with a certain Mile.  M------, a somewhat frivolous and unscrupulous beauty, who had bled his not overfilled purse with the avidity of a leech.  Berlioz heard just before returning to Paris that the coquette was about to marry, a conclusion one would fancy which would have rejoiced his mind.  But, no! he was worked to a dreadful rage by what he considered such perfidy!  His one thought was to avenge himself.  He provided himself with three loaded pistols—­one for the faithless one, one for his rival, and one for himself—­and was so impatient to start that he could not wait for passports.  He attempted to cross the frontier in women’s clothes, and was arrested.  A variety of contretemps occurred before he got to Paris, and by that time his rage had so cooled, his sense of the absurdity of the whole thing grown so keen, that he was rather willing to send Mile.  M------his blessing than his curse.

About the time of Berlioz’s arrival, Miss Smithson also returned to Paris after a long absence, with the intent of undertaking the management of an English theatre.  It was a necessity of our composer’s nature to be in love, and the flames of his ardor, fed with fresh fuel, blazed up again from their old ashes.  Berlioz gave a concert, in which his “Episode in the Life of an Artist” was interpreted in connection with the recitations of the text.  The explanations of “Lelio” so unmistakably pointed to the feeling of the composer for herself, that Miss Smithson, who by chance was present, could not be deceived, though she never yet had seen Berlioz.  A few days afterward a benefit concert was arranged, in which Miss Smithson’s troupe was to take part, as well as Berlioz, who was to direct a symphony of his own composition.  At the rehearsal, the looks of Berlioz followed Miss Smithson with such an intent stare, that she said to some one, “Who is that man whose eyes bode me no good?” This was the first occasion of their personal meeting, and it may be fancied that Berlioz followed up the introduction with his accustomed vehemence and pertinacity, though without immediate effect, for Miss Smithson was more inclined to fear than to love him.

The young directress soon found out that the rage for Shakespeare, which had swept the public mind under the influence of the romanticism led by Victor Hugo, Dumas, Theophile Gautier, Balzac, and others, was spurious.  The wave had been frothing but shallow, and it ebbed away, leaving the English actress and her enterprise gasping for life.  With no deeper tap-root than the Gallic love of novelty and the infectious enthusiasm of a few men of great genius, the Shakespearean mania had a short life, and Frenchmen shrugged their shoulders over their own folly, in temporarily preferring the English barbarian to Racine, Corneille, and Moliere.  The letters of Berlioz, in which he scourges the fickleness of his countrymen in returning again to their “false gods,” are masterpieces of pointed invective.