Sunday arrived, and with it a concert at the Conservatoire.  As I had hitherto been present only at rehearsals, and had never got so far as the performances, my friends succeeded in procuring a seat for me in the box of Mme. Herold, the widow of the composer, a woman of sympathetic disposition, who at once declared herself warmly in favour of my music.  It is true her knowledge of it was slight, but she had been won over to it by the enthusiasm of her daughter and son-in-law, who, as I have previously mentioned, had heard Tannhauser during their honeymoon in Vienna and Berlin.  This was really a pleasant surprise.  Added to this, I now heard for the first time in my life a performance of Haydn’s Seasons, which the audience enjoyed immensely, as they thought the steady florid vocal cadences, which are so rare in modern music, but which so frequently occur at the conclusion of the musical phrases in Haydn’s music, very original and charming.  The rest of the day was spent very pleasantly in the bosom of the Herold family.  Towards the end of the evening a man came in whose appearance was hailed with marked attention.  This was Herr Scudo, who, I found out afterwards, was the famous musical editor of the Revue des deux Mondes.  His influence with other journals was considerable, but so far it had certainly not been in my favour.  The kind hostess wished me to make his acquaintance, so that he might have a good impression of me, but I told her such an object could not be attained through the medium of a drawing-room conversation, and later on I was confirmed in my opinion that the reasons why a gentleman of this type, who possesses no knowledge of the subject, declares himself hostile to an artist, having nothing whatever to do with his convictions or even with his approval or disapproval.  On a subsequent occasion these good people had to suffer for having interested themselves in me, as, in a report of my concerts by Herr Scudo, they were held up to ridicule as a family of strong democratic tendencies.

I now looked up my friend Berlioz, whose acquaintance I had recently renewed in London, and on the whole I found him kindly disposed.

I informed him that I had only just come to Paris on a short pleasure trip.  He was at that time busy composing a grand opera, Die Trojaner.  In order to get an impression of the work, I was particularly anxious to hear the libretto Berlioz had written himself, and he spent an evening reading it out to me.  I was disappointed in it, not only as far as it was concerned, but also by his singularly dry and theatrical delivery.  I fancied that in the latter I could see the character of the music to which he had set his words, and I sank into utter despair about it, as I could see that he regarded this as his masterpiece, and was looking forward to its production as the great object of his life.