Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington
Marguerite, Countess of Blessington ( born September 1, 1789 in Knock Brit in Clonmel as Margaret Power, † June 4, 1849 in Paris) was an Irish writer, gossip columnist, as well as a famous salonière and beauty of the 19th century.
Life
Margaret Powers was the daughter of the Irish landowner Edmund Powers. At the age of 14 years she was with the captain Maurice St. Leger Farmer ( † 1817), married. The marriage was as unhappy as her husband was a known bully and bon vivant. In addition, Margaret reported to their parents that farmers tended to brutal tantrums. After his escape from his creditors came Maurice St. Leger Farmer in the King 's Bench prison, where he died in October 1817.
Four months later, married the young widow in London the Irish aristocrat and politician Charles Gardiner, 1st Earl of Blessington ( 1782-1829 ). In the later years the couple traveled extensively on the continent and graduated in Genoa friendship with the famous poet Lord Byron, whose most zealous defender she was. One of her first writings were the Travelling sketches in Belgium (1825 ), in which they, as later occurred in the Conversations with Lord Byron (1834 ), open to Lord Byron.
Until the death of her second husband she still lived in the Parisian apartment Hôtel Maréchal Ney. In her literary salon received Lady Marguerite famous personalities in the society. Later she lived quite deposited in England on her family home in Kensington Gore House, the London World. Your soirees, of which the enemy were excluded Lord Byron, were numerously attended. Among the guests were, among others, Charles Dickens, Benjamin Disraeli, Thomas Lawrence, Alfred de Vigny, Alphonse de Lamartine, Prince Charles -Louis -Napoleon Bonaparte and Edward Bulwer- Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton.
Your love affair with the French aristocrat Alfred d' Orsay (1801-1852), the husband of her stepdaughter Lady Harriet Gardiner, was the scandal of the season. After the income from the book sales declined and its heritage was depleted for their joint extravagant lifestyle, the couple left the United Kingdom. Lady Blessington and the Count moved in 1849 to Paris, where she died a few weeks after their arrival at the consequences of a heart attack.