Sunset of the glories of Gore House came in the year 1849, a cold, bitter sunset, presaging a stormy morrow. Lady Blessington was nearly sixty years old, well-preserved indeed, but Time’s footsteps are crow’s-feet. D’Orsay was nearing fifty. Darby and Joan; only the former at fifty is more than ten years younger than the latter at sixty.

Behind all the gaiety of Gore House there had long been a dark background, ever growing more sinister. Without the harassment of any cares it would have been difficult for a woman of Lady Blessington’s age to maintain a sovereignty which depended almost entirely upon her beauty. Troubles met her at every turn, and the last few years at Gore House must have been to her years of torment and despair. She heard her doom approaching with sure foot, and knew that she was unable to stay the advance.

Her jointure of £2000 was entirely inadequate to maintain the expenses of either Seamore Place or Gore House, to the exchequers of which D’Orsay cannot have contributed; any capital that came into his hands was rapidly dispersed by them among hungry debtors, and his income of £500 was probably hypothecated in the same way. It was essential for her, therefore, to add to her revenue, for the reduction of expenditure does not seem to have occurred to this luxury-loving soul. She does indeed seem to have been careful to see that she obtained her money’s worth, and kept a tight hand on the household expenses and accounts. One habit of hers was to keep a “book of dinners,” noting down the names of the guests at each entertainment.

When no other way of securing an income suggests itself to the needy or hard-up, they invariably take up their pens and write. Lady Blessington, if it had not been for her beauty and notoriety, could scarcely have earned a livelihood as a hack writer for the lesser journals, but her name gave to her writings a market value which their intrinsic merit did not. Her Conversations with Byron have already been mentioned, and sufficiently dealt with; she also wrote books of travel, novels, verses, edited such periodicals as The Keepsake and The Book of Beauty, to which the eminent authors who fluttered round her at Gore House contributed, and in the end when these enterprises were failing became a contributor to the Daily News of “exclusive intelligence,” that is to say of “any sort of intelligence she might like to communicate, of the sayings, doings, memoirs or movements in the fashionable world,” for which she received payment at the rate of £400 a year; Dickens and Forster were her editors.

The death in 1848 of Heath, the publisher, in insolvency brought a loss to Lady Blessington of about £700. Her earnings have been placed at a thousand a year, but William Jerdan in his Autobiography declares them to have been much higher. “I have known her to enjoy from her pen an amount somewhere midway between £2000 and £3000 per annum, and her title, as well as talents, had considerable influence in ‘ruling high prices’ as they say in Mark Lane and other markets. To this, also, her well-arranged parties with a publisher now and then, to meet folks of a style unusual to men in business, contributed their attractions; and the same society was in reality of solid value towards the production of such publications as the Annuals, the contents of which were provided by the editor almost entirely from the pens of private friends.”

In 1833 by a robbery of jewellery and plate at Seamore Place, Lady Blessington lost something like £1000.

These losses, the continual strain of working to obtain the funds necessary for her luxurious mode of life and the difficulties in which D’Orsay was involved told heavily upon her health and spirits. As she herself writes in her commonplace book:—

“Great trials demand great courage, and all our energy is called up to enable us to bear them. But it is the minor cares of life that wear out the body, because, singly, and in detail, they do not appear sufficiently important to engage us to rally our force and spirits to support them.… Many minds that have withstood the most severe trials, have been broken down by a succession of ignoble cares;” and there is a touch of sorrowful bitterness in this: “Friends are the thermometers by which we may judge the temperature of our fortunes.”

Not that she was ill-served by her friends, rather the contrary; few women have had so many or so faithful.

The following letter paints the situation better than can any words of ours; it was written to Lady Blessington in or about 1848:—

The last sentences refer to the generous charity which was one of Lady Blessington’s saving graces: parents, brothers, sisters, friends, lover, all benefited by her aid. Two very pleasing letters from Mrs S. C. Hall may be quoted on this and other points:—

“I have never had occasion to appeal to Lady Blessington for aid for any kind or charitable purpose, that she did not at once, with a grace peculiarly her own, come forward cheerfully and ‘help’ to the extent of her power.”

And:—

“When Lady Blessington left London, she did not forget the necessities of several of her poor dependants, who received regular aid from her after her arrival, and while she resided in Paris.[34] She found time, despite her literary labours, her anxieties and the claims which she permitted society to make upon her time, not only to do acts of kindness now and then for those in whom she felt an interest, but to give what seemed perpetual thought to their well-doing: and she never missed an opportunity of doing a gracious act or saying a gracious word.…

“I have no means of knowing whether what the world said of this beautiful woman was true or false, but I am sure God intended her to be good, and there was a deep-seated good intent in whatever she did that came under my observation.

“Her sympathies were quick and cordial, and independent of worldiness; her taste in art and literature womanly and refined; I say ‘womanly,’ because she had a perfectly feminine appreciation of whatever was delicate and beautiful.… Her manners were singularly simple and graceful; it was to me an intense delight to look at beauty, which though I never saw in its full bloom, was charming in its autumn time; and the Irish accent, and soft, sweet, Irish laugh, used to make my heart beat with the pleasures of memory.… Her conversation was not witty nor wise, but it was in good tune and good taste, mingled with a great deal of humour, which escaped everything bordering on vulgarity. It was surprising how a tale of distress or a touching anecdote would at once suffuse her clear intelligent eyes with tears, and her beautiful mouth would break into smiles and dimples at even the echo of wit or jest.”

This is singularly interesting as the evidence of a woman, one of the few who were intimate with Lady Blessington. Of an Irish woman too, who could perceive and appreciate the womanly side of Lady Blessington’s simple nature. Simple, yes; she was just a simple, emotional, luxury-loving, laughter-loving sympathetic Irish woman, who under favourable circumstances might have been a true and adorable wife and helpmate; who under the circumstances that did rule her life, became—Lady Blessington.

Such first-hand testimony as that of Mrs S. C. Hall is worth a wilderness of commentary; to it we will add this from Lady Blessington’s maid, Anne Cooper:—

“My lady’s spirits were naturally good: before she was overpowered with difficulties, and troubles on account of them, she was very cheerful, droll, and particularly amusing. This was natural to her. Her general health was usually good; she often told me she had never been confined to her bed one whole day in her life. And her spirits would have continued good, but that she got so overwhelmed with care and expenses of all kinds. The calls for her assistance were from all quarters. Some depended wholly on her (and had a regular pension, quarterly paid)—her father and mother, for many years before they died; the education of children of friends fell upon her.… Constant assistance had to be given to others—(to the family, in particular, of one poor lady, now dead some years, whom she loved very dearly). She did a great many charities; for instance, she gave very largely to poor literary people, poor artists; something yearly to old servants … and from some, whom she served, to add to all her other miseries, she met with shameful ingratitude.

“Labouring night and day at literary work, all her anxiety was to be clear of debt. She was latterly constantly trying to curtail all her expenses in her own establishment, and constantly toiling to get money. Worried and harassed at not being able to pay bills when they were sent in; at seeing large expenses still going on, and knowing the want of means to meet them, she got no sleep at night. She long wished to give up Gore House, to have a sale of her furniture, and to pay off her debts. She wished this for two years before she left England; but when the famine in Ireland rendered the payment of her jointure irregular, and every succeeding year more and more so, her difficulties increased, and, at last, Howell & James put an execution in the house.… Poor soul! her heart was too large for her means.”

Still Lady Blessington fought on, and faced the footlights without outward faltering; she played her part in the comedy and received the applause of her friends, few of whom realised that the comedy was a tragedy. “Passion! Possession! Indifference!” she writes, “what a history is comprised in these three words! What hopes and fears succeeded by a felicity as brief as intoxicating—followed in its turn by the old consequence of possession—indifference! What burning tears, what bitter pangs, rending the very heartstrings—what sleepless nights and watchful days form part of this everyday story of life, whose termination leaves the actors to search again for new illusions to finish like the last.” But what new illusions can be looked for by a tried, sad woman of sixty?

D’Orsay was locked up in Gore House during these last two years of sunset for six days out of each seven; debt hung like a millstone round his neck also. These two, who had sailed over happy seas with favourable winds, were now together drifting on the rocks.

One day in April a sheriff’s officer, effectually disguised, managed to enter the house, and then the end of this second act of our play came rapidly. Lady Blessington informed of the mishap, realising that once it was known that an execution was laid upon her property there would no more be any safety for the Count’s person, sent to D’Orsay’s room to warn him of his danger.

“Bah!” exclaimed D’Orsay, unable or unwilling to believe that the hour for flight had at last come upon him; and again and again “Bah!” Not until Lady Blessington herself added her personal persuasion did he grasp the situation.

De Contades gives a somewhat different account. Just before the dinner hour, a pastry-cook’s boy presented himself at Gore House with a dish, sent in, so he said, by the confectioner. Having left this in the kitchen, he deliberately walked upstairs to the Count’s dressing-room.

“Well, who’s that?” asked D’Orsay.

It was a sheriff’s officer!

“Really!” exclaimed D’Orsay, and demanded that he should be permitted to complete the tying of his tie—salon or prison—his tie must be perfect.

“But, Count—”

“Bah, bah! All in good time.”

The officer was quite interested in the tying of that tie; few men had been so honoured as to be allowed to see how D’Orsay tied his tie—and, lo! by the time the tie was tied, the sun had sunk to rest and D’Orsay was free till sunrise!

“John,” said D’Orsay, calmly walking off to the drawing-room, “kick this chap out of the door.”

The which was executed and the writ was not.

In the grey of the morning, however, D’Orsay, taking every precaution against capture on the way, set out for Paris with a valet, a valise, and an umbrella. The words of a great man at any moment of crisis in his affairs are worth recording; one of D’Orsay’s last remarks in London was: “Well, at least, if I have nothing else, I will have the best umbrella!”

That was the bravado of a brave man. What really was in his mind? What were Napoleon’s thoughts as he turned his back upon Moscow? What were D’Orsay’s as he fled that morning, conquered, from the town he had captured and enslaved so long?