M. Paul de Musset mentions that in 1837 his brother conceived a "passion serieuse" for an attractive young lady, and that the _liaison_ lasted two years--"two years during which there was never a quarrel, a storm, a cooling-off; never a pretext for umbrage or jealousy. This is why," he adds, "there is nothing to be told of them. Two years of love without a cloud cannot be narrated." It is noticeable that this is the third "passion serieuse" that M. Paul de Musset alludes to since the dolorous weeks which followed the return from Venice. Shortly after this period another passion had come to the front; a passion which, like that which led him to Italy, was destined to have a tragical termination. This particular love affair is commemorated, in accents of bitter melancholy, in the "Nuit de Decembre," just as the other, which had found its catastrophe at Venice, figures, by clear allusion, in "Nuit de Mai," published a few months before. It may provoke a philosophic smile to learn, as we do from M. Paul de Musset--candid biographer!--that the "motives" of these two poems are not identical, as they have hitherto been assumed to be. It had never occurred to the reader that one disillusionment could follow so fast upon the heels of another. When we add that a short time afterward--as the duration of great intimacies of the heart is measured--Alfred de Musset was ready to embark upon "two years of love without a cloud" with still another object--to say nothing of the brief interval containing a sentimental episode of which our biographer gives the prettiest account--we seem to be justified in thinking that, for a "blighted" life, that of Alfred de Musset exhibited a certain germinal vivacity.