Disraeli sketched D’Orsay’s portrait as Count Alcibiades de Mirabel in Henrietta Temple: “The satin-lined coat thrown open … and revealing a breastplate of starched cambric …,” the wristbands were turned up with “compact precision,” and were fastened by “jewelled studs.” “The Count Mirabel could talk at all times well.… Practised in the world, the Count Mirabel was nevertheless the child of impulse, though a native grace, and an intuitive knowledge of mankind, made every word pleasing and every act appropriate.… The Count Mirabel was gay, careless, generous.… It seemed that the Count Mirabel’s feelings grew daily more fresh, and his faculty of enjoyment more keen and relishing.…” Into Count Mirabel’s mouth is put this, which sounds very D’Orsayish: “Between ourselves, I do not understand what this being bored is,” said the Count. “He who is bored appears to me a bore. To be bored supposes the inability of being amused.… Wherever I may be, I thank heaven that I am always diverted.” Then this: “I live to amuse myself, and I do nothing that does not amuse me.” And this: “Fancy a man ever being in low spirits. Life is too short for such bêtises. The most unfortunate wretch alive calculates unconsciously that it is better to live than to die. Well then, he has something in his favour. Existence is a pleasure, and the greatest. The world cannot rob us of that, and if it be better to live than to die, it is better to live in a good humour than a bad one. If a man be convinced that existence is the greatest pleasure, his happiness may be increased by good fortune, but it will be essentially independent of it. He who feels that the greatest source of pleasure always remains to him, ought never to be miserable. The sun shines on all; every man can go to sleep; if you cannot ride a fine horse, it is something to look upon one; if you have not a fine dinner, there is some amusement in a crust of bread and Gruyère. Feel slightly, think little, never plan, never brood. Everything depends upon the circulation; take care of it. Take the world as you find it, enjoy everything. Vive la bagatelle!”
Then further on:—
“The Count Mirabel was announced.…
“The Count stood before him, the best-dressed man in London, fresh and gay as a bird, with not a care on his sparkling visage, and his eye bright with bonhomie. And yet Count Mirabel had been the very last to desert the recent mysteries of Mr Bond Sharpe;[30] and, as usual, the dappled light of dawn had guided him to his luxurious bed—that bed that always afforded him serene slumbers, whatever might be the adventures of the day, or the result of the night’s campaign. How the Count Mirabel did laugh at those poor devils, who wake only to moralise over their own folly with broken spirits and aching heads. Care, he knew nothing about; Time, he defied; indisposition he could not comprehend. He had never been ill in his life, even for five minutes.
“Melancholy was a farce in the presence of his smile; and there was no possible combination of scrapes that could withstand his kind and brilliant raillery.”
Then to his friend, Armine, who is distrait:—
“A melancholy man! Quelle bêtise! I will cure you; I will be your friend, and put you all right. Now we will just drive down to Richmond; we will have a light dinner—a flounder, a cutlet, and a bottle of champagne, and then we will go to the French play. I will introduce you to Jenny Vertpré. She is full of wit; perhaps she will ask us to supper. Allons, mon ami, mon cher Armine; allons, mon brave!”
Could Armine resist a tempting invitation so irresistible? No, “so, in a few moments, he was safely ensconced in the most perfect cabriolet in London, whirled along by a horse that stepped out with a proud consciousness of its master.”
We hold that portrait to be excellent not only as regards the outer but also the inner man D’Orsay. He was the “child of impulse,” not a cold, cynical, calculating voluptuary; he did not deliberately “feel slightly, think little”; it was not in him to suffer deep emotion or to think deeply. “Vive la bagatelle!” that was his motto, because for him there was not in life anything else than “bagatelle”; existence for him was compounded of “trifles light as air.” His good spirits, as Disraeli hints, were based upon his splendid physical vitality as infectious good spirits must ever be. The joy of life may be apparent to and partially enjoyed by those whose physical health is weak, but complete realisation of the joy of living, of merely being alive, is only for those whose vitality is abundant and superb. Further, he had the faculty of enjoying himself; it was not that he would not but that he could not be bored.
Even children felt his fascination. Madden writes:—