Mme. M. may have been eighteen when she began to study singing with Delsarte, together with her husband, who was destined for a similar career.  She had an agreeable voice, but a particularly charming face, the freshness of a child in its cradle, a sweet expression of innocence.  In figure she was tall and slender.  The lovely creature always looked like a Bengal rose tossing upon its graceful stalk.  These young students considered themselves finished and made an engagement with the manager of a theatre in Brazil.

“Don’t do it,” said Delsarte to the husband, knowing his suspicious nature, “that is a dangerous region; you will never bring your wife back alive.”

He prophesied but too truthfully.

Soon after, we heard that the fair songstress had been shot dead by the hand of the husband who adored her.  I like to think that she was innocent of more than imprudence.  The story which reached us from that distant land was, that M. M. threatened to kill his wife if she continued to associate with a certain young man.

“You would never do it!” she said.

She did not reckon on the aberrations of jealousy.  It was said, in excuse for the murderer, that she had defied him, saying: 

“I love him, and I do not love you!”

After the catastrophe, the unfortunate husband gave himself up to justice.  No case was found against him, but how he must have suffered when he had forever cut himself off from the sight of that enchanting creature!

Three figures stand preeminent in the crowd:  Darcier, Giraudet, Madame Pasca.

I will proceed in order of seniority.

The first named did not attend the lectures when I did, but I often heard him mentioned in society where he attracted attention by his rendering of Delsarte’s “Stanzas to Eternity,” Pierre Dupont’s “Hundred Louis d’or,” and many other impressive or dramatic pieces.  I know the master considered him possessed of much aptitude and feeling for art.

They met one evening at a large party given by a high official of the day.  Darcier sang well, in Delsarte’s opinion; but it was perhaps too well for a public made up of fashionables, not connoisseurs.

“It takes something more than talent to move them,” thought the real judge, annoyed; and with that accent familiar to well-bred people, which transfigures a triviality, he said to the singer: 

“Let them have the bread!”

He referred to a political song ending with these lines: 

    “Ye cannot hush the moan
    Of the people when they cry:  ‘We hunger ...’ 
    For it is the cry of nature,
    They want bread, bread, bread!”

The guests were forced to give the attention which it demanded to this cry which aroused the idea of recent seditions, and the performer came in for his share.

This artist may still be heard, but his talents are displayed in so narrow a circle that his reputation is a limited one.  Yet it is said that his compositions and his mode of singing them attest to great vigor.