As a characteristic instance of the courtier spirit, I afterwards learned that Luttichau, who had had to wait for me in the anteroom during this audience, had been very much put out by its long duration.  In the whole course of my life I was only admitted twice more to personal intercourse and speech with the good King.  The first occasion was when I presented him with the dedication copy of the pianoforte score of my Rienzi; and the second was after my very successful arrangement and performance of the Iphigenia in Aulis, by Gluck, of whose operas he was particularly fond, when he stopped me in the public promenade and congratulated me on my work.

That first audience with the King marked the zenith of my hastily adopted career at Dresden; thenceforward anxiety reasserted itself in manifold ways.  I very quickly realised the difficulties of my material situation, since it soon became evident that the advantage won by new exertions and my present appointment bore no proportion to the heavy sacrifices and obligations which I incurred as soon as I entered on an independent career.  The young musical director of Riga, long since forgotten, suddenly reappeared in an astonishing reincarnation as royal conductor to the King of Saxony.  The first-fruits of the universal estimate of my good fortune took the shape of pressing creditors and threats of prosecution; next followed demands from the Konigsberg tradesmen, from whom I had escaped from Riga by means of that horribly wretched and miserable flight.  I also heard from people in the most distant parts, who thought they had some claim on me, dating even from my student, nay, my school days, until at last I cried out in my astonishment that I expected to receive a bill next from the nurse who had suckled me.  All this did not amount to any very large sum, and I merely mention it because of the ill-natured rumours which, I learned years later, had been spread abroad about the extent of my debts at that time.  Out of three thousand marks, borrowed at interest from Schroder-Devrient, I not only paid these debts, but also fully compensated the sacrifices which Kietz had made on my behalf, without ever expecting any return, in the days of my poverty in Paris.  I was, moreover, able to be of practical use to him.  But where was I to find even this sum, as my distress had hitherto been so great that I was obliged to urge Schroder-Devrient to hurry on the rehearsals of the Fliegender Hollander by pointing out to her the enormous importance to me of the fee for the performance?  I had no allowance for the expenses of my establishment in Dresden, though it had to be suitable for my position as royal conductor, nor even for the purchase of a ridiculous and expensive court uniform, so that there would have been no possibility of my making a start at all, as I had no private means, unless I borrowed money at interest.