profitable an engagement—­four thousand pounds for the season, with the obligation of singing only two nights a week.  She had abandoned everything, injured her manager, M. Fould, and insulted the public for the gratification of a whim.  No adequate reason could be guessed at for such eccentricity, not even the excuse of an affaire de coeur, which would go further in the minds of Frenchmen than any other justification of capricious courses.  Her furniture and the money at her banker’s were seized as security for the forfeit of four thousand pounds stipulated by her contract in case of breach of engagement, and her private papers and letters were opened and read.

About a month after her sudden flight, M. Fould received a letter from the errant diva, in which she demanded permission to return and fill her contract.  M. Fould consented, and accepted her plea of “a misunderstanding,” but the public were not so easily placated, and when she appeared on the stage as Valentine the audience hissed her violently.  Sophie was not a whit daunted, but, confident in her power to charm, put all the fullness of her powers into her performance, and she soon had the satisfaction of learning by the enthusiasm of the plaudits that the Parisians had forgiven their favorite.

Sophie Cruvelli continued on the stage till 1855, and, although her faults of violence and exaggeration continued to call out severe criticism, she disarmed even the attacks of her enemies by the unquestionable vigor of her genius as well as by the magnificence of a voice which had never been surpassed in native excellence, though many had been far greater in the art of vocalization.  Her last performance, and perhaps one of the grandest efforts of her life, was the character of Helene in Verdi’s “Les Vepres Siciliennes,” the active principal parts having been taken by Bonnehee, Gueymard, and Obin.  The production of the work was on a splendid scale, and the opera a great success.  “The audience was electrified by the tones of her magnificent voice, which realized with equal effect those high inspirations that demand passion, force, and impulse, and those tender passages that require delicacy, taste, and a thorough knowledge of the art of singing.  No one could reproach Mlle. Cruvelli with exaggeration, so well did she know how to restrain her ardent nature.”  “Cruvelli is the Rachel of the Grand Opera!” exclaimed a French critic.  From these estimates it may be supposed that, just as she was on the eve of passing out of the profession in which she had already achieved such a splendid place at the age of twenty-five, a great future, to which hardly any limits could be set, was opening the most fascinating inducements to her.  The faults which had marred the full blaze of her genius had begun to be mellowed and softened by experience, and there was scarcely any pitch of artistic greatness to which she might not aspire.