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Updated: June 14, 2025
That is to say, that he had not married for any of the reasons for which marriages among people of his rank and his country are usually made; but had been attracted by a pretty gentle face seen in a Roman ball-room. The pretty gentle face had remained always gentle; but had soon ceased to be pretty. The Contessa Marliani was inclined to devotion.
All we have from his pen at this period are two short letters. In one, written from Milan and dated April 19, 1476, he asks the Cardinal of Novara to stand godfather to the illegitimate son whom his mistress, Lucia Marliani, Countess of Melzi, had borne him, and who was to be baptized at Pavia.
The Contessa Marliani was an important little lady in her eyes; and was treated, by her with an indulgence and consideration which she would have considered out of place in the case of a child not born to such expectations and such a destiny. She was not contented with her young relative; but was more perplexed and puzzled by her than angered.
But by far the more accredited notion was that the affair was quite a normal and ordinary one; and that the charming Paolina was the young Marchese's mistress. Would he give her up, when the marriage, which, as was well known to all Ravenna, his uncle had been arranging for him with the young Contessa Violante di Marliani, and which was expected to come off shortly, should be consummated?
To some of them I have already drawn the reader's attention in preceding chapters; now I shall point out a few more. George Sand to Madame Marliani; Nohant, August 13, 1841: I have had all my nights absorbed by work and fatigue. Pauline reads with Chopin whole scores at the piano. She is always good-natured and charming, as you know her. George Sand to Mdlle. Rozieres: Nohant, October 15, 1841:
Madame Sand to Madame Marliani; Marseilles, May 20, 1839: We have just arrived from Genoa, in a terrible storm. The bad weather kept us on sea double the ordinary time; forty hours of rolling such as I have not seen for a long time. It was a fine spectacle, and if everybody had not been ill, I would have greatly enjoyed it... We shall depart the day after to-morrow for Nohant.
Nevertheless, as far as it is permissible to judge of the human agencies by which the Heavenly Providence brings about its ends, I should say that your Legate, his Eminence the Cardinal Marliani, was, of all the present Fathers of the Church, one of the most deserving of our regards and respect.
No inhabitable apartments were to be had in the town itself, but in its neighbourhood a villa chanced to be vacant, and this our party rented at once. Madame Sand to Madame Marliani; Palma, November 14, 1838: I am leaving the town, and shall establish myself in the country: I have a pretty furnished house, with a garden and a magnificent view, for fifty francs per month.
But this was not the case with the young Contessa Violante Marliani. Violante knew that she was not beautiful, or even pretty. Probably in her own estimate of herself she exaggerated her plainness. She was one of those persons who have not the gift of self-deception. Neither was she elegant in person.
Lenz says that Madame Marliani was a Spanish countess and a fine lady; and George Sand describes her as good-natured and active, endowed with a passionate head and maternal heart, but destined to be unhappy because she wished to make the reality of life yield to the ideal of her imagination and the exigences of her sensibility.
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