Historical Note Cont...
She is credited with introducing the French reading public to Ralph Waldo Emerson, Georg Herwegh, and Bettina von Arnim, and her only novel, Nelida, published in 1846, was a thinly veiled account of her affair with Liszt. Most of Marie's journalism consisted of political commentary, however, and despite her conservative, royalist youth, she ended up associated with the foremost liberal thinkers of her day, including Hippolyte Carnot, Jules Simon and Alphonse de Tocqueville.
Notwithstanding her considerable personal accomplishments, Marie is chiefly remembered today because of her association with Franz Liszt. She died in 1876 at the age of 71.
Franz Liszt was a musical genius and bad boy of the romantic era. After his affair with Marie ended, Franz Liszt left Paris for Weimar, where he formed a long attachment with Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein. They did not have children, but she is often credited with being the true author of the writings that were attributed to Liszt himself during his lifetime.
Liszt traveled extensively. In Rome in 1865, he entered the minor orders (Doorkeeper, Lector, Acolyte and Exorcist) and was known as the abbé Liszt from that point on, although he never became a priest.
