The black servant’s pleasant manner made me feel very uncomfortable; I entrusted my score and letter to him to give to Lablache, without taking any notice of his kindly astonishment at my refusal of his repeated invitation to go into his master’s room and have an interview, and I left the house hurriedly, intending to call for my answer in a few days.  When I came back Lablache received me most kindly, and assured me that my aria was excellent, though it was impossible to introduce it into Bellini’s opera after the latter had already been performed so very often.  My relapse into the domain of Bellini’s style, of which I had been guilty through the writing of this aria, was therefore useless to me, and I soon became convinced of the fruitlessness of my efforts in that direction.  I saw that I should need personal introductions to various singers in order to ensure the production of one of my other compositions.

When Meyerbeer at last arrived in Paris, therefore, I was delighted.  He was not in the least astonished at the lack of success of his letters of introduction; on the contrary, he made use of this opportunity to impress upon me how difficult it was to get on in Paris, and how necessary it was for me to look out for less pretentious work.  With this object he introduced me to Maurice Schlesinger, and leaving me at the mercy of that monstrous person, went back to Germany.

At first Schlesinger did not know what to do with me; the acquaintances I made through him (of whom the chief was the violinist Panofka) led to nothing, and I therefore returned to my advisory board at home, through whose influence I had recently received an order to compose the music to the Two Grenadiers, by Heine, translated by a Parisian professor.  I wrote this song for baritone, and was very pleased with the result; on Ander’s advice I now tried to find singers for my new compositions.  Mme. Pauline Viardot, on whom I first called, went through my songs with me.  She was very amiable, and praised them, but did not see why she should sing them.  I went through the same experience with a Mme. Widmann, a grand contralto, who sang my Dors, mon enfant with great feeling; all the same she had no further use for my composition.  A certain M. Dupont, third tenor at the grand opera, tried my setting of the Ronsard poem, but declared that the language in which it was written was no longer palatable to the Paris public.  M. Geraldy, a favourite concert singer and teacher, who allowed me to call and see him frequently, told me that the Two Grenadiers was impossible, for the simple reason that the accompaniment at the end of the song, which I had modelled upon the Marseillaise, could only be sung in the streets of Paris to the accompaniment of cannons and gunshots.  Habeneck was the only person who fulfilled his promise to conduct my Columbus Overture at one of the rehearsals for the benefit of Anders and myself.  As, however, there was no question of producing this work even at