📍 🇮🇹 George Sand's Schiavoni lovers

March 1834. Sand arrives in Venice with Alfred de Musset, ten years her junior, making headlines in Paris for immorality, for “abandoning her kids” - some dare say.

But her head is spinning elsewhere. Musset becomes sick, probably malaria, and she falls for the boy's doctor. Torn, agitated, she writes passionate letters from Hotel Danieli's miasmatic ambiance:

"When I was his slave, he loved me weakly; now that I am returning to the rights of reason, his wounded pride clings to me and pursues me like a difficult conquest... this man does not know true love. But all of it does not prevent me from surrendering myself to you; see, I still have the courage to suffer..."

And a few days later, to a Parisian friend:

"I know that I am tainted with the designation of 'woman of letters' and that I will die alone as I have lived. That is why I hope that there is a God who sees me and knows me, for no man has ever understood me, and God cannot have put so much fire in me to produce a small amount of ash."

____ Sources ____

>> George Sand, “Lettres”, 1834