Ole Bull stretched forth to grasp the money, when a white hand covered it before his.  He seized the wrist with a fierce grasp, while the owner of it uttered a loud shriek, and loud threats came from the other players, who took sides in the matter, when a dark figure suddenly appeared on the scene, and spoke in a voice whose tones carried with them a magic authority which stilled all tumult at once.  “Madame, leave this gold alone!”—­and to Ole Bull:  “Sir, take your money, if you please.”  The winner of an amount which had become very considerable lingered a few moments to see the further results of the play, and, much to his disgust, discovered that he would have possessed quite a little fortune had he left his pile undisturbed for one more turn of the cards.  He was consoled, however, on arriving at his miserable lodgings, for he could scarcely believe that this stroke of good luck was true, and yet there was something repulsive in it to the fresh, unsophisticated nature of the man.  He said in a letter to one of his friends, “What a hideous joy I felt—­what a horrible pleasure it was to have saved one’s own soul by the spoil of others!” The mysterious stranger who had thus befriended Ole Bull was the great detective Vidocq, whose adventures and exploits had given him a world-wide reputation.  Ole Bull never saw him again.

In exploring Paris for the purchase of a new violin, he accidentally made the acquaintance of an individual named Labout, who fancied that he had found the secret of the old Cremona varnish, and that, by using it on modern-made violins, the instruments would acquire all the tone and quality of the best old fiddles of the days of the Stradiuarii and Amati.  The inventor persuaded Ole Bull to appear at a private concert where he proposed to test his invention, and where the Duke and Duchesse de Montebello were to be present.  The Norwegian’s playing produced a genuine sensation, and the duke took the young artist under his patronage.  The result was that Ole Bull was soon able to give a concert on his own account, which brought him a profit of about twelve hundred francs, and made him talked about among the musical cognoscenti of Paris.  Of course every one at the time was Paganini mad, but Ole Bull secured more than a respectful hearing, and opened the way toward getting a solid footing for himself.

Among the incidents which occurred to him in Paris about this time was one which had a curiously interesting bearing on his life.  Obliged to move from his lodgings on account of the death of the landlord and his wife of cholera, a disease then raging in Paris, Ole Bull was told of a noble but impoverished family who had a room to let on account of the recent death of the only son.  The Norwegian violinist presented himself at the somewhat dilapidated mansion of the Comtesse de Faye, and was shown into the presence of three ladies dressed in deepest mourning.  The eldest of them, on hearing his errand, haughtily declined the proposition, when the more beautiful of the two girls said, “Look at him, mother!” with such eagerness as to startle the ancient dame.