In 1826, Ida married her wealthy cousin Friedrich Wilhelm Adolph Graf von Hahn [de], which gave her the doubled name.

"[4] After the revolutions of 1848 and the death of Adolf von Bystram in 1849, she embraced the Roman Catholic religion in 1850, after having opened the Bible on some day in 1849 and seeing this passage: "Arise, be enlightened O Jerusalem, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon there."

Hahn-Hahn justified her step in a polemical work entitled Von Babylon nach Jerusalem (1851),[7] which elicited a vigorous reply from Heinrich Abeken, and from several others as well.

Ulrich and Gräfin Faustine, both published in 1841, mark the culmination of her power; but Sigismund Forster (1843), Cecil (1844), Sibylle (1846) and Maria Regina (1860) also obtained considerable popularity.

For several years, the countess continued to produce novels bearing a certain subjective resemblance to those of George Sand, but less hostile to social institutions, and dealing almost exclusively with aristocratic society.