| The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-07. |
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| Orsay, Alfred Guillaume Gabriel, count d’ |
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(älfr d´ g y m´ gäbrl´, dôrs ´) (KEY) , 1801–52, French dandy. The son of a Bonapartist general, he went to England in 1821, where he met Marguerite, countess of Blessington, and her husband. In 1827, D’Orsay married Blessington’s daughter, but the union was unsuccessful. After Blessington’s death D’Orsay and Marguerite became the center of a fashionable artistic and literary circle in London. D’Orsay was long the authority on matters of taste in English society. In 1849, to escape his creditors, he fled to Paris. |
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| | | The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Copyright © 2007 Columbia University Press. |
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