Before eventually marrying Harriet Smithson, Berlioz was engaged to Marie Félicité Denise Moke. While he was away in Italy her mother wrote announcing that her daughter intended to break their engagement and was to marry Camille Pleyel instead. Enraged, Berlioz decide to return to Paris and take revenge on Pleyel, his fiancée and her mother by killing all three of them. He created an elaborate plan, going so far as to purchase a costume to disguise himself as a woman in order to gain entry to their house. He even stole a pair of double-barrelled pistols to kill them with.

However, despite careful planning, Berlioz realised he may have overreacted and didn’t go ahead with the plot. Jolly good job too.

Berlioz described the above events twelve years after they happened so perhaps the story should be taken with a pinch of salt.