In the return made of “The Annuities, Mortgages, Judgments and other Debts, Legacies, Sums of Money, and Incumbrances, charged upon or affecting the Estates of the said Charles John, Earl of Blessington, at the Time of his Decease,” we find that the mortgages and sums of money charged on D’Orsay’s account from 1837 to 1845, amounted to the quite respectable sum of £20,184. In Blessington’s will all his estates in Dublin, bringing in a rental of £13,322, 18s. 8d. were left to whichever of his daughters married D’Orsay.
By the marriage settlement £20,000 was to be paid to trustees, the Duc de Guiche, and Robert Power, within twelve months of the solemnisation, and a further £20,000 on Blessington’s decease; the money to be invested in the funds, and the interest thereupon to be paid to D’Orsay during his life.
As we have seen, the happy couple separated actually in 1831, legally in 1838.
In 1834 an order was made by the Court of Chancery in Ireland, upon which was thrown the task of clearing up the mess made of his property by Blessington, granting D’Orsay an income of £500, and to his wife £450.
How great that mess was, for which D’Orsay and his wife were partly to blame, will be seen from the following facts. The Countess had run up debts to the tune of £10,000, which sum, however, is scarcely worth mentioning beside that incurred by her husband. By the deed of separation between them, D’Orsay relinquished all his claims on the Blessington estates, in consideration—
i. Of £2467 of annuities granted by him being redeemed, which cost £23,500.
ii. In consideration of the sum of £55,000 being paid to him, £13,000 of which was to be raised as soon as possible, and £42,000 within ten years.
A grand total of money which all went in one way or another to pay off D’Orsay’s debts.
As to the estate: the trustees were empowered by Act of Parliament to make sales to the amount of £350,000 to pay off all encumbrances and claims. Thus ended the glory of the Blessington fortune; thus often has it been in Ireland.
D’Orsay found fortune and lost it; he could not even retain the wife with which it was encumbered.