So wrote Mr Phillips, “that eminent author of auctioneering advertisements.”
The sale took place in May, and was attended by a crowd of fashionables, and the net sum realised was £11,985, 4s. 0d. Lawrence’s portrait of Lady Blessington, now in the Wallace Collection, fetched £336 and was purchased by Lord Hertford, who also acquired D’Orsay’s portrait of the Duke of Wellington for £189. Chalon’s portrait of Lady Blessington was saved from the wreck; it is now in the National Portrait Gallery.
Lady Blessington’s French valet, Avillon, writes to her:—
“Gore House, Kensington,
May 8th, 1849.
“My Lady,—J’ai bien reçu votre lettre, et je me serais empressé d’y répondre le même jour, mais j’ai été si occupé étant le premier de la vente qu’il m’a été impossible de le faire. J’ai vu M. P.⸺ dans l’après midi. Il avais un commis ici pour prendre le prix des différents objets vendu le 7 May, et que vous avez sans doute reçu maintenant, au dire des gens qui ont assisté à la vente. Les choses se sont vendus avant agencement et je dois ajouter que M. Phillips n’a rien négligé pour rendre la vente intéressante a toute la noblesse d’ici.
“Lord Hertford a acheté plusieurs choses, et ce n’est que dimanche dernier fort tard dans l’après midi, qu’il est venu voir la maison. En un mot je pense sans exagération, que le nombre de personnes qui sont venus a la maison pendant les 5 jours quelle a été en vue, que plus de 20,000 personnes y sont entrées; une très grande quantité de Catalogue ont été vendus, et nous en vendons encore tous les jours, car vous le savez, personne n’est admis sans cela. Plusieurs des personnes qui fréquantent la maison sont venus les deux premiers jours.…
“Le Dr. Quin est venu plusieurs fois, et á paru prendre le plus grand intêret a ce qui se passait ici. M. Thackeray est venu aussi, et avait les larmes aux yeux en partant. C’est peut-être la seule personne que j’ai vu réellement affecté a votre depart.”
Lady Blessington and her two nieces had left for Paris on 14th April.
* * *
XXVII
PARIS FOR THE LAST TIME
Lady Blessington returned to the city where her husband had died; D’Orsay to serve under another Napoleon than he to whom he had once aspired to render duty. Lady Blessington took a suite of rooms in the Hôtel de la Ville l’Evêque, but shortly moved into an appartement in the Rue du Cerq, hard by the Champs Elysées, which she furnished, partly with some of the salvage from the sale, and where she lived very cosily upon her jointure.
The following letter is from Henry Bulwer:—
“May 6, 1849.
“I was very glad to get your letter. I never had a doubt (I judged by myself) that your friends would remain always your friends, and I was sure that many who were not Alfred’s when he was away, would become so when he was present.[35] It would be great ingratitude if Prince Louis forgot former kindnesses and services, and I must say, that I do not think him capable of this.
“I think you will take a house in Paris or near it, and I hope some day there to find you, and to renew some of the many happy hours I have spent in your society. I shall attend the sale, and advise all my friends to do so. From what I hear, things will probably sell well. I am sure that Samson will execute any commission for you when he goes to Paris, and I gave Douro your message, who returns it.…”
Napoleon as President, however, was a different man from a mere Prince in Exile, and could scarcely show himself as intimate in Paris with Lady Blessington and D’Orsay as he had done in London. Accompanied by the Misses Power they dined at the Elysée Palace, and then social intercourse apparently ceased. That D’Orsay had in other days been of great assistance to Napoleon, and that Lady Blessington had been to him a most kind hostess, there is no denying; they expected much now in return, but Napoleon could scarcely in decency give much.
It is narrated that Napoleon said to Lady Blessington: “Are you going to stay long in France?”
And that she with more wit than wisdom replied: “I don’t know. Are you?”
Lady Blessington was warmly welcomed by many of her old friends, notably by various members of the family of de Grammont. She tried to resume in a minor key at Paris the life she had led at Gore House; but the endeavour failed.
A letter from Lady Blessington’s niece, Margaret Power, brings us to the closing scene of this portion of our story:—
“On arriving in Paris, my aunt followed a mode of life differing considerably from the sedentary one she had for such a length of time pursued; she rose earlier, took much exercise, and, in consequence, lived somewhat higher than was her wont, for she was habitually a remarkably small eater; this appeared to agree with her general health, for she looked well, and was cheerful; but she began to suffer occasionally (especially in the morning) from oppression and difficulty of breathing. These symptoms, slight at first, she carefully concealed from our knowledge, having always a great objection to medical treatment; but as they increased in force and frequency, she was obliged to reveal them, and medical aid was immediately called in. Dr Léon Simon pronounced there was énergie du cœur, but that the symptoms in question proceeded probably from bronchitis—a disease then very prevalent in Paris—that they were nervous, and entailed no danger, and as, after the remedies he prescribed, the attacks diminished perceptibly in violence, and her general health seemed little affected by them, he entertained no serious alarm.
“On the 3rd of June, she was removed from the hotel we had occupied during the seven weeks we had passed in Paris, and entered the residence which my poor aunt had devoted so much pains and attention to the selecting and furnishing of, and that same day dined en famille with the Duc and Duchesse de Guiche (Count d’Orsay’s nephew). On that occasion, my aunt seemed particularly well in health and spirits, and it being a lovely night, we walked home by moonlight. As usual, I aided my aunt to undress—she never allowed her maid to sit up for her—and left her a little after midnight. She passed, it seems, some most restless hours (she was habitually a bad sleeper), and early in the morning, feeling the commencement of one of the attacks, she called for assistance, and Dr Simon was immediately sent for, the symptoms manifesting themselves with considerable violence, and in the meantime, the remedies he had ordered—sitting upright, rubbing the chest and upper stomach with ether, administering ether, internally, etc.—were all resorted to without effect; the difficulty of breathing became so excessive, that the whole of the chest heaved upwards at each inspiration, which was inhaled with a loud whooping noise, the face was swollen and purple, the eyeballs distended, and utterance almost wholly denied, while the extremities gradually became cold and livid, in spite of every attempt to restore the vital heat. By degrees, the violence of the symptoms abated; she uttered a few words; the first, ‘The violence is over, I can breathe freer’; and soon after, ‘Quelle heure est-il?’ Thus encouraged, we deemed the danger past; but, alas! how bitterly were we deceived; she gradually sank from that moment, and when Dr Simon, who had been delayed by another patient, arrived, he saw that hope was gone; and, indeed, she expired so easily, so tranquilly, that it was impossible to perceive the moment when her spirit passed away.”
D’Orsay was alone.
The autopsy showed that death was caused by enlargement of the heart. The body was embalmed and lay in the vaults of the Madeleine until the monument at Chambourcy, where was the seat of the de Grammonts, a few miles from St Germain-en-Laye, was ready to receive it. The mausoleum, designed by D’Orsay, stands upon a slight eminence; a railing of bronze encloses a pyramid of granite rising from a square platform of black stone. Entering the burial chamber, against the opposite wall is a copy in bronze of Michael Angelo’s crucified Christ. On either side the chamber stands a sarcophagus—in that to the left lies Lady Blessington. “It stands,” writes Miss Power, “on a hillside, just above the village cemetery, and overlooks a view of exquisite beauty and immense extent, taking in the Seine winding through the fertile valley and the forest of St Ger
main; plains, villages and far distant hills, and at the back and side it is sheltered by chestnut trees of large size and great age; a more picturesque spot it is difficult to imagine.” The ivy growing over the green turf was sent from Ireland by Bernal Osborne.
On the wall above the tomb of Lady Blessington are two epitaphs, one in Latin by Landor; the other by Barry Cornwall, which runs as follows:—
IN HER LIFETIME
SHE WAS LOVED AND ADMIRED,
FOR HER MANY GRACEFUL WRITINGS,
HER GENTLE MANNERS, HER KIND AND GENEROUS HEART.
MEN, FAMOUS FOR ART AND SCIENCE,
IN DISTANT LANDS,
SOUGHT HER FRIENDSHIP:
AND THE HISTORIANS, AND SCHOLARS, THE POETS, AND WITS, AND
PAINTERS, OF HER OWN COUNTRY,
FOUND AN UNFAILING WELCOME
IN HER EVER HOSPITABLE HOME.
SHE GAVE, CHEERFULLY, TO ALL WHO WERE IN NEED,
HELP, AND SYMPATHY, AND USEFUL COUNSEL;
AND SHE DIED
LAMENTED BY HER FRIENDS.
THEY WHO LOVED HER BEST IN LIFE, AND NOW LAMENT HER MOST,
HAVE RAISED THIS TRIBUTARY MARBLE
OVER HER PLACE OF REST.
So far truth, and it is not to be expected of an epitaph that it should tell the whole truth.
Requiescat.
MAUSOLEUM OF LADY BLESSINGTON
(From a Photograph (?) by D’Orsay)
[TO FACE PAGE 288
* * *
XXVIII
D’ORSAY IN DECLINE
In April 1849, D’Orsay writes to Dr Quin from Paris:—
“38 Rue de la Ville l’Eveque.
“Mon bon Quin,—J’ai eu un départ imprévu heureusement, que je suis safe de ce côté. Il a fallu que je me décide de partir à 3 hrs de la nuit pour ne pas manquer le Dimanche. Ces dames vous racontent qu’une de mes prèmieres pensées ici ont été pour vous. Vous le voyez par ce peu de mots—aimez moi toujours de loin, car je vous aimais bien de près.—Votre meilleur ami,
“Alfred.”
The death of Lady Blessington was a blow to him from which he never really recovered. Writing to Madden from Chambourcy on 12th July, Miss Power says:—
“Count d’Orsay would himself have answered your letter, but had not the nerve or the heart to do so; although the subject occupies his mind night and day, he cannot speak of it but to those who have been his fellow-sufferers. It is like an image ever floating before his eyes, which he has got, as it were, used to look upon, but which he cannot yet bear to grasp and feel that it is real. Much as she was to us, we cannot but feel that to him she was all; the centre of his existence, round which his recollections, thoughts, hopes and plans turned, and just at the moment she was about to commence a new mode of life, one that promised a rest from the occupation and anxieties that had for some years fallen to her share, death deprived us of her.”
The first visit that he paid to her tomb had a heart-breaking effect upon him; at one moment he would be stunned, at another driven to frenzy by his grief. What thoughts of past times must have assailed him: of his first meeting with her in London so many years ago; of the long days and nights of delight in Italy; of his marriage, perchance; of Seamore Place, of Gore House; of hours of merriment and of sorrow; of her tried faithfulness to him; of his occasional faithlessness. That his love for her survived even the advance of years we cannot doubt; but the love of man is different far from the love of woman.
In a letter, already partly quoted, to Lane, D’Orsay says, writing early in 1850:—
“Poor Miss Power is very much affected. There is no consolation to offer. The only one that I can imagine, is to think continually of the person lost, and to make oneself more miserable by thinking. It is, morally speaking, an homœopathic treatment, and the only one which can give some relief. You cannot form an idea of the soulagement that I found, in occupying myself in the country (at Chambourcy) in building the monument which I have erected to dear Lady Blessington’s memory. I made it so solid and so fine, that I felt all the time that death was the reality and life only the dream of all around me. When I hear anyone making projects for the future, I laugh, feeling as I do now, that we may to-morrow, without five minutes’ notice, have to follow those we regret. I am prepared for that, with a satisfactory resignation.”
D’Orsay wrote to Forster on April 23rd, 1850:—
“Miss Power has told you how much I love you, and how often we talk about you. The fact is, I am full of reminiscences, and they are such a medley of displeasure and pleasure that I hesitate to write even to those who are most likely to understand me. Just think that I have not even yet written to Edward Bulwer. You’ll understand, I’m sure. To-day I dined with Lamartine and Victor Hugo at Girardin’s.…
“Do not let Fonblanque think I have forgotten him? Give a thousand friendly wishes from me to Dickens and his wife, and embrace my godson for me. I count also on your speaking kindly of me to Macready and his wife, and to the good Maclise. It seems to me almost as if I had only gone away to-day, my recollections are so vivid; it is truly a daguerreotype of the heart that nothing can efface. I adore old England, and long to return there. Never did man so suffer as I have done for my loss.[36]
“I wonder at those religious people who hold religion so high that they quickly find consolation. They do not understand, the idiots, that there is a great, a greater faith in a true sorrow which does not heal.
“Adieu, mon brave ami, count always on my affection,
“D’Orsay.”
He found comfort in the companionship of Lady Blessington’s two nieces, Margaret and Ellen. To a certain extent he avoided mixing in society, but we hear of him now and again.
In 1850 he rented a large studio and some smaller rooms in the house of Theodore Gudin, the marine painter, to which he conveyed all his belongings, and where he settled down to work and sedate entertaining. Here Thackeray visited him:—
“To-day I went to see D’Orsay, who has made a bust of Lamartine,[37] who … is mad with vanity. He has written some verses on his bust, and asks: ‘Who is this? Is it a warrior? Is it a hero? Is it a priest? Is it a sage? Is it a tribune of the people? Is it an Adonis?’ meaning that he is all these things,—verses so fatuous and crazy I never saw. Well, D’Orsay says they are the finest verses that ever were written, and imparts to me a translation which Miss Power has made of them; and D’Orsay believes in his mad rubbish of a statue, which he didn’t make; believes in it in the mad way that madmen do,—that it is divine, and that he made it; only as you look in his eyes, you see that he doesn’t quite believe, and when pressed hesitates, and turns away with a howl of rage. D’Orsay has fitted himself up a charming atelier, with arms and trophies, pictures and looking-glasses, the tomb of Blessington, the sword and star of Napoleon, and a crucifix over his bed; and here he dwells without any doubts or remorses, admiring himself in the most horrible pictures which he has painted, and the statues which he gets done for him.”
Lord Lamington gives a curious account of a visit:—
I “found his room all hung with black curtains, the bed and window-curtains were the same; all the souvenirs of one so dear were collected around him.”
Of the friends that rallied around him, Madden names as among the most faithful the ex-King Jérôme and his son, Prince Napoleon, and Emile de Girardin. Of the man of the bust, D’Orsay writes, in April 1850: “Lamartine me disait hier: ‘Plus je vois de représentants du peuple, plus j’aime mes chiens.’”
Early in February 1851 we find Dickens in Paris, stopping at the Hôtel Wagram; D’Orsay dined with him on the 11th and Dickens went in return to the atelier the next day. “He was very happy with us,” he writes, “and is much improved both in spirits and looks.”
In May 1850 Abraham Hayward was in Paris, and dined at Philippe’s with a highly-distinguished company, including Brougham, Alexandre Dumas, Lord Dufferin, the Hon. W. Stuart, a Mr Dundas of Carron, Hayward himself and D’Orsay. Lord Dufferin, who, ho
wever, gives 1849 as the date, describes this dinner as “noisy but amusing.” The object of the dinner was the bringing together of Brougham and Dumas:—“Brougham was punctual to the hour, and they were formally introduced by Count d’Orsay, who, observing some slight symptoms of stiffness, exclaimed: ‘Comment, diable, vous, les deux grands hommes, embrassez-vous donc, embrassez-vous.’ They fraternised accordingly à la française, Brougham looking very much during the operation as if he were in the grip of a bear, though nobody could look more cordial and satisfied than Dumas. The dinner was excellent. Some first rate Clos de Vougeot, of which Dumas had an accurate foreknowledge, sustained the hilarity of the company; the conversation was varied and animated; each of the distinguished guests took his fair share, and no more than his fair share; and it was bordering on midnight when the party separated.”
The price of the dinner was twenty francs a head, not including the wine, and D’Orsay and Hayward were jointly responsible for the menu. “The most successful dishes were the bisque, the fritures Italiennes, and the gigot à la Bretonne,” so says Hayward.
In his latest days he still retained a keen zest for the good things of the table, as is shown by this letter of his to Hayward:—
“Paris, 1st May 1852.
“I must confess with regret that the culinary art has sadly fallen off in Paris; and I do not very clearly see how it is to recover, as there are at present no great establishments where the school can be kept up.
D'Orsay / or, The complete dandy Page 22
