THE COUNT DE JARNAC.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume III, Issue 113, 26 June 1875, Page 8

THE COUNT DE JARNAC.

It is with the most profound regret we announce (says the 'Freeman' of 27th March) the death, on Monday evening, at the . French Embassy, London, of His Excellency the Count de Jarnac, the French Ambassador at the Court of St." James's. The Count, who was not yet past middle age, has been suddenly cut off in the prime of a distinguished career. Sprung from an ancient and lUustnous line of French nobility, the Count de Jarnac was the son ot the late Viscount de Cliabot, by the Lady Isabella Fitzgerald, sister of the late Duke of Leinster. The Viscount de Chabot resided in. Ireland, 'and the Count de Jarnae, some thirty years since, wedded an Irish lady, the Hon. Miss Foley, a daughter of -Lord-Boley. The Count when a very young man entered the diplomatic service of King Louis Phillipe, and during his whole lifetime remained the trusted friend, confidante, and associate of the Princes of the House of Orleans. The revolution of 1848 found him holding high office at the French Embassy in London, and it was through him that Sir Robert Peel offered to the fugitive Citizen King pecuniary and other assistance. At the fall of his royal master, the Count de Jarnac abandoned political life, and, retiring to his estate at Thomastown, County Tipperary, devoted himself to the career of a country gentleman. In this capacity he won golden opinions from all sorts of men. In the person of the Count were united the finest qualities of the Irish gentleman and the French noble. By men of his own class he was loved as the kindly neighbour, the frank gentleman, the magnificent and hospitable host. By those beneath him, he was revered as the good landlord, the kind master, the charitable and benevolent friend of the poor. Gentle and simple, rich and poor, joined in regardim? with esteem and affection the noble master of Thomastown Wohave spoken already of his princely hospitality. This was never so strikingly displayed as when, in the spring of 1869, his Royal Highness Prmce Arthur paid him a lengthened visit, and the doors of Thomastown Castle were thrown open to a brilliant and a. distinguished throng. The Count, however, in the midst of his Irish occupations, never lost sight of his native land. He maintained the closest relations with the sons and grandsons of Louisa i hiiiippe, and was always regarded as one of the ablest men of SGS G 2? f mst Pa x fcy - When ' on the fall of M - Thi ers, Marshal MacMahon rose to power, ho offered M. de Jarnac the great post of Ambassador at London. The Count accepted it, and the heart of Ireland thrilled with natural pride at the spectacle of a MacMahon offering, as ruler of France, the most illustrious position in the diplomatic sex /ice to a Geraldine by birth and a Tipperary man by adoption. Im nediately before leaving for the Palace of the Embassy, the Count de Jamac presided at the Tipperary Farming bociety, whose trusted and honored president he was. The manly speech the Count delivered on that occasion will not soon be forgotten, nor will the letters of congratulation on bis appointment, which poured on him from Mr. Disraeli, Lord Stanley, and other famous men. A brilliant and illustrious career was opening before him when death struck down this noble-hearted and eminent man His death will be lamented, not alone by his family and his friends, biit throughout the length and breadth of gallant Tipperary, in which he had lived so long, which he loved so dearly. +i Jvi 1S j*°t,j?evha.m, well knowed (says the ' Pall Mall Gazette') that the Comte de Jamac was at one period in considerable vo<nie as a fashionable novelist; and more than twenty years affo ho published a tale entitled, ' Eockingham ; or, the Younger Brother ' which had much success. In this story was exhibited an old strain ot romance, combined with a reverence for the aristocracy as sincere as that of the author of 'Lothair/ AUthe ladies of quality asfcect tor ' Rockinghanj' at the libraries ; and its author seemed to hold much the same position that Mr. Whyte-Melville does now ■ It was succeeded by other productions, ' Cecile,' and one which was illustrated— much as ' Katerfelto' was by Major Crealocke—by his

relative Lord Gerald Fitzgerald. To these productions he attached the fictitious name of ' Sir Charles Rockingham ;" indeed ha carried this little affectation bo far that even in dramatic performances he was invariably set down as ' Sir Charles Rockingham.' He was an untiring writer of drawing room dramas. He had some volumes of these " printed for private circulation," each inscribed, with an old-fashioned ceremony, to some lady of title. It is impossible to give an idea of these strange and highly mystical performances, in which ghosts figured, and of which the language seemed borrowed from •• The Castle Spectre," or ". The Mysteries of TTdolfo." The Count himself, then rather elderly in the part, nearly always played the young and passionate lover, pleading his suit to some young girl of tender years, who was 'proud of the honour of "being selected "to create" the part. The laborious rehearsals that were necessary to give effect to ruese pieces, and their author's pains to inspire into the actors a true reading, of their parts, were most extraordinary. Most curious of all was it to note the effect on the audience of fine ladies who listened half-bewil-dered, half -bored. There are many noble houses in England and Ireland to whom the Count and his dramas are woll known, and where ' The Lost One Restored' and ' Aunt Hercules' have extorted friendly applause. The Comte de Jarnac had a curiously oldfashioned manner, something after the Grandison school ; and this elaborate formality seemed to render him highly popular with young ladies. None of his Irish friends ever believed that so brilliant a finale was in store for him. He was thought a little too feminine in his ways for serious business. With a Frenchman's versatility he assumed a new manner with the new office, and it was amusing to note his new-found restlessness at a soiree and airs of self-assertion where he had before been retiring. Yet he was a kindly, good-natured, agreeable, high-bred gentleman. There is something pathetic in his untimely fate — the long five-and-twenty years' proscription, succeeded by the unhoped-f or prize, and the too short brilliant months at Albert-gate. Amidst visits to great houses, life in a whirl of dukes and marquises, Figaro qua, Figaro la, the newspapers already becoming voluble of his popularity, the hapless Ambassador dies after a couple of days' illness. Perhaps if this longed-for vista had not opened for him, and he had been content with his Tipperary pastures, he might have been alive at this day.