The mansion Lord Blessington rented was the Palazzo Belvidere--which cost him an enormous sum. But, like an automobile, the initial price was the smallest item of its expense. Marguerite, perhaps to atone to herself for the squalor of her rickety girlhood home, declared the place would not be fit to live in until it had been refitted according to her ideas. Her ideas cost a fortune to carry out. But when at last the work was done, she wrote that the palazzo was "one of the most delicious retreats in the world." She also hit on a thoroughly unique, if costly, scheme for sight-seeing. For example, when she visited Herculaneum, it was with the archæologist, Sir William Gell, as guide. When she went to museums and art galleries, she took along as showman such celebrities as Unwin, the painter, Westmacott, the sculptor, or the antiquary, Milligan. And when she visited the observatory, it was under the guidance of Sir John Herschel and the Italian astronomer Piazzi. More than one of these notables sighed hopelessly for her love. From Naples the party went to Florence. Here Walter Savage Landor met Marguerite. And he was little behind Byron in his appreciation of her charms. By this time--nay, long before this time--people had begun to talk, and to talk quite distinctly. Marguerite did not care to be the butt of international gossip, so she enlisted her husband's aid in an effort to silence the scandalous tongues. Blessington's mode of doing this was highly characteristic of the most eccentric man living. He promptly offered to make D'Orsay his heir, if the latter would marry Lord Blessington's fifteen-year-old-daughter, the earl's only living child by his first wife. D'Orsay did not object. It mattered little to him whom he married. The girl was sent for to come to Florence, and there she and D'Orsay were made man and wife. The trio thus enlarged to a quartet, all hands next set off for Paris. Lady Blessington learned that the house of Marechal Ney was vacant, and she made her husband take it at a staggering rental. And again she was not satisfied until the place had been done over from top to bottom. The job was finished in three days, the army of workmen receiving triple pay for quadruple speed. Lady Blessington's own room was designed by her husband. He would not allow her to see it until everything was in readiness for her. This is her own description of it: The bed, which is silvered instead of gilt, rests on the backs of two large silver swans, so exquisitely sculptured that every feather is in alto-relievo, and looks nearly as fleecy as those of a living bird. The recess in which it is placed is lined with white fluted silk, bordered with blue embossed lace; and from the columns that support the frieze of the recess, pale-blue silk curtains, lined with white, are hung; which, when drawn, conceal the recess altogether.... A silvered sofa has been made to fit the side of the room opposite the fireplace.