six thousand francs, but the expenses amounted to eleven thousand francs.  This might be partially covered if, in the case of the two less expensive concerts still to come, we could rely on considerably higher returns.  Belloni and Giacomelli shook their heads, however; they thought it better not to close their eyes to the fact that concerts were not suited to the taste of the French people, who demanded the dramatic element as well, that is to say, costumes, scenery, the ballet, etc., in order to feel satisfied.  The small number of tickets sold for the second concert, which was given on the 1st of February, actually put my agents to the necessity of filling the room artificially, so as at least to save appearances.  I had to allow them to do as they thought best in this matter, and was afterwards astonished to learn how they had managed to fill the first places in this aristocratic theatre in such a way as to deceive even our enemies.  The real receipts amounted to little over two thousand francs, and it now required all my determination and my contempt for the miseries that might result not to cancel the third concert to be given on the 8th of February.  My fees from Schott, a part of which, it is true, I had to devote to the household expenses of my troubled domestic existence, were all spent, and I had to look round for further subsidies.  These I obtained with great difficulty, through Gasperini’s mediation, from the very man to win whose assistance in a much wider sense had been the whole object of the concerts.  In short, we had to have recourse to M. Lucy, the Receiver-General of Marseilles, who was to come to Paris at the time my concerts were being given, and upon whom my friend Gasperini had assumed that an important Parisian success would have the effect of making him declare his readiness to finance my project of establishing German opera in Paris.  M. Lucy, on the contrary, did not appear at the first concert at all, and was only present at a part of the second, during which he fell asleep.  The fact that he was now called upon to advance several thousands of francs for the third concert naturally seemed to him to protect him against any further demands on our part, and he felt a certain satisfaction at being exempt from all further participation in my plans, at the price of this loan.  Although, as a matter of fact, this concert now seemed useless, it nevertheless gave me great pleasure, as much through the spirited performance itself as on account of its favourable reception by the audience, which, it is true, my agents had again to supplement in order to give the appearance of a full hall, but which, nevertheless, showed a marked increase in the number of tickets paid for.