The truth lies midway.
Chopin, a neurotic being, met the polyandrous Sand, a trampler on
all the social and ethical conventions, albeit a woman of great
gifts; repelled at first he gave way before the ardent passion
she manifested toward him. She was his elder, so could veil the
situation with the maternal mask, and she was the stronger
intellect, more celebrated--Chopin was but a pianist in the eyes
of the many--and so won by her magnetism the man she desired.
Paris, artistic Paris, was full of such situations. Liszt
protected the Countess d'Agoult, who bore him children, Cosima
Von Bulow-Wagner among the rest. Balzac--Balzac, that magnificent
combination of Bonaparte and Byron, pirate and poet--was
apparently leading the life of a saint, but his most careful
student, Viscount Spelboerch de Lovenjoul--whose name is
veritably Balzac-ian--tells us some different stories; even
Gustave Flaubert, the ascetic giant of Rouen, had a romance with
Madame Louise Colet, a mediocre writer and imitator of Sand,--as
was Countess d'Agoult, the Frankfort Jewess better known as
"Daniel Stern,"--that lasted from 1846 to 1854, according to
Emile Faguet.
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