Dumas, Delacroix and Mérimée were Stendhal’s friends from among the salon de l’Arsenal côterie; Mérimée wrote of a visit to a brothel organised by Musset, with Stendhal and Delacroix. Stendhal met Byron in Milan and corresponded: he thought Byron’s eyes the most beautifully expressive he’d ever seen. Sand and Musset, travelling to Venice, met Stendhal, travelling to his consular duties in Civitavecchia, drinking too much and dancing around the table in his fur-lined boots. Although he loved his near-contemporary Rossini’s music and wrote a confabulated biography of the composer, it appears they never met.