What did life mean to D’Orsay? Being a wise man he looked upon the world as a place of pleasant sojourning, of which it was the whole duty of man to make the very best. That there was, or might be, “another and a better world” was no sort of excuse for being miserable in this one. “Vive la joie!” was his motto, and he lived up to it gloriously. Life was meant to be lived; money was made for spending; credit was a device for obtaining good things for which the obtainer had not any means or intention of paying. No one but a fool would lift the cup of pleasure to his lips and then set it down before he had drained it dry. D’Orsay looked upon the externals of a luxurious life, and found them very pleasant. The Spartans pointed out the drunken helot to their children, as a warning against tippling. So we may hold out to our young men the life of D’Orsay as an example of what they should all endeavour to be, and as a warning against the sheer foolishness of taking life seriously. This is a degenerate age.
Exceptional as he was in so many ways, D’Orsay was not unique. He had his doleful dumps and his hours of bitterness; he was, after all, a great man, not a petty god. He plucked the roses of life so recklessly that he experienced the sharpness of the thorns, which must often have pierced deep. The conqueror as he tosses uneasily in his sleep is assailed by dreams that terrify. D’Orsay in his hours of greatest triumph must sometimes have asked what would be the end of his career; when would come his Waterloo and St Helena? His thoughts must have sometimes turned toward the young girl he had married so light-heartedly, whose fortune he had squandered, and whose life he had shadowed. Success has its hours of remorse. Life is a riddle; but D’Orsay was not often so foolish as to bother his brains or break his heart over the solution of it; let it solve itself as far as he was concerned. If to-morrow were destined to be overcast let not that possible mischance darken the sunshine of to-day. Sufficient for the day are the pleasures thereof.
There was not a pleasure or extravagance to which he did not indulge himself to the full; wine, women and song were all at his command; he sported with love, and gambled with fortunes. It was his ambition and his attainment to set the pace in all pursuits of folly. Did a dancer take the fancy of the town, D’Orsay must catch her fancy and be her lover, in gossipings always and when he so desired it in fact also.
There is not much doubt that D’Orsay followed irreligiously the following directions for sowing wild oats and cultivating exotics:—
“Rake discreetly beds of coryphées—plant out chorus-singers in park villas and Montpelier cottages—refresh premières danseuses with champagne and chicken at the Star and Garter, Richmond, varied with cold punch and white-bait at the Crown and Sceptre, Blackwall—air prima donnas in new broughams up and down Rotten Row—carefully bind up rising actresses with diamond rings and pearl tiaras, from Hancock’s—pot ballet-dancers in dog-carts—trail slips of columbines to box-seat in four-horse drag—support fairies running to seed by props from Fortnum & Mason’s—leave to dry Apollos that have done blooming, and cut Don Giovannis that throw out too many suckers.”
Another famous tavern at Blackwall was Lovegrove’s “The Brunswick,” where the white-bait was a famous dish. Of this excellent fish as served there in 1850, Peter Cunningham says:—“The white-bait is a small fish caught in the River Thames, and long considered, but erroneously, peculiar to this river; in no other place, however, is it obtained in such perfection. The fish should be cooked within an hour after being caught, or they are apt to cling together. They are cooked in water in a pan, from which they are removed, as required by a skimmer. They are then thrown on a stratum of flour, contained in a large napkin, until completely enveloped in flour. In this state, they are placed in a cullender and all the superfluous flour removed by sifting. They are next thrown into hot melted lard, contained in a copper cauldron, or stew vessel, and placed over a charcoal fire. A kind of ebullition immediately commences, and in about ten minutes, they are removed by a fine skimmer, thrown into a cullender to drain, and then served up quite hot. At table they are flavoured with cayenne and lemon juice, and eaten with brown bread and butter; iced punch being the favourite accompanying beverage.” A dish fit to place even before a première danseuse!
In the company of the wealthy he gambled as though he were one of themselves. Whence he obtained the money to pay his losses must remain a mystery. At the Cocoa Tree he won £35,000 in two nights off an unfortunate Mr Welsh.
Of the many “hells” of those days, Crockford’s was the most famous and the most sumptuous; there D’Orsay played for enormous stakes. Bernal Osborne speaking through the mouth of Hyde Park Achilles, utters this:—
“Patting the crest of his well-managed steed,
Proud of his action, D’Orsay vaunts the breed;