I also received an invitation with the Olliviers from the Erard family, at whose house I again met my old friend the widow of Spontini.  We spent a rather charming evening there, during which, strange to say, I had to be responsible for the musical entertainment at the piano.  They declared they had thoroughly entered into the spirit of the various selections I had played from my operas in my now characteristic fashion, and that they had enjoyed them immensely.  At any rate, such intimate heartfelt playing had never before been heard in that gorgeous drawing-room.  Apart from this, I made one great acquisition, through the friendly courtesy of Mme. Erard and her brother-in-law Schaffer, who since the death of her husband had carried on the business, in the shape of a promise of one of the celebrated grand-pianos of their manufacture.  With this the gloom of my excursion to Paris seemed to be turned into light, for I was so rejoiced at it, that I looked upon every other result as chimerical, and upon this as the only reality.

After that I left Paris on the 2nd of February in a more cheerful frame of mind, and on my homeward journey went to look up my old friend Kietz in Epernay, where M. Paul Chandon, who had known Kietz since boyhood, had interested himself in the ruined painter by taking him into his house, and giving him a number of commissions for portraits.  As soon as I arrived I was irresistibly drawn into Chandon’s hospitable house, and could not refuse to remain there for a couple of days.  I found in Chandon a passionate admirer of my operas, particularly of Rienzi, the first performance of which he had witnessed during his Dresden days.  I also visited the marvellous wine vaults at Champagne, which extended for miles into the heart of the rocky ground.  Kietz was painting a portrait in oils, and the opinion entertained by every one that it would very soon be finished rather amused me.

After much superfluous entertainment I at last freed myself from this unexpected hospitality and returned to Zurich on the 5th of February, where I had arranged by letter for an evening party immediately after my arrival, as I thought I had much to relate which I could tell them all collectively instead of by means of long and wearisome communications to individual friends.  Semper, who was one of the company, was annoyed that he had stayed in Zurich whilst I had been in Paris, and he became quite furious over my cheerful adventures and declared I was an impudent child of fortune, while he looked upon it as the greatest calamity that he should be chained to that wretched hole Zurich.  How I smiled inwardly at his envy of my fortune!