It is interesting to endeavour to characterize the nature of this episode in George Sand's sentimental life. She helps us herself in this. As a romantic writer she neglected nothing which she could turn into literature. She therefore made an analysis of her own case, worked out with the utmost care, and published it in one of her books which is little read now. The year of the rupture was 1847, and before the rupture had really occurred, George Sand brought out a novel entitled _Lucrezia Floriani_. In this book she traces the portrait of Chopin as Prince Karol. She denied, of course, that it was a portrait, but contemporaries were not to be deceived, and Liszt gives several passages from _Lucrezia Floriani_ in his biography of the musician. The decisive proof was that Chopin recognized himself, and that he was greatly annoyed. As a matter of fact, there was nothing disagreeable about this portrait. The following fragments are taken from it: "Gentle, sensitive, exquisite in all things, at the age of fifteen he had all the charms of youth, together with the gravity of a riper age. He remained delicate in body ind mind. The lack of muscular development caused him to preserve his fascinating beauty. . . . He was something like one of those ideal creatures which mediaeval poetry used for the ornamentation of Christian temples. Nothing could have been purer and at the same time more enthusiastic than his ideas. . . . He was always lost in his dreams, and had no sense of reality. . . ." His exquisite politeness was then described, and the ultra acuteness and nervosity which resulted in that power of divination which he possessed. For a portrait to be living, it must have some faults as well as qualities. His delineator does not forget to mention the attitude of mystery in which the Prince took refuge whenever his feelings were hurt. She speaks also of his intense susceptibility. "His wit was very brilliant," she says; "it consisted of a kind of subtle mocking shrewdness, not really playful, but a sort of delicate, bantering gaiety." It may have been to the glory of Prince Karol to resemble Chopin, but it was also quite creditable to Chopin to have been the model from which this distinguished neurasthenic individual was taken.