The woman sat in front of the fireplace on that chilly October day, watching the hungry flames lick the stone walls. Her son was at her side, the piles and piles of letters stacked at their feet. She was about to carry out the dictates of her aunt's last will and testament.

The will had authorized “the autograph letters of celebrated persons” to be spared. These were separated out first. But then the woman started to read what she had promised to destroy. It was heartrending: so many testimonials to such a full, rich, complicated life, destined for the fire.

Her aunt had been one of the most famous women in Europe, lauded in her adopted country of France for the generosity with which she supported charitable causes, for her efforts on behalf of the arts, sciences, and letters, and most especially for her initiatives on behalf of music from all ages, on behalf of modern music in particular, initiatives that had earned her the title of la Grande Mécène, the Great Patron of modern music.

But her aunt had also been inscrutable, sphinx-like. No one really knew her. And not everyone in her family or her husband's family had liked her. Some had been jealous; some had found her private life scandalous; not a few had wished for her social downfall. One nephew had described the aunt that he called la silencieuse—the silent one—in the most uncomplimentary of terms.