She broke with her world, divorced in 1835 and followed Franz Liszt: from their liaison was born Cosima, the future wife of Wagner. Having become Daniel Stern, she published in 1851 a Histoire de la Révolution de 1848 written almost in the heat of events. On her stone, the writer is saluted before the countess.
The story
Marie de Flavigny was born on 31 December 1805 in Frankfurt am Main, daughter of an émigré aristocrat and of a Bethmann of the great German banking house. Raised in a convent in France, on 16 May 1827 she married Count Charles Louis Constant d'Agoult.
She met Franz Liszt in 1833 and broke with the society that had made her; her separation from the count was pronounced on 19 August 1835 — divorce did not exist in Restoration France. The affair, lived out in Switzerland and Italy, gave them three children: Blandine, born in 1835, Cosima in 1837 — the future wife of Richard Wagner — and Daniel in 1839.
Parted from the musician, she reinvented herself as a woman of letters under the name Daniel Stern, and between 1841 and 1846 published Hervé, Julien, Valentia and Nélida. George Sand, who saw a good deal of her, held her in real admiration.
Her “Histoire de la Révolution de 1848”, published in 1851, was written almost in the heat of it, from what she had seen and from the accounts gathered in her salon — a salon that took in republicans and liberals under a Second Empire that watched them. The book is still a source for historians.
She died in Paris on 5 March 1876 and lies in Division 54. Two of her three children had gone before her: Daniel in 1859, Blandine in 1862. On the tomb it is not the Countess d'Agoult you greet first but the writer: the first inscription reads “A DANIEL STERNE” — her pen name, with an E the stonecutter added.
The grave
The monument is the work of Henri Chapu, who showed it at the Salon of 1877 before its unveiling in 1880; the plaster model is kept in the museum at Niort. A marble high relief shows a woman lifting a veil, and a bas-relief bears the bust of Goethe — the writer from Frankfurt, the city where she was born. The main inscription is “To Daniel Sterne”, her author's name before her name as a countess; there follows the full civil record in Roman numerals, where the engraved date of birth, “3 Xbre MDCCCV”, does not agree with the 31 December 1805 given by the registers.
On site, do not miss
Chapu's marble, a woman lifting a veil, and the bust of Goethe in bas-relief — a nod to Frankfurt, her native city.
Visitors' questions
Where is Marie d'Agoult's grave?
In Division 54, Avenue des Ailantes, first row, in the eastern part of Père-Lachaise. Henri Chapu's marble high relief, a woman lifting a veil, marks it out at once.
Casimir DelavigneWhy did she write under the name Daniel Stern?
Because a woman of her rank publishing political essays in the nineteenth century risked being discredited. The male pen name let her be read as a historian rather than as a society curiosity — and it is this name that is engraved first on her grave.
Claude VignonWhat was her relationship with Franz Liszt?
She left her husband to follow him: their separation was pronounced on 19 August 1835, divorce being forbidden in France at the time. Their affair, lived out in Switzerland and Italy, produced three children: Blandine, Cosima — the future wife of Richard Wagner — and Daniel.
Sadegh HedayatWhat did she write about 1848?
A “History of the Revolution of 1848”, published in 1851, written almost as events unfolded, from what she saw herself and the accounts gathered in her salon. It remains today one of the first-hand accounts of those days.
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