Frederic Chopin as a Man and Musician, vol 2 | Page 3

novelist walked together a long time in the garden.
Gutmann was sure that this matinee took place either in 1836 or in
1837, and was inclined to think that it was in the first-mentioned year.
Franchomme, whom I questioned about the matinee at the Marquis de
Custine's, had no recollection of it. Nor did he remember the
circumstance of having on this or any other occasion played a trio of
Mayseder's with Gutmann and Vidal. But this friend of the Polish
pianist--composer, while confessing his ignorance as to the place where
the latter met the great novelist for the first time, was quite certain as to
the year when he met her. Chopin, Franchomme informed me, made
George Sand's acquaintance in 1837, their connection was broken in
1847, and he died, as everyone knows, on October 17, 1849. In each of
these dates appears the number which Chopin regarded with a
superstitious dread, which he avoided whenever he could-for instance,
he would not at any price take lodgings in a house the number of which
contained a seven-- and which may be thought by some to have really
exercised a fatal influence over him. It is hardly necessary to point out
that it was this fatal number which fixed the date in Franchomme's
memory.
But supposing Chopin and George Sand to have really met at the
Marquis de Custine's, was this their first meeting?
[FOONOTE: That they were on one occasion both present at a party
given by the Marquis de Custine may be gathered from Freiherr von
Flotow's Reminiscences of his life in Paris (published in the "Deutsche
Revue" of January, 1883, p. 65); but not that this was their first meeting,
nor the time when it took place. As to the character of this dish of
reminiscences, I may say that it is sauced and seasoned for the
consumption of the blase magazine reader, and has no nutritive
substance whatever.]
I put the question to Liszt in the course of a conversation I had with
him some years ago in Weimar. His answer was most positive, and to

the effect that the first meeting took place at Chopin's own apartments.
"I ought to know best," he added, "seeing that I was instrumental in
bringing the two together." Indeed, it would be difficult to find a more
trustworthy witness in this matter than Liszt, who at that time not only
was one of the chief comrades of Chopin, but also of George Sand.
According to him, then, the meeting came about in this way. George
Sand, whose curiosity had been excited both by the Polish musician's
compositions and by the accounts she had heard of him, expressed to
Liszt the wish to make the acquaintance of his friend. Liszt thereupon
spoke about her to Chopin, but the latter was averse to having any
intercourse with her. He said he did not like literary women, and was
not made for their society; it was different with his friend, who there
found himself in his element. George Sand, however, did not cease to
remind Liszt of his promise to introduce her to Chopin. One morning in
the early part of 1837 Liszt called on his friend and brother-artist, and
found him in high spirits on account of some compositions he had
lately finished. As Chopin was anxious to play them to his friends, it
was arranged to have in the evening a little party at his rooms.
This seemed to Liszt an excellent opportunity to redeem the promise
which he had given George Sand when she asked for an introduction;
and, without telling Chopin what he was going to do, he brought her
with him along with the Comtesse d'Agoult. The success of the soiree
was such that it was soon followed by a second and many more.
In the foregoing accounts the reader will find contradictions enough to
exercise his ingenuity upon. But the involuntary tricks of memory and
the voluntary ones of imagination make always such terrible havoc of
facts that truth, be it ever so much sought and cared for, appears in
history and biography only in a more or less disfigured condition.
George Sand's own allusion to the commencement of the acquaintance
agrees best with Liszt's account. After passing in the latter part of 1836
some months in Switzerland with Liszt and the Comtesse d'Agoult, she
meets them again at Paris in the December of the same year:--
At the Hotel de France, where Madame d'Agoult had persuaded me to
take quarters near her, the conditions of existence were charming for a
few days. She received many litterateurs, artists, and some clever men
of fashion. It was at Madame d'Agoult's, or through her, that I made the
acquaintance of Eugene Sue, Baron d'Eckstein, Chopin, Mickiewicz,

Nourrit, Victor Schoelcher, &c.