Author, Folk Figure. A respected writer under the pen name Daniel Stern, she is better remembered for an extended illicit relationship with Franz Liszt. Born Marie Catherine Sophie, Vicomtesse de Flavigny, to a somewhat distinguished family, she was educated in the Sacred Heart Convent after her family settled in Paris following the Bourbon Restoration of 1814. Placed in arranged 1827 marriage to Charles, Comte d'Agoult, Marie became a Countess and a popular Parisian hostess, having two daughters but finding the forced union stifling; she began associating with the artistic elite then inhabiting Paris including Victor Hugo, Frederic Chopin, who dedicated his second set of piano etudes to her, and Rossini, and in 1833 met the young Hungarian pianistic genius Franz Liszt. In a blatant contravention of social mores, the pair began cohabitating openly and though they would have been free to marry, at least civilly, following Marie's 1835 divorce, they never did so. Marie bore Liszt three children, the middle of whom grew to become the legendary Cosima Wagner, second wife of operatic composer Richard Wagner. Still, the couple lived largely separate lives and while Marie undoubtedly loved the composer, to him she was probably just one more pretty girl, with plenty of younger ones readily available. Marie gave Liszt the final bounce in 1844 and began a career as a literary journalist for "La Presse". She became hostess of a noted literary salon and in 1846 published "Nelida", a fictionalized account of her romance with Liszt. Moderate-to-liberal in her politics and feminism, her home became a meeting ground for the disaffected. After penning two more novels, she published her highly regarded three volume "History of the Revolution of 1848" between 1851 and 1853 and was to continue writing for the remainder of her life, with her final work an autobiography that was posthumously published in two volumes. Marie has been depicted on the silver screen at least twice, by Genvieve Page in the 1960 "Song Without End" opposite Dirk Bogarde as Liszt, and by Bernadette Peters in the 1990 "Impromptu" which featured Julian Sands as Liszt and Hugh Grant as Chopin. Though her contemporary political influence was quite real, and though her literary achievements were well noted in their day, today she is remembered as the paramour of Franz Liszt and the mother of Cosima Wagner.