He was strikingly handsome in face and figure, of that his portraits assure us. One enthusiast tells us: “He was incomparably the handsomest man of his time … uniting to a figure scarcely inferior in the perfection of its form to that of Apollo, a head and face that blended the grace and dignity of the Antinous with the beaming intellect of the younger Bacchus, and the almost feminine softness and beauty of the Ganymede.”
He was an adept in the mysteries of the toilet, as careful of his complexion as a professional belle; revelling in perfumed baths; equipped with an enormous dressing-case fitted in gold, as became the prince of dandies, which he carried everywhere, though it took two men to lift it.
As to clothes, he led the fashion by the nose, and led it whithersoever he wished. He indulged in extravagances, which he knew his reputation and his figure could carry off, and then laughed to see his satellites and toadies making themselves ridiculous by adopting them. His tailor, Herr Stultz, is reported to have proudly described himself as “Tailor to M. le Comte d’Orsay,” full well knowing that the recommendation of mere royalty could carry no such weight. Where D’Orsay led the way all men of fashion must follow. Indeed, it was said that D’Orsay was fully aware of the value of his patronage, and that he expected his tailors to express substantial gratitude for it. When clothes arrived at Seamore Place, in the most mysterious manner banknotes had found their way into their pockets. Once when this accident had not happened, D’Orsay bade his valet return the garment with the message that “the lining of the pockets had been forgotten.”
The ordinary man, as regards his costume, takes care about the main points and permits the details to take care of themselves. Not so your true dandy. Thus we find D’Orsay writing to Banker Moritz Feist at Frankfort: “Will you send me a dozen pair of gloves colour ‘feuille-morte,’ such as they have on sale at the Tyrolean glove shops? They ought to fit your hand (that’s a compliment!), and (this is a fib!) I’ll send along the cash.”
D’Orsay was sometimes quite unkind when friends spoke to him on the subject of some new garment he was sporting.
Gronow meeting D’Orsay one day arrayed in a vest of supreme originality, exclaimed: “My dear Count, you really must give me that waistcoat.”
“Wiz pleasure, Nogrow,”—the Count’s comical misrendering of Gronow’s name—“but what shall you do wiz him? Aha! he shall make you an dressing-gown.”
What the Count could carry off would have extinguished the less-distinguished Gronow.
In Hyde Park, at the happy hour when all “the world” assembled there, some driving, some riding, some strolling, some leaning on the railings and quizzing the passers-by, D’Orsay was to be seen in all his glory. An afternoon lounge in the Park was as delightful then as it is nowadays.
To quote Patmore:—