The two were now quite free to live precisely as they would.  Lady Blessington became extravagantly happy, and Count d’Orsay was accepted in London as an oracle of fashion.  Every one was eager to visit Gore House, and there they received all the notable men of the time.  The improvidence of Lady Blessington, however, was in no respect diminished.  She lived upon her jointure, recklessly spending capital as well as interest, and gathering under her roof a rare museum of artistic works, from jewels and curios up to magnificent pictures and beautiful statuary.

D’Orsay had sufficient self-respect not to live upon the money that had come to Lady Blessington from her husband.  He was a skilful painter, and he practised his art in a professional way.  His portrait of the Duke of Wellington was preferred by that famous soldier to any other that had been made of him.  The Iron Duke was, in fact, a frequent visitor at Gore House, and he had a very high opinion of Count d’Orsay.  Lady Blessington herself engaged in writing novels of “high life,” some of which were very popular in their day.  But of all that she wrote there remains only one book which is of permanent value—­her Conversations with Lord Byron, a very valuable contribution to our knowledge of the brilliant poet.

But a nemesis was destined to overtake the pair.  Money flowed through Lady Blessington’s hands like water, and she could never be brought to understand that what she had might not last for ever.  Finally, it was all gone, yet her extravagance continued.  Debts were heaped up mountain-high.  She signed notes of hand without even reading them.  She incurred obligations of every sort without a moment’s hesitation.

For a long time her creditors held aloof, not believing that her resources were in reality exhausted; but in the end there came a crash as sudden as it was ruinous.  As if moved by a single impulse, those to whom she owed money took out judgments against her and descended upon Gore House in a swarm.  This was in the spring of 1849, when Lady Blessington was in her sixtieth year and D’Orsay fifty-one.

It is a curious coincidence that her earliest novel had portrayed the wreck of a great establishment such as her own.  Of the scene in Gore House Mr. Madden, Lady Blessington’s literary biographer, has written: 

Numerous creditors, bill-discounters, money-lenders, jewelers, lace-venders, tax-collectors, gas-company agents, all persons having claims to urge pressed them at this period simultaneously.  An execution for a debt of four thousand pounds was at length put in by a house largely engaged in the silk, lace, India-shawl, and fancy-jewelry business.

This sum of four thousand pounds was only a nominal claim, but it opened the flood-gates for all of Lady Blessington’s creditors.  Mr. Madden writes still further: