was to follow him to his Russian estates.  He was therefore looking for a musical director of sufficient experience to assist in recruiting the members in Paris.  I gladly went to the hotel where the count was staying, and there found an elderly gentleman of frank and agreeable bearing, who willingly listened to my little French compositions.  Being a shrewd reader of human nature, he saw at a glance that I was not the man for him, and though he showed me the most polite attention, he went no further into the opera scheme.  But that very day he sent me, accompanied by a friendly note, ten golden napoleons, in payment for my services.  What these services were I did not know.  I thereupon wrote to him, and asked for more precise details of his wishes, and begged him to commission a composition, the fee for which I presumed he had sent in advance.  As I received no reply, I made more than one effort to approach him again, but in vain.  From other sources I afterwards learned that the only kind of opera Count Kuscelew recognised was Adam’s.  As for the operatic company to be engaged to suit his taste, what he really wanted was more a small harem than a company of artists.

So far I had not been able to arrange anything with the music publisher Schlesinger.  It was impossible to persuade him to publish my little French songs.  In order to do something, however, towards making myself known in this direction, I decided to have my Two Grenadiers engraved by him at my own expense.  Kietz was to lithograph a magnificent title-page for it.  Schlesinger ended by charging me fifty francs for the cost of production.  The story of this publication is curious from beginning to end; the work bore Schlesinger’s name, and as I had defrayed all expenses, the proceeds were, of course, to be placed to my account.  I had afterwards to take the publisher’s word for it that not a single copy had been sold.  Subsequently, when I had made a quick reputation for myself in Dresden through my Rienzi, Schott the publisher in Mainz, who dealt almost exclusively in works translated from the French, thought it advisable to bring out a German edition of the Two Grenadiers.  Below the text of the French translation he had the German original by Heine printed; but as the French poem was a very free paraphrase, in quite a different metre to the original, Heine’s words fitted my composition so badly that I was furious at the insult to my work, and thought it necessary to protest against Schott’s publication as an entirely unauthorised reprint.  Schott then threatened me with an action for libel, as he said that, according to his agreement, his edition was not a reprint (Nachdruck), but a reimpression (Abdruck).  In order to be spared further annoyance, I was induced to send him an apology in deference to the distinction he had drawn, which I did not understand.

In 1848, when I made inquiries of Schlesinger’s successor in Paris (M.  Brandus) as to the fate of my little work, I learned from him that a new edition had been published, but he declined to entertain any question of rights on my part.  Since I did not care to buy a copy with my own money, I have to this day had to do without my own property.  To what extent, in later years, others profited by similar transactions relating to the publication of my works, will appear in due course.