spoken with him. Houssaye wrote him down as a very fascinating man, “with
a smiling air which comes from and speaks to the heart.” Rachel came into
Houssaye’s office to meet him.
“It’s natural I should find you here,” he said, “for it was to see you I
came to see Arsène Houssaye. You play _Phèdre_ to-night; I should count
it great luck to be there, but there’s not a single seat to be got either
in the stalls or the balcony.”
“True,” said Manager Houssaye, “but there’s my own box, which I offer you
with all my heart.”
“Good! I accept it as an act of friendship, for it’s the best in the
house. I’ll offer it to the Duchesse de Grammont, who will come with
Guiche.”
The evening was a great success for all concerned, and Rachel gracefully
said—“Comment ne jouerais-je pas bien quand je vois dans l’avant-scène
deux Hippolytes?”
D’Orsay and Houssaye became quite good friends, and the latter frequently
visited the Count in his studio, which he describes as “being at once the
_salon_, studio, work-room, smoking-room, fitted with divans, couches and
hammocks.” D’Orsay made a small medallion portrait of his visitor, and
chatted much about Byron, from whom he showed a curious letter in which
the poet says: “If I started life again, I would live unknown in Paris;
I would not write a word, not even to women; but one cannot start life
afresh, which is lucky!”
A very different view, however, is that which now follows:—
Count Horace de Viel Castel notes: “The journals say that Count d’Orsay
has received the commission for a marble statue of Prince Jérôme to be
placed at Versailles. So much the worse for Versailles.
“The Count is an old ‘lion,’ whom nobody now knows or receives. He has
lived with his mother-in-law, Lady Blessington, the blue-stocking of the
_keepsakes_, and with everyone but his wife, Lady Henrietta d’Orsay, who
was the mistress of the Duke d’Orleans, of Antoine de Noailles, and a
host of lesser stars.
“Count d’Orsay for twenty years lived on the aristocracy and the
tradespeople of London. Steeped in debt, he has now turned artist,
backed by a following of nonentities.… Every year he disfigures some
contemporaneous celebrity either in marble or plaster; last time it was
Lamartine.
“D’Orsay has still great pretensions to elegance, and dresses like no one
else, with a display of embroidered linen, satin, gold chains, and hair
all disordered.”
Accusations of a more serious character also he brings against him, even
that he tried to persuade Jérôme Bonaparte that he was his son, so that
he might receive some place or promotion.
Then on December 2nd, 1851, came the thunderclap of the _coup d’état_,
when the Prince who had become a President created himself an Emperor,
and at the same time appears to have put an end to his friendship
toward D’Orsay. Shortly after the event, D’Orsay was dining with a
large company, and naturally the _coup d’état_ came up for discussion
and comment. D’Orsay was quite outspoken in his condemnation, and said:
“It is the greatest political swindle that ever has been practised in
the world!” Which remark very naturally created considerable dismay in
the circle; it is not wise to express too freely adverse opinions of
emperors—while they are alive.
In Abraham Hayward’s _Correspondence_, considerable light is thrown upon
D’Orsay’s opinions of Napoleon and the political situation in Paris. On
17th January 1850, he writes from 38 Rue de la Ville l’Evêque:—
“MON CHER HAYWARD,—J’aurois dû vous répondre plus tôt, pour
vous remercier de l’article que vous m’avez envoyé. J’attendois
d’avoir vu Louis Napoléon. Nous voici de retour à Paris,
établi pour l’Hiver qui est des plus _rudes_. Les affaires ici
vont mal; l’amour propre en souffrance fait tous les grands
révolutionnaires en France, il n’y a pas dix hommes de bonne
foi dans ce beau pays; les gens opposent dans la Chambre les
lois qu’ils avait eux-mêmes proposées anciennement. Thiers
et Berryer, bavards de profession, sont si versés d’être mis
de côté, qu’ils combinent une conjuration de Catalina. Les
élections de Paris montreront définitivement de quel côté est
le vent; en attendant, dans le midi, le gouvernement est obligé
de donner son appui à des candidats légitimistes, plutôt que
de voir des extrêmes rouges remporter la victoire, c’est bien
tomber de Charybdis dans Scylla. Napoléon a le plus grand désir
_to run straight_, mais les _crossins_ et _jostlings_ cherchent
à l’empêcher, vous devez vous en apercevoir.… Rappelez-moi
au bon souvenir de mes amis d’Angleterre, j’y suis souvent
en pensée, et malgré que cela soit toujours avec un grand
sentiment de tristesse je préfère cela aux gaietés de Paris.
Votre très dévoué,
“D’ORSAY.”
Then on the 5th, possibly the 6th, of December 1851, D’Orsay sends over
to Hayward for publication in the English Press, the letter published
in Paris on the 4th by Jérôme, which was scarcely calculated to please
nephew Louis. Two lines in D’Orsay’s covering note are striking:—“I
always think of dear old England, that one must like every day more from
what we see everywhere else.”
On 2nd January, of the year following, D’Orsay writes a long and
interesting letter to Hayward, in which he says emphatically that he was
and is strongly opposed to the _coup d’état_, and that on account of it
Louis Napoleon had sunk in his estimation, as he had believed him to be
a man as good as his word. He held that Napoleon would have “arrived”
without employing illegitimate means, and that Republicanism was an
almost negligible quantity. After discussing the standing of various
leaders and parties, he continues:—
“Vous voyez que je suis juste et impartial, quoique je suis reconnu,
depuis 40 années, d’être le plus grand et le plus sincère Napoléonien
qui existe.” And: “Vous ne pouvez concevoir à quel point les gens ici
sont courtisans et plats valets; vanité et succès sont les deux mots
d’ordres.… Tout marche à l’Empire.” In conclusion: “Ah! if I were rich, I
would soon be in London. Here I am an exile.”
A few days later he writes again to much the same purport, and says:
“J’ai l’air d’être dans une opposition, parce que je n’approuve pas la
route que Louis a pris pour arriver où il en est maintenant.” Who can
doubt that Louis Napoleon blundered in not asking for and accepting
D’Orsay’s advice? But then it was natural that he should not have done
so; the little seldom care to accept the aid of the great.
XXIX
DEATH
In the early part of 1852 a trouble of the spine became apparent, causing
poor D’Orsay much pain and sickness, which he bore with admirable and
uncomplaining patience. In July the doctors ordered him to Dieppe,
whither he went accompanied by the faithful Misses Power; but it was too
late; death was evidently at hand. At the end of the month he returned to
Paris, to die.
On 2nd August, the Archbishop of Paris visited him, and on parting,
embraced him, saying: “J’ai pour vous plus que de l’amitié, j’ai de
l’affection.” The next day he received the last consolations of the
Church at the hands of the curé of Chambourcy.
Madden had visited him during his last weeks, and has left a strange
account of an interview with him, which must be quoted verbatim:—
“The wreck only of the _beau_ D’Orsay was there.
“He was able to sit up and walk, though with difficulty and evidently
with pain, about his room, which was at once his studio, reception
room, and sleeping apartment. He burst out crying when I entered the
room, and continued for a length of time so much affected that he could
hardly speak to me. Gradually he became composed, and talked about Lady
Blessington’s death, but all the time with tears pouring down his pale
wan face, for even then his features were death-stricken.
“He said with marked emphasis: ‘_In losing her I lost everything in this
world—she was to me a mother! a dear, dear mother!_ a true _loving mother
to me!_’ While he uttered these words he sobbed and cried like a child.
And referring to them, he again said: ‘_You understand_ me, Madden.’”
Madden believed D’Orsay to have been speaking in all sincerity. What are
we to believe? There is something almost terrible in this scene of the
dying dandy, broken down in body and spirits, making a gallant effort to
clear the name he had for years besmirched. But the statements of the
dying must not be allowed to weigh against the deeds of the living. And
would the dead lady have been pleased?
Madden continues:—
“I said, among the many objects which caught my attention in the room,
I was very glad to see a crucifix placed over the head of his bed;
men living in the world as he had done, were so much in the habit of
forgetting all early religious feelings. D’Orsay seemed hurt at the
observation. I then plainly said to him:—
“‘The fact is, I imagined, or rather I supposed, you had followed Lady
Blessington’s example, if not in giving up your own religion, in seeming
to conform to another more in vogue in England.’
“D’Orsay rose up with considerable energy, and stood erect and firm with
obvious exertion for a few seconds, looking like himself again, and
pointing to the head of the bed, he said:
“‘Do you see those two swords?’ pointing to two small swords (which were
hung over the crucifix crosswise); ‘do you see that sword to the right?
With that sword I fought in defence of my religion.’”
He then briefly narrated the story of the duel which we have already told.
During his last illness, D’Orsay received from the Emperor the
appointment of Director of Fine Arts. The honour came too late.
At three o’clock in the morning of the fourth of August 1852, aged
fifty-one, died Alfred, Count d’Orsay, the last and the greatest of the
dandies.
He was buried at Chambourcy; the same monument covers his ashes and those
of Lady Blessington. In the absence of the Duke de Grammont, who was
confined to bed by illness, D’Orsay’s nephews, Count Alfred de Grammont
and the Duke de Lespare, were the chief mourners; the Duchesse de
Grammont, his sister, was there, and among others Prince Napoleon, Count
de Montaubon, M. Emile de Girardin, M. Charles Lafitte, M. Alexandre
Dumas fils, Mr Hughes Ball, and several other Englishmen.
Gronow says: “His death produced, both in London and Paris, a deep and
universal regret.”
But one who did not love him, Count Horace de Viel Castel, whom we have
before quoted, did not join in the chorus of regrets:—
“Count d’Orsay is dead, and all the papers are mourning his loss. He
leaves behind him they say, many _chefs-d’œuvres_, and on his death-bed
requested Clésinger to finish his bust of Prince Jérôme.
“D’Orsay had no talent; his statuettes are detestable and his busts
very bad; but a certain set cried him up for their own purposes, and
called him a great man. One newspaper goes so far as to affirm that on
hearing of his death the President said: ‘I have lost my best friend,’ a
statement which I know to be perfectly false.
“D’Orsay’s friends were the President’s enemies—the Jérôme Bonapartes,
Emile de Girardin, Lamartine, etc. He never pardoned the Prince for
not appointing him Ambassador to the Court of St James’, forgetting,
or purposely ignoring, the fact that such a thing was impossible. No
Government would have received him. His debts are fabulous.… The papers
inform us that he has been buried at Chambourcy (on the property of his
sister, the Duchesse de Grammont) in the same grave as his mother-in-law,
Lady Blessington. The incident is sublime; to make it complete,
perhaps they will engrave on his tombstone: ‘That his inconsolable and
heart-broken widow, etc. etc.’
“He died ten years too late, for he became at last merely a ridiculous
old doll. The President does not lose his best friend; on the contrary,
he is well rid of, a compromising schemer.”
Clésinger one day asked D’Orsay why he did not come to see him oftener.
“Because people say that it is I who make your statues,” responded
D’Orsay, with a smile.
“Really!” replied the sculptor, “I will come and see you; no one would
accuse me of being guilty of _yours_.”
Dickens wrote in _Household Words_: “Count d’Orsay, whose name is
publicly synonymous with elegant and graceful accomplishments; and who,
by those who knew him well, is affectionately remembered and regretted,
as a man whose great abilities might have raised him to any distinction,
and whose gentle heart even a world of fashion left unspoiled.”
Landor writes:—
“The death of poor, dear D’Orsay fell heavily tho’ not unexpectedly upon
me. Intelligence of his painful and hopeless malady reached me some weeks
before the event. With many foibles and grave faults, he was generous and
sincere. Neither spirits nor wit ever failed him, and he was ready at
all times to lay down his life for a friend. I felt a consolation in the
loss of Lady Blessington in the thought how unhappy she would have been
had she survived him. The world will never more see united such graceful
minds, so much genius and pleasantry, as I have met, year after year,
under her roof.…”
Macready:—
“To my deep grief perceived the notice of the death of dear Count
d’Orsay. No one who knew him and had affections could help loving him.
When he liked he was most fascinating and captivating. It was impossible
to be insensible to his graceful, frank, and most affectionate manner.…
He was the most brilliant, graceful, endearing man I ever saw—humorous,
witty, and clear-headed.”
D’Orsay’s good friend, Emile de Girardin, wrote in _La Presse_ of August
5th, 1852:—
Le Comte d’Orsay est mort ce matin à trois heures.
“La douleur et le vide de cette mort seront vivement ressentis par tous
les amis qu’il comptait en si grand nombre en France et en Angleterre,
dans tous les rangs de la société, et sous tous les drapeaux de la
politique.
“A Londres, les salons de Gore House furent toujours ouverts à tous les
proscrits politiques, qu’ils s’appelassent Louis Bonaparte ou Louis
Blanc, à tous les naufragés de la fortune et à toutes les illustrations
de l’art et de la science.
“A Paris, il n’avait qu’un vaste atelier, mais quiconque allait frapper
au nom d’un malheur à secourir ou d’un progrès à encourager, était
toujours assuré du plus affable accueil et du plus cordial concours.
“Avant le 2 Décembre, nul ne fit d’efforts plus réitérés pour que la
politique suivît un autre cours et s’élevât aux plus hautes aspirations.
“Après le 2 Décembre, nul ne s’employa plus activement pour amortir les
coups de la proscription: Pierre Dupont[38] le sait et peut le certifier.
“Le Président de la République n’avait pas d’ami à la fois plus dévoué
et plus sincère que le Comte d’Orsay; et c’est quand il venait de la
rapprocher de lui par le titre et les fonctions de surintendant des
beaux-arts qu’il le perd pour toujours.
“C’est une perte irréparable pour l’art et pour les artistes, mais c’est
une perte plus irréparable encore pour la Vérité et pour le Président
de la République, car les palais n’ont que deux portes ouvertes à la
Vérité: la porte de l’amitié et la porte de l’adversité, de l’amitié qui
est à l’adversité ce que l’éclair est à la foudre.
“La justice indivisible, la justice égale pour tous, la justice dont la
mort tient les balances, compte les jours quand elle ne mesure pas les
dons. Alfred d’Orsay avait été comblé de trop de dons—grand cœur, esprit,
un goût pur, beauté antique, force athlétique, adresse incomparable à
tous les exercises du corps, aptitude incontestâble à tous les arts
auxquels il s’était adonné; dessin, peinture, sculpture—Alfred d’Orsay
avait été comblé de trop de dons pour que ses jours ne fussent pas
parcimonieusement comptés. La mort a été inexorable, mais elle a été
juste. Elle ne l’a pas traité en homme vulgaire. Elle ne l’a pas pris,
elle l’a choisi.”
There is one more general summary of his character which must be given.
Grantley Berkeley tells a pleasant story of a dinner at the Old Ship
Hotel at Greenwich:—
“I remember a dinner at the Ship, where there were a good many ladies,
and where D’Orsay was of the party, during which his attention was
directed to a centre pane of glass in the bay-window over the Thames,
where some one had written, in large letters, with a diamond, D’Orsay’s
name in improper conjunction with a celebrated German _danseuse_ then
fulfilling an engagement at the Opera. With characteristic readiness
and _sang-froid_, he took an orange from a dish near him, and, making
some trifling remark on the excellence of the fruit, tossed it up once
or twice, catching it in his hand again. Presently, as if by accident,
he gave it a wider cant, and sent it through the window, knocking the
offensive words out of sight into the Thames.”
Then he continues:—
“D’Orsay was as clever and agreeable a companion as any in the world, and
perhaps as inventive and extravagant in dress as Beau Brummel, though
not so original nor so varied in the grades of costume through which his
imagination carried him. There were all sorts of hats and garments named
after him by their makers, more or less like those he wore, and a good
many men copied him to some extent in his attire. He and I adopted the
tight wristbands, turned back upon the sleeve of the coat upon the wrist,
in which fashion we were not followed by others, I am happy to say.…
“Among the peculiarities and accomplishments for which D’Orsay desired
to be famous was that of great muscular strength, as well as a knowledge
of all weapons, and when he shook hands with his friends it was with the
whole palm, with such an impressive clutch of the fingers as drove the
blood from the limb he held, and sent every ring on the hand almost to
the bone. The apparent frankness of manner and kind expression in his
good-looking face, when he met you with the exclamation, ‘_Ah, ha, mon
ami!_’ and grasped you by the hand, were charming, and we, who rather
prided ourselves on being able to do strong things, used to be ready for
this grasp, and exhibit our muscular powers in return. There is no man
who can so well imitate D’Orsay’s method of greeting in this particular
as my excellent friend, Dr Quin.
“Poor dear D’Orsay! He was a very accomplished, kind-hearted, and
graceful fellow, and much in request in what may be called the
fashionable world. I knew him well in his happier hours, I knew him
when he was in difficulties, and I knew him in distress; and when in
France I heard from Frenchmen that those in his native country to whom
he looked for high lucrative employment and patronage, and from whom
D’Orsay thought he had some claim to expect them, rather slighted his
pretensions; and when in his last, lingering, painful illness,[39] left
him to die too much neglected and alone.
“That D’Orsay was unwisely extravagant as well as not over-scrupulous
in morality, we know; but that is a man’s own affair, not that of his
friends. His faults, whatever they were, were covered, or at least
glossed over by real kindness of heart, great generosity, and prompt
good-nature, grace in manner, accomplishments, and high courage;
therefore, place him side by side with many of the men with whom he
lived in England, D’Orsay by comparison would have the advantage in many
things.”
XXX
WHAT WAS HE?
Witnesses have been heard for the defence and for the prosecution; the
defendant himself has been examined and cross-examined; what is the
verdict?
Lamb has told us that we must not take the immoral comedies of the
Restoration seriously. His argument does not bear precisely upon the case
in point, but it is of assistance. Lamb, speaking of plays, whereas we
are writing of history, says: “We have been spoiled with—not sentimental
comedy—but a tyrant far more pernicious to our pleasures which has
succeeded to it, the exclusive and all-devouring drama of common life.”
For “comedy” substitute “history”; for “drama” put “psychology” and we
can fit our text to our sermon, a thing often more easy to achieve than
to fit one’s sermon to one’s text. We had been surfeited with sentimental
history, with the white-washing of sinners and the super-humanising of
saints; we therefore turned to what we are pleased to call real life, and
taking everything seriously have made everything dull.
Let us return to our Lamb for a moment:—
“I confess for myself that (with no great delinquencies to answer for) I
am glad for a season to take an airing beyond the diocese of the strict
conscience—not to live always in the precincts of the law-courts—but now
and then, for a dream-while or so, to imagine a world with no meddling
restrictions—to get into recesses, whither the hunter cannot follow me—
‘⸺ Secret shades
Of woody Ida’s inmost grave,
While yet there was no fear of Jove.’
I come back to my cage and my restraint the fresher and more healthy for
it.”
That is the point of view we must take if we are to judge D’Orsay justly;
we must lock up our conscience for the nonce, we must get away from the
unimaginative atmosphere of the law-courts, we must snap the shackles of
convention which always make it impossible for us to form a fair opinion
of the unconventional.
Judged by the standards of life and conduct which must control everyday
men and women, D’Orsay was a monster of iniquity, and also, as _Punch_
would put it, he was worse than wicked, he was vulgar. His friends cannot
have weighed him by any such standards, or they would have condemned
him and scorned him. They could not then have accepted him as one of
themselves, as a man to be almost loved; they would have turned cold
shoulders to any ordinary mortal who treated the love of woman as a
comedy and debts of honour as mere farce.
But your real dandy is not an ordinary man and must not be judged by
common standards. He stands outside and above the ordinary rules of life
and conduct; he has not any conscience, and questions of morality do not
affect him. All that is for us to do in viewing such a one as D’Orsay is
to weigh his physical and mental gifts, and to examine the uses to which
he put them, to look to the opportunities which were given to him and the
advantage which he took of them.
Of the multitude of witnesses whom we have summoned there is not one
who denies that D’Orsay was a man of supreme physical beauty, and the
portraits of him support their verdict. Good looks that were almost
effeminate in their charm were supported by the physique of a perfect
man, and in all manly sports and pursuits he was highly accomplished. Of
his mental qualities it is not so easy justly to weigh the worth; he was
an accomplished amateur in art some say, others deny it, but on the whole
the evidence seems to be in his favour; he was endowed with a pleasing
habit of talk, though scarcely with wit. He was good-humoured, a _bon
garçon_ and good-natured. He was an accomplished _gourmet_. In the art
of dress he was supreme. He was more greatly skilled, perhaps, than any
other man, in the art of gaining and giving pleasure. He was brave.
Morality, as has been said, does not enter into the consideration of such
a man; he was above morality, or outside it. There have been and there
are others like him. They are grown-up children, utterly irresponsible;
not immoral but unmoral; they “please to live and live to please”
themselves. They do not realise that their actions may prove costly to
others and therefore do not count the cost. They are children of impulse
not of calculation. They are emotional not logical. Pleasure is their
pursuit and they shun all that is unpleasing and displeasing. They are
so different from us ordinary folk that we cannot appraise them or even
fully understand them. Fear of consequences that would appal us have no
terrors for them; they do not need to set them aside, they are not aware
of them. Conventions which hamper us, for them do not exist. To fulfil
the desire of to-day is their one aim and ambition and they take no heed
of to-morrow.