“The Count is an old ‘lion,’ whom nobody now knows or receives. He has lived with his mother-in-law, Lady Blessington, the blue-stocking of the keepsakes, and with everyone but his wife, Lady Henrietta d’Orsay, who was the mistress of the Duke d’Orleans, of Antoine de Noailles, and a host of lesser stars.
“Count d’Orsay for twenty years lived on the aristocracy and the tradespeople of London. Steeped in debt, he has now turned artist, backed by a following of nonentities.… Every year he disfigures some contemporaneous celebrity either in marble or plaster; last time it was Lamartine.
“D’Orsay has still great pretensions to elegance, and dresses like no one else, with a display of embroidered linen, satin, gold chains, and hair all disordered.”
Accusations of a more serious character also he brings against him, even that he tried to persuade Jérôme Bonaparte that he was his son, so that he might receive some place or promotion.
Then on December 2nd, 1851, came the thunderclap of the coup d’état, when the Prince who had become a President created himself an Emperor, and at the same time appears to have put an end to his friendship toward D’Orsay. Shortly after the event, D’Orsay was dining with a large company, and naturally the coup d’état came up for discussion and comment. D’Orsay was quite outspoken in his condemnation, and said: “It is the greatest political swindle that ever has been practised in the world!” Which remark very naturally created considerable dismay in the circle; it is not wise to express too freely adverse opinions of emperors—while they are alive.
In Abraham Hayward’s Correspondence, considerable light is thrown upon D’Orsay’s opinions of Napoleon and the political situation in Paris. On 17th January 1850, he writes from 38 Rue de la Ville l’Evêque:—
“Mon Cher Hayward,—J’aurois dû vous répondre plus tôt, pour vous remercier de l’article que vous m’avez envoyé. J’attendois d’avoir vu Louis Napoléon. Nous voici de retour à Paris, établi pour l’Hiver qui est des plus rudes. Les affaires ici vont mal; l’amour propre en souffrance fait tous les grands révolutionnaires en France, il n’y a pas dix hommes de bonne foi dans ce beau pays; les gens opposent dans la Chambre les lois qu’ils avait eux-mêmes proposées anciennement. Thiers et Berryer, bavards de profession, sont si versés d’être mis de côté, qu’ils combinent une conjuration de Catalina. Les élections de Paris montreront définitivement de quel côté est le vent; en attendant, dans le midi, le gouvernement est obligé de donner son appui à des candidats légitimistes, plutôt que de voir des extrêmes rouges remporter la victoire, c’est bien tomber de Charybdis dans Scylla. Napoléon a le plus grand désir to run straight, mais les crossins et jostlings cherchent à l’empêcher, vous devez vous en apercevoir.… Rappelez-moi au bon souvenir de mes amis d’Angleterre, j’y suis souvent en pensée, et malgré que cela soit toujours avec un grand sentiment de tristesse je préfère cela aux gaietés de Paris. Votre très dévoué,
“D’Orsay.”
Then on the 5th, possibly the 6th, of December 1851, D’Orsay sends over to Hayward for publication in the English Press, the letter published in Paris on the 4th by Jérôme, which was scarcely calculated to please nephew Louis. Two lines in D’Orsay’s covering note are striking:—“I always think of dear old England, that one must like every day more from what we see everywhere else.”
On 2nd January, of the year following, D’Orsay writes a long and interesting letter to Hayward, in which he says emphatically that he was and is strongly opposed to the coup d’état, and that on account of it Louis Napoleon had sunk in his estimation, as he had believed him to be a man as good as his word. He held that Napoleon would have “arrived” without employing illegitimate means, and that Republicanism was an almost negligible quantity. After discussing the standing of various leaders and parties, he continues:—