Love Romances of the Aristocracy

ess, and live in history as one of the "most gorgeous" figures in the fashionable world of London under three kings, he would certainly have considered hi

y was to win for them titled husbands-one an English Viscount, the other a Comte de St Marsante; and proudest of all of his own handsome figure and his local dignities. But he w

snowy, wide-spreading cravat. He was the king of Tipperary dandies, known far beyond his own county as "Buck Power" and "Shiver-the-Frills"; and what pleased his vanity still more, he was a Justice of the Peace, with authority to scour the country at the head of a company of dragoons, tracking down r

uerite Power, who was one day to dazzle the w

she had at least two lovers eager to pay homage to her girlish charm-Captains Murray and Farmer, brother-officers of a regiment stationed at Clonmel. To the wooing of Captain Murray, young, handsome, and desperately in earnest, she lent a willing ear; but when thus encouraged, he asked her to be his wife, she blushingly declined the offer, on the g

wealth and good family, and also one of his own boon companions. And thus, tearful, indignant, protesting to the last, the g

young wife with all the brutality of which he was such a past-master. Blows and oaths were her daily lot; and when his cruelty wrung tear

the brat" by sending her back to her home. Here, however, the child-wife found herself less welcome than, and almost as unhappy as in her wedded life; and, driven to despair,

his part of her adventurous life a curtain is drawn; though some have endeavoured to raise it, and have professed to discover scandalous doings for which there seems to be no vestige of authority. We know that, by the time she wa

friends, and a very few others, on whose perfect respect and consideration she

e was lovely. Of her rascally husband she had happily seen nothing during all those years of more or less lonely adventure; and the end of this tragic union was now near. One day in October 1817, the Captain ended his m

. The widowed Earl of Blessington had long been among the most ardent admirers of the lovely Irishwoman; and before Farmer had been many months in his prison-grave, he had won her consent to be his Count

a rent-roll of ￡30,000 a year; allied, it is true, to an extravagance more than commensurate with his revenue. He had a passion for all things theat

equal richness." But she had had enough of Irish life in the days of her childhood, and soon sighed to return to London and to a wider sphere for her beauty and her social ambition; and before she had been

is sweetest songs for her delight; and all the arts and sciences worship

ress through Europe, with a retinue of attendants, and with luxurious equipages such as a king might have been proud to boast. In France they added to their train Count d'Orsay, who thr

l candour; handsome beyond all question; accomplished to the last degree; highly educated, and of great literary acquirements; with a gaiety of heart and cheerfulness of mind that spread happiness on all around

us entered Lady Blessington's life, in which he was

rocession fared majestically to Rome, of which her ladyship, in spite of the sensation she produced and the adulation she received, soon wearied; she sighed for Naples, where she was regally lodged in the Palazzo Belvidere, a Palace, as she declared, "fit for any queen." And how the squire's daugh

neyards. The odour of the flowers in the grounds around the pavilion, and the Spanish jasmine and tuberoses that cover the walls, render it one of the most delicious retreats in the world. The walls of all the rooms are literally covered wi

ndours by new and costly furnishings. Here she spent two-and-a-half years of ideal happiness, sailing by moonlight on the lovely bay, with d'Orsay for companion; visiting all the sights, from Pompeii to the g

a girl of fifteen, who, within a few weeks of reaching Italy, became the wife of my lady's handsome protege, d'Orsay. And it was not until 1828, six years after leaving London, that the stately procession turned its face homewards, halting for

s of her Paris palace reads, indeed, li

as those of a living bird. The recess in which it is placed, is lined with white fluted silk, bordered with blue embossed lace; and from the columns that support the frieze of the recess, pale

and holding an elaborate lamp in the form of a lotus. And all the rest of the equipment of this dream-palace was in keeping with these splendours, from the carpets an

last few years of extravagance had made such inroads in it that all that was left of his ￡30,000 a year was an annual income of ￡600, which went to his illegitimate son. Fortunately the Countess's jointure of ￡2,000 a year was secure; and on this income Lady Blessing

come gold. Her "Books of Beauty" and "Gems of Beauty" were an instantaneous success-they made a strong appeal to the flowery sentiment of the time, and sold in tens of thousands of copies. Her "Conversations with Byron," a record of t

uxury on a fauteuil of yellow satin, in a library crowded with sumptuous couches and ottomans, enamel tables and statutary. To her house in Seamore Place her beauty and fame drew the most eminent men i

he was considered the loveliest woman at the Court of George III. when well advanced in the forties-and this she found at Gore House, in Kensington, a stately mansion in which Wilberforce had made his home,

e, as major-domo, she dispensed a princely hospitality. Her dinners and her entertainments were admit

rospect of a crown, and the Duke of Wellington to Albert Smith and Douglas Jerrold-so wide was the net of Lady Blessington's hospitality. And all paid the same glowing tribute, not only to their hostess's loveliness but to the warmth of heart, which was one of her greatest charms. An

least, incurred in helping to keep up the Gore House ménage-until he found himself at last face to face with liabilities far exceeding ￡100,000, and besieged with duns and bailiffs. Once he was arrested at the suit of a bootmaker, and was rescued from prison by Lady Blessington's rapidly-emptying purse. The climax came when a sheriff's officer smuggled himself into Gore House, and brought down on d'Orsay's head

people were pouring through the rooms which her gorgeous ladyship had made so famous-among them Thackeray, who was moved to tears at the spectacle of so much goodness and greatness reduced

ief of d'Orsay, who declared to the Countess's physician, Madden, "She was to me a mother! a dear, dear mother-a true, loving mother to me." Three years later this "paragon of all the perfections" followed th