot
ballet-dancers in dog-carts—trail slips of columbines to box-seat in
four-horse drag—support fairies running to seed by props from Fortnum
& Mason’s—leave to dry Apollos that have done blooming, and cut Don
Giovannis that throw out too many suckers.”
Another famous tavern at Blackwall was Lovegrove’s “The Brunswick,” where
the white-bait was a famous dish. Of this excellent fish as served there
in 1850, Peter Cunningham says:—“The white-bait is a small fish caught in
the River Thames, and long considered, but erroneously, peculiar to this
river; in no other place, however, is it obtained in such perfection. The
fish should be cooked within an hour after being caught, or they are apt
to cling together. They are cooked in water in a pan, from which they are
removed, as required by a skimmer. They are then thrown on a stratum of
flour, contained in a large napkin, until completely enveloped in flour.
In this state, they are placed in a cullender and all the superfluous
flour removed by sifting. They are next thrown into hot melted lard,
contained in a copper cauldron, or stew vessel, and placed over a
charcoal fire. A kind of ebullition immediately commences, and in about
ten minutes, they are removed by a fine skimmer, thrown into a cullender
to drain, and then served up quite hot. At table they are flavoured with
cayenne and lemon juice, and eaten with brown bread and butter; iced
punch being the favourite accompanying beverage.” A dish fit to place
even before a _première danseuse_!
In the company of the wealthy he gambled as though he were one of
themselves. Whence he obtained the money to pay his losses must remain
a mystery. At the Cocoa Tree he won £35,000 in two nights off an
unfortunate Mr Welsh.
Of the many “hells” of those days, Crockford’s was the most famous and
the most sumptuous; there D’Orsay played for enormous stakes. Bernal
Osborne speaking through the mouth of Hyde Park Achilles, utters this:—
“Patting the crest of his well-managed steed,
Proud of his action, D’Orsay vaunts the breed;
A coat of chocolate, a vest of snow,
Well brush’d his whiskers, as his boots below;
A short-napp’d beaver, prodigal in brim,
With trousers tighten’d to a well-turn’d limb;
O’er play, o’er dress, extends his wide domain,
And Crockford trembles when he calls a main.”
Crockford’s “Palace of Fortune”—of misfortune to many—was in St James’
Street, upon a site and in a building now partly occupied by the
Devonshire Club. The house was designed by and built in 1827 under
the direction of Sir Jeffrey Wayatville, or Wyatt, the transformer of
Windsor Castle, and its proprietor was John Crockford, who it is reputed
died worth some £700,000; one authority indeed states that he made
over £1,000,000 in a few years out of his famous club. The place was
“palatial”; a splendid vestibule and staircase; a state drawing-room,
a state dining-room; and—the play-room. The number of members was
between 1000 and 1200, the annual subscription being £25; the number
of candidates were out of all proportion to the vacancies. Supper was
the great institution, but as a matter of honour it was “no play, no
supper”; no payment was asked for, so members who did not desire to play
in earnest would, after supper, throw a £10-note upon the play-table and
leave it there. The cooking was of the finest, Ude being the _chef_; the
cellar admirable.
Of Ude, the following pleasing little tale is told:—
Colonel Damer going into the club one evening met his highness the _chef_
tearing up and down in a terrible passion.
“What’s the matter?” asked Damer.
“The matter, Monsieur le Colonel! Did you see that man who has just gone
out? Well, he ordered a red mullet for his dinner. I made him a delicious
little sauce with my own hands. The price of the mullet marked on the
_carte_ was two shillings; I added sixpence for the sauce. He refuses to
pay the sixpence. The _imbécile_ apparently believes that the red mullets
come out of the sea, with my sauce in their pockets!”
Major Chambre in his amusing _Recollections of West-End Life_, tells us
that these free suppers “were on so grand a scale, and so excellent, that
the Club became the refuge of all the undinnered members and _gourmets_,
who flocked in after midnight from White’s, Brookes’, and the Opera, to
partake of the good cheer, and try their fortunes at the hazard-table
afterwards. The wines were of first-rate quality, and champagne and hock
of the best growths peeped out of ice-pails, to cool the agitated nerves
of those who had lost their money. Some who had begun cautiously, and
risked but little, by degrees acquired a taste for the excitement of
play, and ended by staking large sums.”
[Illustration: CROCKFORD’S
[TO FACE PAGE 150]
During the Parliamentary Session, supper was served from twelve to five,
and the fare was such as to satisfy the most refined _gourmet_, and the
most experienced “kernoozer.” Crockford started the business of life by
keeping a fish-stall hard by Temple Bar.
“In the play-room might be heard the clear ringing voice of that
agreeable reprobate, Tom Duncombe, as he cheerfully called ‘Seven,’ and
the powerful hand of the vigorous Sefton in throwing for a ten. There
might be noted the scientific dribbling of a four by ‘King’ Allen, the
tremendous backing of nines and fives by Ball Hughes and Auriol, the
enormous stakes played for by Lords Lichfield and Chesterfield, George
Payne, Sir St Vincent Cotton, D’Orsay, and George Anson, and, above all,
the gentlemanly bearing and calm and unmoved demeanour, under losses or
gains, of all the men of that generation.”
_The English Spy_ speaks quite disrespectfully of Crocky’s: “We can sup
in Crockford’s _pandemonium_ among parliamentary pigeons, unfledged
ensigns of the Guards, broken-down titled legs, and _ci-devant_ bankers,
fishmongers and lightermen.…” Apparently unkindly wags spoke of the Club
as “Fishmongers’ Hall.”
“Seven’s the main! Eleven’s a nick!”
It was the hazard of the die! Dice at £1, 1s. 0d. a pair cost the Club
exchequer some £2000 per annum.
The play-room was richly decorated and furnished, and the centre of
attraction was an oval table covered with green baize. This board of
green cloth was marked out in white lines, and at the corners, if there
can be such to an oval, were inscribed the mystic words “In” and “Out.”
In the centre was a space divided into squares in each of which was
inscribed a number. At the middle of one side of the board stood two
croupiers with a box before them containing the “bank” and with rakes in
hand ready to gather in or to pay out as luck would have it. Crockford
himself would be hovering around; here is a sketch of him:—
“A little in arrear of the players a tall and rather spare man stood,
with a pale and strongly-marked face, light grey eyes, and frosted hair.
His dress was common in the extreme, and his appearance generally might
be denominated of that order. The only peculiarity, if, peculiarity
it can be called, was a white cravat folded so thickly round his
neck that there seemed to be quite a superfluity of cambric in that
quarter. A smile—it might be of triumph, it might be of good-nature, of
satisfaction, of benevolence, of good-will—no, it could not be either
of these, save the former, and yet a smile was there … there he stood,
turning a pleasant—it almost amounted to a benevolent look—upon the
progress of the hazard, and at each countenance of the players.”
From the same vivacious work, a curious account of life about town by
John Mills, we now extract an account of an imaginary gamble by D’Orsay,
called herein the Marquis d’Horsay, and his friend Lord Chesterlane,
otherwise the Earl of Chesterfield:—
“Among the group, sitting and standing about the table, were the Marquis
d’Horsay and Lord Chesterlane. The former bore a disconsolate mood;
while the latter evinced thorough satisfaction and confidence in his
thoughts, or want of them, for good-humour shone in his face, and he
now and then snapped his fingers in very good imitation of castanets,
accompanied by a whistle both merry and loud. Large piles of red and
white counters were before him, showing that Fortune had favoured his
designs upon her benefits.
“‘You’re in luck to-night, Tom,’ observed the Marquis.
“‘Yes,’ replied his lordship, ‘I have the pull. But what are you doing?’
“‘Doing!’ repeated the Marquis, ‘I’m done; sown up; drawn as fine as spun
glass; eased of all anxiety from having my pockets picked on my way home;
and entertain, as you may see, a lively satisfaction in the pleasant
carelessness of my situation.’
“‘By the nectar, honied look of the sweetest girl that ever pointed her
glass to the omnibus box!’ swore his lordship, ‘your looks and tone carry
poor conviction to the sincerity of the axiom. Help yourself,’ continued
he, pushing a heap of counters towards his friend, ‘and stick it on
thick.…’
“In a heap—yes, in one uncounted, promiscuous heap—the Marquis gathered
the ivory checks on to the division in which the monosyllable ‘In’ was
legible, and in a standing posture called ‘Five.’
“‘Five’s the main,’ cried one of the croupiers, looking with as much
indifference at the dice as they were sent spinning across the table from
the hand of the caster as if they had been a couple of marbles shot from
the bent knuckle of a schoolboy.
“‘A nick, by Love’s sugar-candy kiss!’ said the Earl.
“In a trice the counters were examined by one of the attendants, and an
addition made to their numbers in the sum gained.
“With a flushed cheek and flashing eye the Marquis scraped the whole
again upon the ‘In.’”
Again the Marquis—that is to say D’Orsay—wins; he wins again, and again!
Again—again—again; never withdrawing his original stake or his winnings,
but letting them lie there, growing and growing. Then—the bank was broken!
“‘By my coach and ’osses!’ exclaimed Sir Vincent Twist, a tall,
well-made, strongly-marked, premature wrinkled, toothless—or, in
the phraseology of the ring, all the front rails gone—badly-dressed
individual.… ‘By my coach and ’osses! Fishey’s bank must be replenished!’”
This frankly unveracious history from which we have quoted is doubtless
as near to truthfulness as many a ponderous volume based upon documentary
evidence of undoubted authenticity—but that is not saying much.
At Crockford’s Lord Lamington, who wrote so understandingly of the
dandies, will have met D’Orsay, with whom he was upon excellent terms:
“Men did not slouch through life”; he writes, “and it was remarkable how
highly they were appreciated by the crowd, not only of the upper but of
the lower classes. I have frequently ridden down to Richmond with Count
d’Orsay. A striking figure he was in his blue coat with gilt buttons,
thrown well back to show the wide expanse of snowy shirt-front and
buff waistcoat; his tight leathers and polished boots; his well-curled
whiskers and handsome countenance; a wide-brimmed, glossy hat, spotless
white gloves.”
Doubtless it was to the famous old Star and Garter that they rode down,
the scene of many a high jink and of much merriment by night. A famous
house with a history dating back to the dim age of the year 1738. A very
unpretentious place at first, it was rebuilt upon a fairly fine scale in
1780, but did not prosper. It was a certain Christopher Crean, ex-_chef_
to his Royal Highness the Duke of York, and after him his widow, who
brought good luck to the house. In D’Orsay’s days it was owned by a Mr
Joseph Ellis. The old building vanished in flames in 1870.
It must have been a delightful place at which to dine and spend the
evening in those far-away D’Orsay days, and very pleasant the ride or
drive down there through the country now covered with suburbia. Dukes
and dandies, pretty women of some repute and of no repute, bright young
bucks and hoary-headed old stagers, hawks and pigeons, the _crême de
la Bohême_, all the world and other people’s wives, would be there;
immense the popping of corks from bottles of champagne and claret and
burgundy—the monarch of wines. Uproarious the joviality! They were gay
dogs in those gay days!
Though, speaking of a somewhat later date, Serjeant Ballantine’s account
of the place may be quoted:—
“Many also were the pleasant parties at the Star and Garter at Richmond,
not then the great ugly staring barrack of a place that occupies the
site where Mr Ellis, the picture of a host, used to receive the guests.
The old house was burnt down. In itself it had not much pretension,
but the garden behind was a perfect picture of loveliness; the small
garden-rooms, with honeysuckles, jasmine and roses twining themselves up
the sides, with a lovely sweep of lawn, on which were scattered trees
that had flourished there for many a long day, affording shade as well as
beauty; one magnificent spreading beech, itself a sight, and an avenue of
limes forming the prettiest of walks at the bottom of the garden.”
The view was of better quality than the viands.
There was not a fashionable haunt of virtue or of vice in which
D’Orsay was not quite at home. There was not any fashionable folly or
accomplishment in which he was unskilled; a complete man-about-town,
gambler, rake and dandy. We need not pursue him in all his pastimes; dead
and gone revelries cannot be resurrected with any satisfaction; they
smell musty. Let them lie.
XV
GORE HOUSE
Early in 1836 Lady Blessington moved from Mayfair out to Kensington,
or—as it then practically was—from the centre of the town to a suburb,
from Seamore Place to Gore House, which in Grantley Berkeley’s blunt
phrase became “the headquarters of the _demi-monde_, with the Countess of
Blessington as their queen.” She wrote to Landor, describing her change
of home, that she had “taken up her residence in the country, being a
mile from London.”
The house stood close down to the roadway, occupying part of the site
upon which now stands the Albert Hall—why _not_ named after Alfred,
Count d’Orsay? It was secluded from the traffic by a high wall and a
sparse row of trees, two large double gates surmounted by old-fashioned
lanterns giving access to the short drive. The building was low and quite
common-place, painted white, its only external claim to charm being the
beautiful gardens at the back. William Wilberforce, a previous tenant,
writes:—
“We are just one mile from the turnpike at Hyde Park Corner, having about
three acres of pleasure-ground around our house, or rather behind it, and
several old trees, walnut and mulberry, of thick foliage. I can sit and
read under their shade with as much admiration of the beauties of Nature
as if I were down in Yorkshire, or anywhere else 200 miles from the great
city.”
Under those shady trees far other folk now sat, and we doubt not their
meditations were of the town rather than of the beauties of Nature. Of
such an assemblage D’Orsay painted a picture, which to a certain extent
gives the keynote to the history of Gore House for the next fourteen
years. It is a view of the garden side of the house and among those
portrayed in the groups that occupy the foreground are in addition to
D’Orsay and Lady Blessington, the Duke of Wellington and his son, Lord
Douro, of which latter Greville says: “Une lune bien pâle auprès de son
père, but far from a dull man, and not deficient in information”; Sir
Edwin Landseer, sketching a cow, Lord Chesterfield, Lord Brougham, and
Lady Blessington’s fair nieces, the two Misses Power.
Of course D’Orsay also moved out to Kensington, at first living next door
to Gore House at No. 4 Kensington Gore.
Bulwer writing to Lord Durham on many matters, notes the move from
Seamore Place:—
“Lady Blessington has moved into Wilberforce’s old house at
Knightsbridge.… She has got Gore House for ten years. It cost her a
thousand pounds in repairs, about another thousand in new furniture,
entails two gardeners, two cows, and another housemaid; but she declares
with the gravest of all possible faces she only does it for—economy!
D’Orsay is installed in a cottage _orné_ next door, and has set up an
aviary of the best-dressed birds in all Ornithology. He could not
turn naturalist in anything else but Dandies. The very pigeons have
trousers down to their claws and have the habit of looking over their
left shoulder,” of course to see that no evil-minded man-of-law was
approaching with a writ.
Afterward, doubtless realising that any further pretence at propriety was
mere waste of energy and money, he lived in Gore House itself, in the
grounds of which he erected his studio. Charles Greville, who so often
dipped his pen in gall, speaking of D’Orsay’s art work, declares that he
“constantly got helped, and his works retouched by eminent artists, whose
society he cultivated, and many of whom were his intimate friends.” Yet
we find Benjamin Robert Haydon recording on 10th July 1839, while he was
painting his portrait of Wellington:—
“D’Orsay called, and pointed out several things to correct in the
horse.… I did them, and he took my brush in his dandy gloves, which made
my heart ache, and lowered his hindquarters by bringing over a bit of
the sky. Such a dress! white great-coat, blue satin cravat, hair oiled
and curling, hat of the primest curve and purest water, gloves scented
with _eau de Cologne_, or _eau de jasmin_, primrose in tint, skin in
tightness. In this prime of dandyism he took up a nasty, oily, dirty
hog-tool, and immortalised Copenhagen by touching the sky. I thought,
after he was gone, this won’t do—a Frenchman touch Copenhagen! So out I
rubbed all he had touched, and modified his hints myself.”
So strange that Haydon should not have recognised that the touch of
the dandy’s handiwork would immortalise the picture! There are many
historical painters, but only a few great dandies. So little do great men
appreciate greater men! D’Orsay was from now onward to the day of his
fall at the top of his fame.
At Gore House the _salon_ presided over by D’Orsay and Lady Blessington
was even more brilliant than that at Seamore Place, though time was
beginning to play his unkindly tricks at the lady’s expense, and debt was
dogging the footsteps of the gentleman.
Of the former William Archer Shee gives a description too glowing to be
true:—
“Gore House last night was unusually brilliant. Lady Blessington has
the art of collecting around her all that is best worth knowing in the
_male_ society of London. There were Cabinet Ministers, diplomats, poets,
painters, and politicians, all assembled together.… She has the peculiar
and most unusual talent of keeping the conversation in a numerous circle
_general_, and of preventing her guests from dividing into little selfish
_pelotons_. With a tact unsurpassed, she contrives to draw out even the
most modest tyro from his shell of reserve, and, by appearing to take an
interest in his opinion, gives him the courage to express it. All her
visitors seem, by some hidden influence, to find their level, yet they
leave her house satisfied with themselves.”
[Illustration: GORE HOUSE
(_From a Water-colour Drawing by T. H. Shepherd_)
[TO FACE PAGE 160]
But Madden, who was more intimate with her than perhaps anyone else save
D’Orsay, gives us a peep behind the mask of gaiety. He declares that
there was no real happiness in those Gore House days; the skeletons in
their cupboards were rattling their bones. Lady Blessington’s merriment
had no longer the sparkle of genuine vivacity, was no longer unforced.
Cares and troubles grew upon her; her “conversation generally was no
longer of that gay, enlivening, cheerful character, abounding in drollery
and humour, which made the great charm of her _réunions_ in the Villa
Belvedere, and in a minor degree in Seamore Place.”
This is supported by Bulwer in a letter to Albany Fonblanque in September
1837: “I had a melancholyish letter from Lady Blessington the other day.
It always seems to me as if D’Orsay’s _blague_ was too much for her.
People who live with those too high-spirited for them always appear to me
to get the life sucked out of them. The sun drinks up the dews.” So does
the passage of years. Lady Blessington was now fading. The background of
her life had grown grey; the passage of years was impairing her beauty;
money matters troubled her sorely, and it cannot have added to the joy
of life to know that her love and her charms no longer satisfied all the
requirements of her lover. Banishment from the society of almost every
respectable woman must also have grated upon her who was born to reign
over society.
As for D’Orsay, his existence was one perpetual gallop after pleasure
and to escape the clutches of duns and their myrmidons. As far back as
his arrival in England he had been arrested on account of a debt of a
mere £300 to his Paris bootmaker, M’Henry, who, however, did not enforce
imprisonment, but allowed the bill to run on for several years. The
mere fact of D’Orsay being his patron brought him the custom of all the
exquisites of Paris.
It was a magnificent misery for “the gorgeous” Lady Blessington; but
D’Orsay possessed a heart and spirit above trifles; the conqueror of
to-day does not discount his present pleasure by any foreboding of
defeat to-morrow. D’Orsay had conquered London society, almost all the
male members of it and not a few of its female; with his wit and his
good looks he could gain for love what only money could obtain for less
favoured rivals.
Of the fair, frail ones who were to be met with at Gore House one of
the most distinguished, if not for good looks, at any rate for the good
fortune of having had a famous lover, was the Countess Guiccioli. Shee
met her there in the spring of 1837, and was sorely disappointed. He
considered her a “fubsy woman,” without youth, beauty or grace; short,
thick-set, lacking in style: “She sang several Italian airs to her own
accompaniment, in a very pretentious manner, and her voice is loud and
somewhat harsh.” It is told of her that once at a great house, when all
were alert to hear the song to which she was playing the introduction,
she suddenly clasped her—waist, exclaiming—
“Good Lord! I’ve over-eaten myself!”
Lady Blessington gives a kindlier portrait: “Her face is decidedly
handsome, the features regular and well proportioned, her complexion
delicately fair, her teeth very fine, and her hair of that rich golden
tint, which is peculiar to the female pictures by Titian and Giorgione.
Her countenance is very pleasing; its general character is pensive, but
it can be lit up with animation and gaiety, when its expression is very
agreeable. Her bust and arms are exquisitely beautiful.…”