Alfred Guillaume Gabriel d'Orsay

Alfred Guillaume Gabriel Grimod d'Orsay, comte d'Orsay (4 September 1801 – 4 August 1852) was a French amateur artist, dandy, and man of fashion in the early- to mid-19th century.

He was born in Paris, the second son of Albert Gaspard Grimaud, Comte d'Orsay, a Bonapartist general. His mother was Baroness Eleonore von Franquemont, an illegitimate daughter of the Duke of Württemberg and the Italian adventuress Anne Franchi. His elder brother died in infancy.

In 1821, he entered the French army of the restored Bourbon monarchy (against his own Bonapartist tendencies), attending the lavish coronation of George IV of the United Kingdom in London that year (staying until 1822) and serving as a Garde du Corps of Louis XVIII. While in London he formed an acquaintance with Charles Gardiner, 1st Earl of Blessington and Marguerite, Countess of Blessington, which quickly ripened into intimacy. Scholars have speculated both that the Countess and d'Orsay had an affair, and that the infatuation was purely between the Earl and d'Orsay. While contemporaries remarked on the young man's effeminacy, the evidence for either relationship is inconclusive.

The following year the couple visited d'Orsay at Valence on the Rhone, and at the invitation of the earl he accompanied the party on their tour through Italy.

In the spring of 1823, he met Lord Byron at Genoa, and the published correspondence of the poet at this period contains numerous references to d'Orsay's gifts and accomplishments, and to his peculiar relationship to the Blessington family. A diary which d'Orsay had kept during his visit to London in 1821–1822 was submitted to Byron's inspection, and was much praised by him for the knowledge of men and manners and the keen faculty of observation it displayed.

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