bitter occasion to regret that she had tied her fortunes to a man utterly unworthy of love and respect.  She remained for several years at Dresden, and among other operas she appeared in Weber’s “Euryanthe,” with Mme. Funk, Herr Berg-mann, and Herr Meyer.  She also made a powerful impression on the attention of both the critics and the public in Cherubini’s “Faniska,” and Spohr’s “Jessonda,” both of which operas are not much known out of Germany, though “Faniska” was first produced at the Theatre Feydeau, in Paris, and contributed largely to the fame of its illustrious composer.  The austere, noble music is not of a character to please the multitude who love what is sensational and easily understood.  When “Faniska” was first produced at the Austrian capital in the winter of 1805, both Haydn and Beethoven were present.  The former embraced Cherubini, and said to him, “You are my son, worthy of my love”; while Beethoven cordially hailed him as “the first dramatic composer of the age.”  The opera of “Faniska” is based on a Polish legend of great dramatic beauty, and the unity of idea and musical color between it and Beethoven’s “Fidelio” has often excited the attention of critics.  It is perhaps owing to this dramatic similarity that Mme. Schroeder-De vrient made as much reputation by her performance of it as she had already acquired in Beethoven’s lyric masterpiece.

In 1828 she went to Prague, and thence to Berlin, where her marriage was judicially dissolved, she retaining her guardianship of her son, then four years old.  Spontini, who was then the musical autocrat of Berlin, conceived a violent dislike to her, and his bitter nature expressed itself in severe and ungenerous sarcasms.  But the genius of the singer was proof against the hostility of the Franco-Italian composer, and the immense audiences which gathered to hear her interpret the chef-d’ouvres of Weber, whose fame as the great national composer of Germany was then at its zenith, proved her strong hold on the hearts of the German people.  Spontini’s prejudice was generally attributed to Mme. Devrient’s dislike of his music and her artistic identification with the heroines of Weber, for whose memory Spontini entertained much the same envious hate as Salieri felt for Mozart in Vienna at an earlier date.

Our singer’s ambition sighed to conquer new worlds, and in 1830 she went to Paris with a troupe of German singers, headed by Mme. Fischer, a tall blonde beauty, with a fresh, charming voice, but utterly Mme. Schroder-Devrient’s inferior in all the requirements of the great artist.  She made her debut in May at the Theatre Louvois, as Agathe in “Der Freischutz,” and, though excessively agitated, was so impressive and powerful in the impersonation as to create a great eclat.  The critics were highly pleased with the beauty and finish of her style.  She produced the principal parts of her repertoire