In the year 1810 his opera “Sylvana” had been sung, as I have said, with Caroline Brandt in the title role.  When, in 1813, he was given the direction of the opera at Prague, though he fell into the clutches of the Brunetti, he had unconsciously prepared himself a better, cleaner experience by engaging for the very first member of his new company this same Caroline Brandt, who happened to write him that she happened to be “at liberty,” as they say.

Like Carl himself, she had known stage-life from childhood, being the daughter of a tenor, and appearing on the stage at the age of eight.  She is described as “small and plump in figure, with beautiful, expressive gray eyes and fair wavy hair, and a peculiar liveliness in her movements.”  She was a woman of large and tender heart, electrified with a temper incisive and immediate.  She was an actress of genuine skill, “her sense of grace and beauty in all things infallible.”  She did not appear at the theatre in Prague until the first day of January, 1814.  She bore a curious resemblance to Therese Brunetti in a fresher edition, and was not long in giving that lady a sense of uneasiness.  The oysters, as we have seen, had given the Brunetti the coup de disgrace.

Caroline won the poor director’s gratitude first by being quick to adopt suggestions, and to rescue him from the embarrassments buzzing about the head of an operatic manager.  She was glad to undertake tasks, and slow to show professional jealousy.  She lived in seclusion with her mother, and received no visits.  Even the young noblemen could not woo her at the stage door, though the Brunetti advised her to accept the advances of a certain banker, saying:  “He is worth the trouble, for he is rich.”

Having failed to drag Caroline into her own game, the Brunetti tried to keep Von Weber from breathing the better air of her presence.  As we have seen, she drove him almost to distraction, and sent him a wreck to the baths in Friedland.

Caroline’s mother had permitted Von Weber to pay his court to her, and her father and brother had found his intentions worthy.  Caroline had not hesitated to confess that her affection was growing with Carl’s.  But what she had seen of his life with the Brunetti, and what she must have heard of his magnificent dissipations, gave her pause.  Therefore, when Carl went away for his health, he took with him a riddle, and left behind “a sweet, beloved being who might—­who may—­make me happy.”  “The absence of three months shall test our love.”  They wrote each other long and daily letters; his were all of yearning, while hers were mingled with fear, lest he be, as she wrote him, “a sweet poison harmful to the soul.”

After taking the baths, he went on to Berlin, arriving there August 3d in the very ferment of rapture over the downfall of Napoleon at Prague.  He was moved to write a number of patriotic songs from Koerner’s “Leier und Schwert.”  These choruses for men were sung throughout the Fatherland, as they still are sung.