Franz Liszt: Musician, Celebrity, Superstar by Oliver Hilmes

Author:Oliver Hilmes [Hilmes, Oliver]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780300182934
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2016-06-21T03:00:00+00:00

Death in Paradise

The town of Saint-Tropez is situated in the south of France in the département of Var. When Liszt’s daughter, Blandine, and his son-in-law, Émile Ollivier, arrived there in January 1860 in their search for a country estate, the place had yet to be discovered by the international moneyed classes. Only fishing boats were anchored in the tiny harbour, and there were no expensive cafés or bijou boutiques. In the 1860s Saint-Tropez was still an insignificant fishing village, albeit one that was exceptionally beautiful. Some two miles away from the centre of the village the Martin family from Roquebrune a little further to the east owned property that was now on sale. Blandine and her husband were delighted by it: the Château des Salins was to be their new home. The sale was quickly agreed, and by the autumn of 1860 the Olliviers had already moved in.

The little château is situated less than 300 yards from the beach in a park covering fourteen acres of land. Visitors arriving at the house drive past a grove of palm trees and along an avenue of laurel and mimosa. Émile and his father, Démosthène Ollivier, laid out the garden themselves, creating an Eden of magnolia, camellia, cypress, yucca and wisteria, the air being scented with jasmine. The house itself lies at the end of the avenue. On its ground floor were a library housing over 4,000 volumes, an architecturally impressive dining room, Émile’s study and two smaller salons, while the first floor was given over to bedrooms, nurseries and a number of other rooms. Over the years Ollivier had numerous extensions added, culminating in 1883 in the addition of a wing known as ‘La Toscane’. Renamed the Château de la Moutte by the Olliviers, the house retains its late nineteenth-century appearance, giving present-day visitors the impression that its owners have left only briefly and that they may return at any moment.

It is hard to imagine that a terrible tragedy unfolded in this idyllic setting only two years after the Olliviers had moved in. In January 1862 Blandine wrote to inform her father that she was expecting her first child. The whole family was delighted and looked forward with excitement and anticipation to the child’s birth that summer. Émile was tied up in Paris and so he asked his younger sister, Josephine, and her husband, Dr Charles Isnard, to keep an eye on his wife. She went to stay with them at Gémenos, less than twenty miles to the east of Marseilles, in the middle of May 1862. Josephine had two small children of her own, and since Isnard was a doctor, Blandine seemed to be in the best possible hands. Her pregnancy was straightforward, and on 3 July 1862 she gave birth to a son – Liszt’s second grandchild. In memory of her dead brother she named him Daniel. The young mother quickly recovered her strength. But in early August Isnard noticed a swelling on her left breast, which he feared might impede the flow of milk.

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