compromised their family position.  My courage had already begun to sink when a happy chance brought us a young woman, Mme. Pollert (nee Zeibig), who was passing through Magdeburg with her husband, an actor, in order to fulfil a special engagement in that town; she was gifted with a beautiful voice, was a talented singer, and well suited for the chief roles.  Necessity had at last driven the directors to action, and at the eleventh hour they sent for the tenor Freimuller.  But I was particularly gratified when the love which had arisen between him and young Limbach in Frankfort enabled the enterprising tenor to carry away this singer, to whom I had behaved so miserably.  Both arrived radiant with joy.  Along with them we engaged Mme. Pollert, who, in spite of her pretentiousness, met with favour from the public.  A well-trained and musically competent baritone, Herr Krug, afterwards the conductor of a choir in Karlsruhe, had also been discovered, so that all at once I stood at the head of a really good operatic company, among which the basso Graf could be fitted in only with great difficulty, by being kept as much as possible in the background.  We succeeded quickly with a series of operatic performances which were by no means ordinary, and our repertory included everything of this nature that had ever been written for the theatre.  I was particularly pleased with the presentation of Spohr’s Jessonda, which was truly not without sublimity, and raised us high in the esteem of all cultured lovers of music.  I was untiring in my endeavours to discover some means of elevating our performances above the usual level of excellence compatible with the meagre resources of provincial theatres.  I persistently fell foul of the director Bethmann by strengthening my orchestra, which he had to pay; but, on the other hand, I won his complete goodwill by strengthening the chorus and the theatre music, which cost him nothing, and which lent such splendour to our presentations that subscriptions and audiences increased enormously.  For instance, I secured the regimental band, and also the military singers, who in the Prussian army are admirably organised, and who assisted in our performances in return for free passes to the gallery granted to their relatives.  Thus I managed to furnish with the utmost completeness the specially strong orchestral accompaniment demanded by the score of Bellini’s Norma, and was able to dispose of a body of male voices for the impressive unison portion of the male chorus in the introduction of that work such as even the greatest theatres could rarely command.  In later years I was able to assure Auber, whom I often met over an ice in Tortoni’s cafe in Paris, that in his Lestocq I had been able to render the part of the mutinous soldiery, when seduced into conspiracy, with an absolutely full number of voices, a fact for which he thanked me with astonishment and delight.