Oddlet: Franz Liszt · 1 min read
Oct 17, 2026
A Dog of Matching Color
Women fainted at Franz Liszt's recitals, fought over his broken piano strings, and pressed him — perfumed letter after perfumed letter — for a lock of his hair.
Women fainted at Franz Liszt's recitals. They fought over his broken piano strings. They stole his cigar stubs and had them set in lockets. Above all, they wanted a lock of his hair.
Liszt had a great deal of hair, but not that much.
So he bought a dog.
The dog was chosen for color, a shade close enough to his own, and Liszt kept it nearby for exactly this purpose. When another perfumed letter arrived begging for a curl to wear against the heart, he would take up scissors, snip a tuft from the dog, and mail it off. The recipients set it in gold. They wore the brooches at balls, at operas, back to his concerts. All over Europe, in drawing rooms and boudoirs, women pressed a warm clipping of dog to their bosoms and believed it was Franz.
He gave most of his fortune to the poor. He took holy orders. He was, by every account, a serious man.
He just knew when he was being ridiculous.
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- Wikipedia — Franz Liszt — Comprehensive biography covering birth/death dates, exact dates of Third Order entry (June 23, 1857), tonsure (April 25, 1865) and minor orders (July 31, 1865), children's birthdates, and charity/teaching practices.
- Wikipedia — Lisztomania — Documents Heine's April 25, 1844 coinage of the term, the Berlin origin (Dec 27, 1841), and specific fan behaviors (cigar stubs in lockets, coffee dregs in vials, broken piano strings as bracelets).
- Catholic Encyclopedia — Franz Liszt (New Advent) — Authoritative on his religious life: Franciscan tertiary status, minor orders received from Cardinal Hohenlohe at the Vatican on April 25, 1865, list of the four minor orders, and Liszt's own quoted rationale.
- Wikipedia — Marie d'Agoult — Details the 1835-1839 cohabitation, the three children's exact names and dates, Liszt's 1844 assumption of full custody, and denial of visitation to d'Agoult.
- Wikipedia — Cosima Wagner — Cosima's 1857 marriage to Bülow, affair with Wagner from 1863, divorce July 18, 1870, remarriage to Wagner August 25, 1870, and that Liszt learned of the Wagner wedding through newspapers.
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A slim, asthmatic, French-speaking heir to a Hampshire baronetcy was lost off Rio in 1854; twelve years later a butcher from Wagga Wagga arrived at Tilbury weighing eighteen stone, unable to speak one word of French, and the family's old valet accepted him.
The Girl Who Shot the Kaiser
In 1889, a five-foot Quaker in an ankle-length skirt asked the audience for a volunteer, and Kaiser Wilhelm II stood up.
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