Musset Sign

Abstract

Alfred de Musset (1810–1857), whose name serves to denote one of the best known eponymous signs of aortic regurgitation, was a famous French poet, dramatist and novelist. Already as a boy he attracted attention by improvised romantic-historical performances at the social events. Having graduated from the lyceum he tried studies of law, medicine (but was repulsed by autopsies), music and drawing. He soon entered the literature and at the age of 19 published his first collection of poetry Tales of Spain and Italy. Despite being employed as a librarian at the French Ministry of the Interior, his literature fame has grown fast together with a bohemian reputation. Musset’s both intimate life and literary work were strongly influenced by relationship with George Sand in years 1833–1835. The novel Confession of a Child of the Century (1836) reflected a breakup of this relationship and disillusion of moral climate in French society after the French revolution and Napoleonic wars. In 1845 Musset, the author of many theatre plays and collections of poetry, was awarded—as was also Balzac—by the Légion d’honneur and in 1853 he was elected to Academie française. In his private life, he failed in another relationship when his fiancée gave up trying to make him live a decent life and married his older brother Paul, also a writer. It was him who later recorded in a biography of his more famous brother also this moment: