known as “Daniel Stern,”—­that lasted from 1846 to 1854, according to Emile Faguet.  Here then was a medium which was the other side of good and evil, a new transvaluation of morals, as Nietzsche would say.  Frederic deplored the union for he was theoretically a Catholic.  Did he not once resent the visit of Liszt and a companion to his apartments when he was absent?  Indeed he may be fairly called a moralist.  Carefully reared in the Roman Catholic religion he died confessing that faith.  With the exception of the Sand episode, his life was not an irregular one, He abhorred the vulgar and tried to conceal this infatuation from his parents.

This intimacy, however, did the pair no harm artistically, notwithstanding the inevitable sorrow and heart burnings at the close.  Chopin had some one to look after him—­he needed it—­and in the society of this brilliant Frenchwoman he throve amazingly:  his best work may be traced to Nohant and Majorca.  She on her side profited also.  After the bitterness of her separation from Alfred de Musset about 1833 she had been lonely, for the Pagello intermezzo was of short duration.  The De Musset-Sand story was not known in its entirety until 1896.  Again M. Spelboerch de Lovenjoul must be consulted, as he possessed a bundle of letters that were written by George Sand and M. Buloz, the editor of “La Revue des Deux Mondes,” in 1858.

De Musset went to Venice with Sand in the fall of 1833.  They had the maternal sanction and means supplied by Madame de Musset.  The story gives forth the true Gallic resonance on being critically tapped.  De Musset returned alone, sick in body and soul, and thenceforth absinthe was his constant solace.  There had been references, vague and disquieting, of a Dr. Pagello for whom Sand had suddenly manifested one of her extraordinary fancies.  This she denied, but De Musset’s brother plainly intimated that the aggravating cause of his brother’s illness had been the unexpected vision of Sand coquetting with the young medical man called in to prescribe for Alfred.  Dr. Pagello in 1896 was interviewed by Dr. Cabanes of the Paris “Figaro” and here is his story of what had happened in 1833.  This story will explain the later behavior of “la merle blanche” toward Chopin.

“One night George Sand, after writing three pages of prose full of poetry and inspiration, took an unaddressed envelope, placed therein the poetic declaration, and handed it to Dr. Pagello.  He, seeing no address, did not, or feigned not, to understand for whom the letter was intended, and asked George Sand what he should do with it.  Snatching the letter from his hands, she wrote upon the envelope:  ‘To the Stupid Pagello.’  Some days afterward George Sand frankly told De Musset that henceforth she could be to him only a friend.”