In 1802 the Edgeworths toured The Midlands. They then travelled to Continental France, first to Brussels and then to France (during the Peace of Amiens, a brief lull in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars). They met all the notables, and Maria received a marriage proposal from a Swedish courtier, Abraham Niclas Edelcrantz. Her letter on the subject seems very cool, but her stepmother assures us in the Augustus Hare Life and Letters that Maria loved him very much and did not get over the affair quickly. They came home to Ireland in 1803.