 To friends in Italy, he had written from London (or wrote from Paris) about "being able to lead the life I wish" and "intend[ing] to stay a month in Paris, if I liked it".With the exception of a return to Italy after the 18 March 1848 bloody uprising in Milan against the Austrians (when the composer was away from early April to mid-May) and the period of overseeing the rehearsals of "La battaglia di Legnano" in Rome (from before Christmas 1848 to early February 1849 after its premiere on 27 January 1849), Verdi remained in Paris.However, as far as the relationship with Strepponi proceeded, Phillips-Matz recounts that Verdi was "living in an apartment around the corner from Strepponi's house", that the news of this had reached Italy ("Verdi had been seen "chez" Strepponi"), and that, in writing the music for "Jérusalem", he had received her help to the extent that a handwritten love duet in the composer's autograph score contains alternative lines in her handwriting and in his.