In 1842 Marie Duplessis might have been at the height of her earning power, if you choose to look at it that way. She had many lovers and huge expenditures.
Excerpt pages 39-40 : ... Hippolyte de Villemessant tells how seven members of fashionable Paris decided to club together to purchase her favors, since she was so expensive to maintain. To inaugurate this arrangement they bought Marie a present: a dressing table with seven drawers so they could each have one to keep their things. In the early days Marie's management of her multiple lovers sometimes went adrift. Shortly after Agenor de Guiche's return from England she made the mistake of taking him for a drive in the blue carriage which had been given to her by another lover, Fernand de Montguyon.... Subsequently she managed her affairs better and took care not to offend those who were paying the bills. Agenor was a t this stage what was known as an amant de coeur - that is, his and Marie's relationship was not a monetary transaction but a matter of genuine affections and mutual enjoyment...
