and etiquette and the proper mode of living. His memory has been
kept alive most of all by Richard Mansfield's famous impersonation
of him. The play is based upon the actual facts; for after Brummel
had lost the royal favor he died an insane pauper in the French
town of Caen. He, too, had a distinguished biographer, since
Bulwer-Lytton's novel Pelham is really the narrative of Brummel's
curious career.

Long after Brummel, Lord Banelagh led the gilded youth of London,
and it was at this time that the notorious Lola Montez made her
first appearance in the British capital.

These three men--Nash, Brummel, and Ranelagh--had the advantage of
being Englishmen, and, therefore, of not incurring the old-time
English suspicion of foreigners. A much higher type of social
arbiter was a Frenchman who for twenty years during the early part
of Queen Victoria's reign gave law to the great world of fashion,
besides exercising a definite influence upon English art and
literature.

This was Count Albert Guillaume d'Orsay, the son of one of
Napoleon's generals, and descended by a morganatic marriage from
the King of Wurttemburg. The old general, his father, was a man of
high courage, impressive appearance, and keen intellect, all of
which qualities he transmitted to his son. The young Count
d'Orsay, when he came of age, found the Napoleonic era ended and
France governed by Louis XVIII. The king gave Count d'Orsay a
commission in the army in a regiment stationed at Valence in the
southeastern part of France. He had already visited England and
learned the English language, and he had made some distinguished