Vicomte Charles D’Arlincourt was a French novelist and man of letters. In the early nineteenth century his romantic fiction enjoyed considerable popularity in France.
Vicomte Charles D’Arlincourt
The Three Kingdoms
Richard Bentley, 1844.
The French viscount and man of letters set off on a tour of the UK in 1843. Regent's Park, he decided, was his sort of place:
a scene of enchantment, where we might fancy ourselves surrounded by the quiet charms of a smiling landscape, or in the delightful gardens of a magnificent country-house…
Many of the English nobility were assembled in its shrubberies and parterres. This spot, filled with rare plants and curious shrubs, resembled a gigantic vase of flowers; the atmosphere exhaling a delicious fragrance re-echoed the harmonious sounds of military music. Here and there immense tents were erected in which were exhibited all the marvels of Flora. Not far from these were miniature lakes with pleasure boats, shell grottos, mountains and temples, ball-rooms roofed with canvass; then came flowers again, of all kinds in endless profusion; until, under the brilliant influence of the season, we felt our own hearts expand as if we too were growing young again.
A fête champêtre in the gardens of the Royal Botanic Society sent him into raptures.