The Duchess

The social tyrants who made up the ton also considered it deeply unfashionable for a wife and husband to be seen too much in each other’s company. The Duke escorted Georgiana to the opera once and then resumed his habit of visiting Brooks’s, where he always ordered the same supper – a broiled blade-bone of mutton – and played cards until five or six in the morning.

(#litres_trial_promo) Occasionally they went to a party together but Georgiana was expected to make her own social arrangements. There was no shortage of invitations and she accepted everything – routs, assemblies, card parties, promenades in the park – in an effort to avoid sitting alone in Devonshire House.

With her instinctive ability to make an impression, Georgiana immediately caused a sensation. She always appeared natural, even when she was called upon to open a ball in front of 800 people. She could engage in friendly chatter with several people simultaneously, leaving each with the impression that it had been a memorable event. She was ‘so handsome, so agreeable, so obliging in her manner, that I am quite in love with her,’ Mrs Delany burbled to a friend. ‘I can’t tell you all the civil things she said, and really they deserve a better name, which is kindness embellished by politeness. I hope she will illumine and reform her contemporaries!’

(#litres_trial_promo) Even cynics like Horace Walpole found their resistance worn down by Georgiana’s unforced charm and directness. Observing her transformation into a society figure, Walpole marvelled that this ‘lovely girl, natural, and full of grace’ could retain these qualities and yet be so much on show. ‘The Duchess of Devonshire effaces all,’ he wrote a few weeks after her arrival in London. She achieved it ‘without being a beauty; but her youth, figure, flowing good nature, sense and lively modesty, and modest familiarity, make her a phenomenon’.

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The few voices raised in criticism of Georgiana were not heeded, except by Lady Spencer. ‘I think there is too much of her,’ was one woman’s opinion. ‘She gives me the idea of being larger than life.’

(#litres_trial_promo) Lady Mary Coke thought Georgiana was making herself ridiculous and that her behaviour occasionally verged on hysteria. The Duchess went to visit Lady Harriet Foley, she wrote, just as her house and contents were being seized by the bailiffs, and ‘as her Grace’s misfortune is a very unnatural one, that of being too happy and of being delighted with everything she hears and sees, so the situation in which she found Lady Harriet was, in her Grace’s opinion, Charming; Lady Harriet told her she had no clothes, this was charming above measure.’

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Occasionally Georgiana drank too much, especially when she was nervous, and showed off as a result: ‘nothing is talked of but the Duchess of Devonshire: and I am sorry to say not much in her favour,’ wrote a society lady after Georgiana upset a dignified matron by pulling out her hair feathers.

(#litres_trial_promo) Lady Mary Coke went to Ranelagh and was disgusted to see Georgiana and her new friends amusing themselves by puffing out their cheeks and popping them.

(#litres_trial_promo) She could be persuaded to do anything: once she even appeared on stage at Hampton Court and danced in an opera organized by the fashionable wit and playwright Anthony Storer. Lady Spencer was worried when she saw how easily her daughter could be influenced: ‘when others draw you out of your own character, and make you assume one that is quite a stranger to you, it is difficult to distinguish you under the disguise,’ she warned.

(#litres_trial_promo) Mrs Delany feared that rather than reforming her contemporaries Georgiana was more likely to be corrupted by them: ‘This bitter reflection arises from what I hear every body says of a great and handsome relation of ours just beginning her part; but I do hope she will be like the young actors and actresses, who begin with over acting when they first come upon the stage … but I tremble for her.’

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Lady Spencer could see that Georgiana was falling in with the fast set. The gambling in particular worried her: ‘let me entreat you to beware of it, and if [gambling] is mention’d to you any more, to decline the taking any part in it,’ she begged.

(#litres_trial_promo) Gaming was to the aristocracy what gin was to the working classes: it caused the ruin of families and corrupted people’s lives. ‘A thousand meadows and cornfields are staked at every throw, and as many villages lost as in the earthquake that overwhelmed Herculaneum and Pompeii,’ wrote Horace Walpole, who had seen men lose an entire estate in a single night. ‘Play at whist, commerce, backgammon, trictrac or chess,’ Lady Spencer urged, ‘but never at quinze, lou, brag, faro, hazard or any games of chance, and if you are pressed to play always make the fashionable excuse of being tied up not to play at such and such a game. In short I must beg you, my dearest girl, if you value my happiness to send me in writing a serious answer to this.’

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Lady Clermont, who had known the Spencer family for many years, counselled Lady Spencer against being too critical: ‘I hope you don’t talk to her too often about trifles, when she does any little thing that is not right … If we can but keep her out of the fire for a year or two, or rather from being burn’d, for in the fire she is, it will all be well.’

(#litres_trial_promo) But Lady Spencer was too worried to listen; instead she tried to frighten Georgiana into adopting a more mature exterior. ‘You must learn to respect yourself,’ she wrote in April 1775, ‘and the world will soon follow your example; but while you herd only with the vicious and the profligate you will be like them, pert, familiar, noisy and indelicate, not to say indecent in their contempt for the censures of the grave, and their total disregard of the opinion of the world in general, you will be lost indeed past recovery.’

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Georgiana – as dependent on parental approval as ever – felt guilty and went to even greater lengths to distract herself with frivolity. Her recklessness entranced society even as it caused disapproval. Whatever she wore became instantly fashionable. Women’s hair was already arranged high above the head, but Georgiana took the fashion a step further by creating the three-foot hair tower. She stuck pads of horse hair to her own hair using scented pomade and decorated the top with miniature ornaments. Sometimes she carried a ship in full sail, or an exotic arrangement of stuffed birds and waxed fruit, or even a pastoral tableau with little wooden trees and sheep. Even though the towers required the help of at least two hairdressers and took several hours to arrange, Georgiana’s designs inspired others to imitate her. ‘The Duchess of Devonshire is the most envied woman of the day in the Ton,’ the newspapers reported.

(#litres_trial_promo) It was true; women competed with each other to construct the tallest head, ignoring the fact that it made quick movements impossible and the only way to ride in a carriage was to sit on the floor.

Another of Georgiana’s innovations was the drooping ostrich feather, which she attached in a wide arch across the front of her hair. In April Lord Stormont, the British ambassador in Paris, presented her with one that was four feet long.

(#litres_trial_promo) Overnight it became the most important accessory in a lady’s wardrobe, even though the tall nodding plumes were difficult to find and extremely expensive.

(#litres_trial_promo) The ton wore them with a smug arrogance which infuriated the less fortunate. The fashion generated resentment: it was too excessive and too exclusive. The Queen banned ostrich feathers from court, and according to Lady Louisa Stuart, ‘the unfortunate feathers were insulted, mobbed, hissed, almost pelted wherever they appeared, abused in the newspapers, nay even preached at in the pulpits and pointed out as marks of reprobation’.

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In less than a year Georgiana had become a celebrity. Newspaper editors noticed that any report on the Duchess of Devonshire increased their sales. She brought glamour and style to a paper. A three-ring circus soon developed between newspapers who saw commercial value in her fame, ordinary readers who were fascinated by her, and Georgiana herself who enjoyed the attention. The more editors printed stories about her, the more she obliged by playing up to them. Her arrival coincided with the flowering of the English press. A growing population, increased wealth, better roads, and an end to official censorship had resulted in a wider readership and more news to report. By the end of the 1770s there were nine daily newspapers, all based in London, and hundreds of biand tri-weekly provincial papers which reprinted the London news. For the first time national figures emerged, Georgiana among them, which the whole country read about and discussed, and with whom they could feel some sort of connection.

The Morning Post reported Georgiana’s progress to a nation whose appetite for news about her was constantly growing:

The Duchess of D—e has a fashionable coat of mail; impregnable to the arrows of wit or ridicule; many other females of distinction have been made to moult, and rather than be laughed at any longer, left themselves featherless; while her Grace, with all the dignity of a young Duchess is determined to keep the field, for her feathers increase in enormity in proportion to the public intimations she receives of the absurdity. Her head was a wonderful exhibition on Saturday night at the Opera. The Duke is quoted as saying she is welcome to do as she likes as long as she doesn’t think it ‘necessary that I should wear any ornaments on my head in compliment to her notions of taste and dress’.

The London Chronicle reported with outrage that a crowd had almost attacked Georgiana when she visited the pleasure gardens at Ranelagh

dressed in a stile so whimsically singular as quickly collected the company round her, they behaved with great rudeness, in so much that she was necessitated to take shelter in one of the boxes, and there remained prisoner for some time, until the motley crew had retired, and left only those behind who scorned to offer insult to a fine woman for indulging her fancy in the most innocent and inoffensive manner, and who were capable of discovering, amidst her levity, an understanding that would distinguish her in any court in Europe.

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On the whole, society took Georgiana’s fashion excesses in good part, and even when people teased her it was done with gentle humour. One night at the opera she entered her box just as the celebrated Signor Lovattini came on stage to sing. He was wearing an enormous headdress of red and white flowers in imitation of the one Georgiana had worn on her last visit. The audience burst out laughing and Georgiana, rather than taking offence, turned to Lovattini and made him a low bow which earned her cheers of approval.

(#litres_trial_promo) People were enraptured by a duchess who was happy to exchange banter with the crowd. On another occasion the Morning Post reported that the audience in the Haymarket Theatre had lapsed into giggles when a couple appeared in the stalls dressed up in a parody of the Devonshires. The woman wore ostrich feathers in her hair and enormous breeches which extended up to her armpits while her male companion was wearing an oversized petticoat with a ducal coronet and jewels on his head.

(#litres_trial_promo) It was not an attack on Georgiana so much as a comment on the Duke’s inadequacies. In less than a year she had eclipsed her husband and become a popular figure in her own right.

During that year Georgiana had also brought herself to a state of nervous and physical exhaustion. She had suffered at least one miscarriage, which convinced Lady Spencer that her daughter should leave England, if only to remain quiet for a while. In July the Spencers and the Devonshires set off for a holiday in Spa. After a few weeks in the open air Georgiana’s health returned and her unnatural pallor disappeared. On their return they stopped at Versailles to pay their respects to Louis XVI. Georgiana already had more than a passing acquaintance with Marie Antoinette, having met her during previous trips to France. On this visit a close friendship developed which lasted until the Queen’s execution in 1793. They discovered they had much in common, not only in having married a position rather than a lover, but also in their relations with their mothers. Empress Marie Thérèse combined an intense, almost suffocating love for her children with a manipulative and dominating manner. While Georgiana was in Paris Marie Antoinette received the following scolding from her mother which sounded uncannily like many of Lady Spencer’s letters:

What frivolity! Where is the kind and generous heart of the Archduchess Antoinette? All I see is intrigue, low hatred, a persecuting spirit, and cheap wit … Your too early success and your entourage of flatterers have always made me fear for you, ever since that winter when you wallowed in pleasures and ridiculous fashions. Those excursions from pleasure to pleasure without the King and in the knowledge that he doesn’t enjoy them and that he either accompanies you or leaves you free out of sheer good nature … Where is the respect and gratitude you owe him for all his kindness?

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Three weeks later Georgiana received a similar inquiry from Lady Spencer, who complained, among other things, about her inattentiveness towards the Duke. ‘You do not say anything of [him] – how does he employ and amuse himself?’ she asked.

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Similar words have often been used to describe both Georgiana and Marie Antoinette. Horace Walpole thought Marie Antoinette grace itself, and called her a ‘statue of beauty’. She had immense charm, which at first endeared her to the court and the people, but she shared Georgiana’s tendency to take everything to excess. On a typical evening she would go to the opera, leave early for an intimate supper, rush to several balls, and finish off the night gambling with Mme de Guémène, whom everyone suspected of cheating. Her addiction to trivial amusements has been attributed to her frustration with her marriage. A naturally romantic woman, she had little in common with her reserved and awkward husband. ‘The great obstacle to this perfect union is the incompatibility of the tastes and characters of the two spouses,’ wrote an observer. ‘The King is calm, rather passive, loving the solitude of his library … His wife is … extremely vivacious, loving a quick succession of pleasures and their diversity.’

(#litres_trial_promo) Marie Antoinette loved extravagant coiffures and clothes and, like Georgiana, enjoyed being at the forefront of fashion. But she chose her friends unwisely, from among the most dissipated in French society. They led the tractable Queen into one scrape after another.

It was on this visit, too, that Georgiana formed life-long friendships with members of Marie Antoinette’s set, particularly with the ambitious Polignacs. The Austrian ambassador to France complained to the Empress Marie Thérèse that Marie Antoinette was infatuated with the Duchesse de Polignac. The ‘Little Po’, as she was nicknamed, was a sweet-natured, elegant brunette, very much under her husband’s thumb, who nevertheless exerted a powerful attraction on both Marie Antoinette and Georgiana. Throughout Georgiana’s stay the three women went everywhere together, wore each other’s favours on their bosoms, and exchanged locks of hair as keepsakes. They met in a highly charged feminine atmosphere where feelings ruled and kisses and embraces were part of the ordinary language of communication. Georgiana’s passionate nature, thwarted in her marriage to the Duke, found fulfilment in such an atmosphere.

On her return to England Georgiana made a renewed effort to please her husband. Initially he responded with unaccustomed sensitivity. ‘The Duke is in very good spirits,’ she wrote in September 1775. ‘I sincerely hope he is contented with me, tho’ if he is not he hides it very well, for it is impossible to say how good and attentive he is to me, and how much he seems to make it his business to see me happy and pleas’d – with so much reason as he has had to be discontented at such a number of things, I have very little right to expect [it].’

(#litres_trial_promo) Lady Spencer’s friend Miss Lloyd thought that Georgiana was telling the truth and that they appeared to be getting on well together: ‘I think they are grown quite in love with each other,’ she wrote.

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But they had so little in common that their efforts to establish a deeper intimacy had petered out by Christmas. It was not a question of dislike; neither understood the other. The Duke was used to being flattered and cossetted by his mistress Charlotte Spencer and resented the emotional demands that Georgiana made upon him. Georgiana, on the other hand, treated him as if he were part of her audience and then wondered why her reserved and shy husband failed to respond. A family tale reveals the misunderstanding between them. The Duke was drinking a dish of tea with Lady Spencer and Harriet when Georgiana walked into the room and sat on his lap with her arms around his neck. Without saying a word he pushed her off and left the company.

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Rejected by the Duke, Georgiana once more sought consolation in the fashionable world as soon as the season began. Newspapers speculated on how long she could keep up the frantic pace of her life before her health collapsed.

(#litres_trial_promo) They only had to wait a couple of months. In April 1776 Georgiana went into premature labour. No one was surprised by her miscarriage. ‘The Duchess of Devonshire lies dangerously ill,’ reported the Morning Post, ‘and we hear the physicians have ascribed her indisposition to the reigning fashionable irregularities of the age.’

(#litres_trial_promo) The next day it claimed with gloomy pleasure that the physicians had given up and her death was imminent.