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.45
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.46 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.47 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?48
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.49
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.’50 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].’51 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.52
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