“Miss Power has told you how much I love you, and how often we talk about you. The fact is, I am full of reminiscences, and they are such a medley of displeasure and pleasure that I hesitate to write even to those who are most likely to understand me. Just think that I have not even yet written to Edward Bulwer. You’ll understand, I’m sure. To-day I dined with Lamartine and Victor Hugo at Girardin’s.…
“Do not let Fonblanque think I have forgotten him? Give a thousand friendly wishes from me to Dickens and his wife, and embrace my godson for me. I count also on your speaking kindly of me to Macready and his wife, and to the good Maclise. It seems to me almost as if I had only gone away to-day, my recollections are so vivid; it is truly a daguerreotype of the heart that nothing can efface. I adore old England, and long to return there. Never did man so suffer as I have done for my loss.[36]
“I wonder at those religious people who hold religion so high that they quickly find consolation. They do not understand, the idiots, that there is a great, a greater faith in a true sorrow which does not heal.
“Adieu, mon brave ami, count always on my affection,
“D’Orsay.”
He found comfort in the companionship of Lady Blessington’s two nieces, Margaret and Ellen. To a certain extent he avoided mixing in society, but we hear of him now and again.
In 1850 he rented a large studio and some smaller rooms in the house of Theodore Gudin, the marine painter, to which he conveyed all his belongings, and where he settled down to work and sedate entertaining. Here Thackeray visited him:—
“To-day I went to see D’Orsay, who has made a bust of Lamartine,[37] who … is mad with vanity. He has written some verses on his bust, and asks: ‘Who is this? Is it a warrior? Is it a hero? Is it a priest? Is it a sage? Is it a tribune of the people? Is it an Adonis?’ meaning that he is all these things,—verses so fatuous and crazy I never saw. Well, D’Orsay says they are the finest verses that ever were written, and imparts to me a translation which Miss Power has made of them; and D’Orsay believes in his mad rubbish of a statue, which he didn’t make; believes in it in the mad way that madmen do,—that it is divine, and that he made it; only as you look in his eyes, you see that he doesn’t quite believe, and when pressed hesitates, and turns away with a howl of rage. D’Orsay has fitted himself up a charming atelier, with arms and trophies, pictures and looking-glasses, the tomb of Blessington, the sword and star of Napoleon, and a crucifix over his bed; and here he dwells without any doubts or remorses, admiring himself in the most horrible pictures which he has painted, and the statues which he gets done for him.”
Lord Lamington gives a curious account of a visit:—