Thus the biographer describes the new dissipation, which carried Carl away from his old riots; the new magnet that dragged from him all the money he could earn, and more than he could borrow.  It was a wild and reckless crew and addicted to such entertainments as the travesty on Marc Antony, with music by Carl, who played Cleopatra, while Gretchen played Antony.

The last straw upon Carl’s breaking back was the arrival of his father, who descended upon him with a bass viol, an enormous basket-bed for his beloved poodles, and a large bundle of debts, as well as an increased luggage of eccentricities.  While Weber was trying to secure loans to pay off one of his father’s debts, he was innocently implicated in a scandal of bribery, by which it was made to seem that he had offered a post in the prince’s household, in return for an advance of money.  The king had been driven to despair by the disasters of the German army, and the increase of discontent of the German people, and desired to gain a reputation for virtue by the comfortable step of reforming his brother’s household.  Learning of the proffered bribe, in which Weber seemed to be concerned, but of which he was perfectly innocent, the king had him arrested during a rehearsal of his opera “Sylvana,” and had him thrown into prison for sixteen days.  When at last he was examined, there was nothing found to justify the accusation of dishonesty, he was released from the prison for criminals, and transferred to the prison for debt, and then a little later he and his father were placed into a carriage and driven across the border to exile.

This sudden plunge from the froth of dissipation to the dregs of disgrace was a fall that Weber could never thereafter think or speak of, and every mention of it was forbidden.

Almost from this moment Weber’s life is one of seriousness, with an occasional relapse into some of his old qualities, but never a complete laying aside of earnestness.  He gained friends elsewhere, and finally settled in Darmstadt, where he still found women’s hearts susceptible, in spite of his small, weak frame, his great long neck, and his calfless legs, of which he writes:  “And, oh, my calves, they might have done honour to a poodle!”

Eight months after his banishment, his opera “Sylvana” was produced at Frankfort, the first soprano being Gretchen Lang, and the part of Sylvana being taken by Caroline Brandt, of whom much more later.  At Munich the next year, he found himself in high favour with two singers.  They were vying with each other for him, while two society beauties exerted their rival charms.  Weber was kept busy with his quadruple flirtation.  He was driven into cynicism, and his motto became “All women are good for nothing” ("Alle Weiber taugen nichts"), which he used so often that he abbreviated it to “A.W.T.N.”  In the columns of his account-book he was provoked to write:  “A. coquettes with me, though she knows I am making love to her friend.  B. abuses N., tells me horrid stories of her, and says I must not go home with her.”  He took a journey to Switzerland, where the beautiful Frau Peyermann occupied his heart long enough to inspire him to the scene in “Athalie,” and to his song, “The Artist’s Declaration of Love.”  He wandered here and there, for about three years, and his biographer, Spitta, thus portrays him: