The Countess Guiccioli was among those who depreciated the Blessingtons’ accounts of the conversations; but then, perchance, there may have been some jealousy of the attractive English woman’s influence over the poet.  The Blessingtons left Genoa in June of 1823, and continued their journeyings throughout Italy until 1828.  In the preceding year, Count D’Orsay had become the husband of the Earl of Blessington’s daughter, Lady Harriet Frances Gardiner, when she was but little over fifteen years of age; but they lived together but three years.  In 1829, the Earl died in Paris; and the Countess continued there until after the Revolution of 1830, when she returned to England.  Her journal of the trip from Naples to Paris, and her stay in that city, was published in 1841, under the title of “The Idler in France.”  In England she took a house in Seamore Place, Mayfair, and later removed to Gore House, Kensington, with which place is associated the traditions of her elegant entertainings and her intercourse with many men of eminence, but also with a course of living which compromised her reputation in society.  Her son-in-law, the Count, continued to form one of her household, though separated from his wife, the Lady Harriet.  Though not received in general society, the Countess surrounded herself with celebrities of all nations; and it was at her house that Louis Napoleon was a cherished guest in his years of exile, and from whence he proceeded to head the government of France.  Here Bulwer came as perhaps her most intimate friend; here Thackeray was made most welcome, and Lord John Russell and Lord Palmerston, Canning and Castlereagh were frequent guests.  Dickens,—­then a dandy like unto D’Orsay, who seemed to be his model,—­“Rejected Addresses” Smith, the banker-poet Rogers, Kemble, Wilkie, and Dr. Parr engaged in sparkling converse with their hostess, who sat in a deep arm-chair while Tom Moore was privileged to perch himself on a footstool at her feet; and by all these men she was held in unqualified respect.  Her income became impaired and unequal to the expense of entertaining.  She resorted to literature to add to her resources.  She was engaged by Heath, the engraver, to edit a certain class of annuals popular in those days.  For some years her income from “The Keepsake” and “The Book of Beauty” exceeded one thousand pounds a year.  Her novels, too, were a source of some profit.  For “Strathern” she received about three thousand dollars.  These romances were weak in character and plot, but were fair pictures of society portrayed with much piquancy.  In one, “Grace Cassidy,” she describes interestingly scenes of her youth in Ireland.  But interest in her work waned, and as she seems not to have thought of retrenchment of her expenditure, disaster rapidly descended.  In 1849, she had perforce to sell out, and then moved to Paris, where she died in the same year.  She was buried at Chambourcy, near St. Germain-en-Laye, the residence of the Duc and Duchesse de Grammont, the sister and brother-in-law of Count D’Orsay.