Not only in the sports of the town but also in those of the country, and with equal success, did D’Orsay indulge, paying many a pleasant country visit. Thus in January 1840 he was down in Staffordshire hunting and shooting with Lord Anglesey, Lord Hatherston and other good sportsmen, and at the end of the same year he spent some weeks in the country with Lord Chesterfield. At Chesterfield House in town, too, D’Orsay passed many a pleasant hour with the generous, kindly Earl.

D’Orsay had a fondness for the theatre, both the regions before and behind the curtain, and for those connected with it in any way. J. R. PlanchÉ, herald, dramatist and student of costume, was at Gore House on 6th May 1840, there being a brilliant company and much bright talk. Bright companions and gay converse: no wonder that D’Orsay said that “he had never known the meaning of the word ennui.” To the production of Lytton’s Money D’Orsay lent a hand in 1840, helping Macready in various ways to secure an accurate representation of club-life and so forth, introducing the actor to his hatter and so forth, and showing the innocent man how play-accounts and so forth were kept. Actors in those days must have been as innocent of the ways of the world as statesmen and politicians are in these times.

Of another play of Bulwer’s, Charles Greville records:—

“March 8th, 1839.—I went last night to the first representation of Bulwer’s play Richelieu; a fine play, admirably got up, and very well acted by Macready, except the last scene, the conception of which was altogether bad. He turned Richelieu into an exaggerated Sixtus V., who completely lost sight of his dignity, and swaggered about the stage, taunting his foes, and hugging his friends with an exultation quite unbecoming and out of character. With this exception it was a fine performance; the success was unbounded, and the audience transported. After Macready had been called on, they found out Bulwer, who was in a small private box next the one I was in with Lady Blessington and D’Orsay, and were vociferous for his appearance to receive their applause. After a long delay, he bowed two or three times, and instantly retreated. Directly after he came into our box, looking very serious and rather agitated; while Lady Blessington burst into floods of tears at his success, which was certainly very brilliant.”

Macready himself notes of this occasion: “Acted Cardinal Richelieu very nervously: lost my self-possession, and was obliged to use too much effort; it did not satisfy me at all. How can a person get up such a play and do justice at the same time to such a character!”

It was in truth a dazzling circle of dandies with whom Lady Blessington and D’Orsay were surrounded: Disraeli, Bulwer, Ainsworth, Dickens—in fact Gore House was the haunt of the novelists, for to the above may be added Thackeray and Marryat. Ainsworth aped D’Orsay in matters of costume and attitudinising, but as is so often the case with imitators the copy did not nearly equal the great original. The author of Jack Shepherd and many other capital stories was “a fine, tall, handsome, well-whiskered fellow, with a profusion of chestnut curls, and bore himself with no inconsiderable manifestation of self-consciousness.” Ainsworth started business life as a publisher, but made fame and money as a writer. In order to correct the above somewhat acrid description of him, here is a pleasanter one of later years:—

“The time is early summer, the hour about eight o’clock in the evening; dinner has been removed from the prettily-decorated table, and the early fruits tempt the guests, to the number of twelve or so, who are grouped around it. At the head there sits a gentleman no longer in his first youth, but still strikingly handsome; there is something artistic about his dress, and there may be a little affectation in his manners, but even this may in some people be a not unpleasing element. He was our host, William Harrison Ainsworth, and, whatever may have been the claims of others, and, in whatever circles they might move, no one was more genial, no one more popular.”

Charles Dickens first visited Gore House in 1840, and soon gained and always retained the friendship of D’Orsay. Dickens was a very vivid dresser, his gay spirit loved riotous colours. He has been described as “rather florid in his dress, and gave me an impression of gold chain and pin and an enormous tie.” Dickens thoroughly enjoyed the conviviality of Gore House, as is shown by the following letter:—

“Covent Garden,
“Sunday, Noon, December 1844.

“My Dear Lady Blessington,—Business for other people (and by no means of a pleasant kind) has held me prisoner during two whole days, and will so detain me to-day, in the very agony of my departure for Italy again, that I shall not even be able to reach Gore House once more, on which I had set my heart. I cannot bear the thought of going away without some sort of reference to the happy day you gave me on Monday, and the pleasure and delight I had in your earnest greeting. I shall never forget it, believe me. It would be worth going to China—it would be worth going to America, to come home again for the pleasure of such a meeting with you and Count d’Orsay—to whom my love, and something as near it to Miss Power and her sister as it is lawful to send.…”