COUNT D'ORSAY

COUNT D'ORSAY (1798-1852), a man of fashion, born in Paris; entered the French army; forsook it for the society of Lord and Lady Blessington; married Lady B.'s daughter by a former marriage; came to England with her ladyship on her husband's death; started a joint establishment in London, which became a rendezvous for all the literary people and artists about town; was "Phoebus Apollo of Dandyism"; paid homage to Carlyle at Chelsea one day in 1839; "came whirling hither in a chariot that struck all Chelsea into mute amazement with splendour," says Carlyle, who thus describes him, "a tall fellow of six feet three, built like a tower, with floods of dark auburn hair, with a beauty, with an adornment unsurpassable on this planet: withal a rather substantial fellow at bottom, by no means without insight, without fun, and a sort of rough sarcasm, rather striking out of such a porcelain figure"; having shown kindness to Louis Napoleon when in London, the Prince did not forget him, and after the coup d'état appointed him to a well-salaried post, but he did not live to enjoy it.