Page:Journal of Conversations with Lord Byron.pdf/43

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Countess of Blessington.
31

One of her most pleasant books after the "Conversations with Lord Byron," is her "Idler in Italy," published in two volumes in 1839.

To this literary industry Lady Blessington was incited by pecuniary necessity, brought about by her splendid style of living. But both her jointure and her literary earnings proved insufficient to meet her expenditure; and when the famine in Ireland cut off in a great measure the returns of the Blessington property, it became necessary in 1849, to dispose of the costly fittings and furniture of Gore House.

Count D'Orsay had gone to Paris in the hope, as was understood, of obtaining a post under Louis Napoleon, with whom he had been on terms of much intimacy. Lady Blessington followed him in April, 1849, and died at Paris almost suddenly on the 4th of June, 1849. Count D'Orsay died at Paris, August 4, 1852.