Alfred d'Orsay

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.

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.

After the death of Lord Blessington, which occurred in 1829, the widowed countess returned to England, accompanied by d'Orsay, and her home, first at Seamore Place, then at Gore House, soon became a resort of the fashionable literary and artistic society of London, which found an equal attraction in host and in hostess.

His skill as a painter and sculptor was shown in numerous portraits and statuettes representing his friends, which were marked by great vigour and truthfulness, if wanting in the finish that can only be reached by persistent discipline.

He was deep in the counsels of the prince-president (who had also returned to Paris from exile, and been elected president the year before d'Orsay arrived), but relations between them were less cordial after Louis-Napoléon's 1851 coup d'état (the French Parliament is dissolved), of which the count had expressed his strong disapproval.

He had designed a pyramidal grey stone tomb for Lady Blessington at Chambourcy, and he too was buried in it, with the not yet Emperor Napoleon III among the mourners at the funeral.Eustace Tilley, the mascot of The New Yorker magazine, was based on an engraving of d'Orsay, interpreted by house cartoonist and art director Rea Irvin.