W. Teignmouth Shore

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.”

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.…”

Leigh Hunt tells us that she possessed the handsomest nose he had ever seen.

Opinions differ about beauties as about other matters, so it will not hurt to hear what Henry Reeve has to say:—

“October 15th (1839).—I have been a good deal at Gore House lately, attracted and amused by Mme. de Guiccioli, who is staying with my lady. Having recently made the acquaintance of Lady Byron, it is very curious to me to compare the manners and character of her celebrated rival. The Guiccioli is still exceedingly beautiful. She has sunbeams of hair, a fine person, and a milky complexion. Her spirits are wonderful, and her conversation brilliant even in the most witty house in London. Besides which, she alone of all Italian women knows some things. Besides a fine taste, which belongs to them by nature, she has a good share of literary attainments, which, as her beauty fails, will smooth a track from coquetry to pedantry, from the courted beauty to the courted blue.”

She and D’Orsay were very good friends; there are constant messages to her from him in Lady Blessington’s letters:—“Count d’Orsay charges me with the kindest regards for you; we often think and talk of the pleasant hours passed in your society at Anglesey, when your charming voice and agreeable conversation, gave wings to them.” And: “Comte d’Orsay charges me with mille choses aimables to you; you have, malgrÉ all discussions, secured a very warm and sincere friend in him.” And, writing from Gore House on 15th August 1839: “Your friend Alfred charges me with his kindest regards to you. He is now an inmate at Gore House, having sold his own residence; and this is not only a great protection but a great addition to my comfort.” A quite pleasantly frank confession to the mistress of a great poet from the mistress of a great dandy. But there have been greater poets than Byron, not any greater dandy than D’Orsay, so the Blessington was the prouder woman of the two.

The following, written in January 1845, must be quoted in full, and read with the remembrance to the fore that Lady Blessington posed in conversation and in print as having been on terms of intimate friendship with Byron. “… You have, I daresay, heard that your friend Count d’Orsay has within the last two years taken to painting, and such has been the rapidity of his progress, that he has left many competitors, who have been for fifteen years painters, far behind.

“Dissatisfied with all the portraits that have been painted of Lord Byron, none of which render justice to the intellectual beauty of his noble head, Count d’Orsay, at my request, has made a portrait of our great poet, and it has been pronounced by Sir John Cam Hobhouse, and all who remember Lord Byron, to be the best likeness of him ever painted! The picture possesses all the noble intelligence and fine character of the poet’s face, and will, I am sure, delight you when you see it. We have had it engraved, and when the plate is finished, a print will be sent to you. It will be interesting, chÈre et aimable amie, to have a portrait of our great poet, from a painting by one who so truly esteems you: for you have not a truer friend than Count d’Orsay, unless it be me. How I wish you were here to see the picture! It is an age since we met, and I assure you we all feel this long separation as a great privation. I shall be greatly disappointed if you are not as delighted with the engraving as I am, for to me it seems the very image of Byron.”

“Our great poet” would have torn the hair of his noble head if he had read this quaint production. La Guiccioli did approve the engraving to the contentment of the artist.

Shee tells us that the Countess on her visits to Gore House was overwhelmed by her more showy hostess, and by her sister, the Countess Saint Marceau, the latter forming a fine foil to the more exuberant Lady Blessington, being slight, short, small-featured, but extremely pretty and piquant, and, as Madden tells us, “always courted and complimented in society, and coquetted with by gentlemen of a certain age, by humourists in single blessedness, especially like Gell, and by old married bachelors like Landor.”

Landor visited Lady Blessington in 1837; he writes to Forster: “I shall be at Gore House on Monday, pray come in the evening. I told Lady Blessington I should not let any of her court stand at all in my way. When I am tired of them, I leave them.”

It is very strong proof of the fascination exercised by D’Orsay that such men as Landor, Carlyle and Forster, each one of whom we would think impervious to his charms, should have succumbed to them.

Landor’s enslavement by Lady Blessington or her sister is understandable, but what attracted him in D’Orsay? Chorley gives us a glimpse of Landor dining at Gore House when its master was absent: “Yesterday evening, I had a very rare treat—a dinner at Kensington tÊte-À-tÊte with Lady Blessington and Mr Landor; she talked her best, brilliant and kindly, and without that touch of self-consciousness which she sometimes displays when worked up to it by flatterers and gay companions. Landor, as usual, the very finest man’s head I have ever seen, and with all his Johnsonian disposition to tyrannise and lay down the law in his talk, restrained and refined by an old-world courtesy and deference to his bright hostess, for which chivalry is the only right word.”

Landor conceived quite an affection for D’Orsay; perhaps at heart they both were dandies? Here is a pleasant bit of chaff from Landor, written to Lady Blessington: “By living at Clifton, I am grown as rich as Rothschild; and if Count d’Orsay could see me in my new coat, he would not write me so pressingly to come up to London. It would breed ill-blood between us—half plague, half cholera. He would say—‘I wish the fellow had his red forehead again—the deuce might powder it for me.’ However, as I go out very little, I shall not divide the world with him.”

Once when Landor was dining at Gore House, his attire had become slightly disordered, to which fact D’Orsay smilingly drew attention as they rose to join the ladies. “My dear Count d’Orsay,” exclaimed Landor, “I thank you! My dear Count d’Orsay I thank you from my soul for pointing out to me the abominable condition to which I am reduced! If I had entered the drawing-room, and presented myself before Lady Blessington in so absurd a light, I would have instantly gone home, put a pistol to my head, and blown my brains out!”

In January 1840, Henry Reeve was at dinner at Gore House, and gives a capital account of the fun there:—

“Our dinner last night was very good fun, but we made rather too many puns. Landor rode several fine paradoxes with savage impetuosity: particularly his theory that the Chinese are the only civilised people in the world. I am sure the Ching dynasty has not a firmer adherent than Landor within its own imperial capital. Landor, you know, is quite as vain of not being read, as Bulwer is of being the most popular writer of the day. Nothing can equal the contempt with which he treats anybody who has more than six readers and three admirers unless it be that saying of Hegel’s, when he declared that nobody understood his writings but himself, and that not always. Lady B(lessington) said the finest thing of Carlyle’s productions that ever was uttered; she called them ‘spangled fustian.’”

Forster and D’Orsay got on very well together, which was perhaps due to the almost if not quite exaggerated respect paid by the former to the latter. He was heard above the roar of talk at one of his dinners, absolutely shouting to his man Henry: “Good heavens, sir, butter for the Count’s flounders!” D’Orsay contrived to misunderstand him very nicely on an occasion. Forster when expecting a visit from the Count was urgently summoned to his printers. He gave his servant strict injunction to tell the Count, should he call before his return, that he had just gone round to Messrs Spottiswoode. He missed his visitor entirely, and his explanation when next he met him was cut short by—“Ah! I know, you had just gone round to Ze Spotted Dog—I understand.”

In 1835 Lady Blessington writes to Forster from Gore House:

“It has given me the greatest pleasure to hear that you are so much better. Count d’Orsay assures me that the improvement is most satisfactory. Tomorrow will be the anniversary of his birthday, and a few friends will meet to celebrate it. How I wish you were to be among the number.” Ten years later, when Forster again was on the sick-list, she writes: “If you knew the anxiety we all feel about your health, and the fervent prayers we offer up for its speedy restoration, you would be convinced, that though you have friends of longer date, you have none more affectionately and sincerely attached to you than those at Gore House. I claim the privilege of an old woman to be allowed to see you as soon as a visitor in a sick-room can be admitted. Sterne says that ‘A friend has the same right as a physician,’ and I hope you will remember this. Count d’Orsay every day regrets that he cannot go and nurse you, and we both often wish you were here, that we might try our power of alleviating your illness, if not of curing you. God bless you, and restore you speedily to health.”

Macready turns up, if we may use words so flippant of a man so serious, at Gore House in 1837. “Reached Lady Blessington’s about a quarter before eight,” he writes. “Found there Fonblanque, Bulwer, Trelawney, Procter, Auldjo, Forster, Lord Canterbury, Fred Reynolds and Mr and Mrs Fairlie, Kenney, a young Manners Sutton, Count d’Orsay and some unknown. I passed an agreeable day, and had a long and interesting conversation in the drawing-room (what an elegant and splendid room it is!) with D’Orsay on pictures.”

Of the members of the party that Macready found himself amongst—Lord Canterbury, when he was the Right Honourable Charles Manners Sutton and Speaker of the House of Commons, had married in 1828 Lady Blessington’s sister Ellen, of whom Moore speaks as “Mrs Speaker”: “Amused to see her, in all her state, the same hearty, lively Irishwoman still.” She had first been married to a Mr Purves. Mrs Fairlie was Mrs Purves’ eldest daughter, Louisa, who while quite young had married Mr John Fairlie. Trelawney was the “Younger Son,” whose “Adventures” are so entertaining and exciting, the intimate of Shelley and Byron, and the model for the old sea captain of Millais’ “North-West Passage.” Procter was “Barry Cornwall”; John Auldjo had been introduced to Lady Blessington by Gell in 1834; Frederick Mansell Reynolds was a minor poet and writer of tales, a letter from whom shows D’Orsay in a pleasant light. It is written from Jersey in 1837—

The Kenney mentioned by Macready must have been James, who as the author of Raising the Wind, and of Sweethearts and Wives, was a singularly appropriate friend for the impecunious, amorous D’Orsay.