A letter from Paris to the Vienna _Monday Review_ says that in the salon
of the Champ de Mars a picture is on exhibition, called Italian
Bagpiper. While its artistic points are hardly worthy of special mention
the striking resemblance of this work by Michael Vallet to the facial
traits of Franz Liszt puzzled the jury not a little, and will doubtless
create much interest among the visitors of the gallery. The model for
the subject was a boat-hand of Genoa named Angelo Giocati-Buonaventi,
fifty-six years of age. It was while strolling about the Genoese wharves
that Vallet noticed the sparse form of Angelo, whose beardless face
recalled to him at once Franz Liszt's.
Angelo consented willingly to pose for the piper, but all questions as
to his family extraction were answered with a laconic Chi lo sa? Vallet,
by making inquiries in other directions, learned that Angelo came
originally from Albano. He took a trip to that place, and after the
lapse of a few days wrote a friend in Paris: "Found! Found! The surmise
regarding my Angelo is correct. This boathand is without any doubt a
son of Countess d'Agoult, whose relations with Franz Liszt are known
throughout the world, and was born here in the year 1834. I found a
picture of the countess in the home of a sister-in-law of a lately
deceased peasant woman, Giocati-Buonaventi. This latter was the nurse
and later the woman who had the motherly care of my Angelo...."
It happened that at the same time, as if to corroborate Vallet's
statement, the _Review de Paris_ published an interesting correspondence
between Georges Sand and Countess d'Agoult. The latter writes from
Albano under date of June 9, 1839: "It was our intention to present our
respects to the Sultan this summer, but our trip to Constantinople came
to naught. A little fellow that I had the caprice to bring here into the
world prevented the carrying out of the plan. The boy promises to be a
beauty. One of the handsomest women of Palestrina furnishes the milk for
his nourishment. It is to be regretted that Franz has again one of his
fits of melancholy. [She speaks of Liszt repeatedly in this letter,
giving him the pet name _cretin_.] The thought of being father to
_three_ little children seems to depress his mind...."
The three children being accounted for, the story of Vallet regarding
Angelo has no foundation in fact, and we would not even mention it if it
was not making the rounds of the Continental press.