The realisation of the deep impression I had made on certain people had more effect upon me at this time than the dejection I felt at having to all outward appearances failed in this enterprise.  It was undeniable that the sensation I had produced had directly, as the comments of the press had indirectly, aroused extraordinary interest in me.  My omission to invite any journalists seemed to be regarded on all sides as a wonderful piece of audacity on my part.  I had foreseen the attitude likely to be adopted by the majority of reporters, but I was sorry that even such men as M. Franc-Marie, the critic of the Patrie, who at the end of the concert had come forward to thank me with deep emotion, should have found themselves forced to follow the lead of the others, without compromising, and even to go so far as to deny their true opinion of me.  Berlioz aroused a universal feeling of anger amongst my adherents, by an article which began in a roundabout way, but ended with an open attack on me which he published in the Journal des Debats.  As he had once been an old friend, I was determined not to overlook this treatment, and answered his onslaught in a letter which, with the greatest difficulty, I managed to get translated into good French, and succeeded, not without trouble, in having it inserted in the Journal des Debats.  It so happened that this very letter had the effect of drawing those on whom my concerts had already made an impression more enthusiastically towards me.  Amongst others a M. Perrin introduced himself to me; he had formerly been director of the Opera Comique, and was now a well-to-do bel esprit and painter, and later became director of the Grand Opera.  He had heard Lohengrin and Tannhauser performed in Germany, and expressed himself in such a way as led me to suppose that he would make it a point of honour to bring these operas to France should he at any time be in a position to do so.  A certain Count Foucher de Careil had also become acquainted with my operas in the same way, through seeing them performed in Germany, and he too became one of my distinguished and lasting friends.  He had made a name by various publications on German philosophy, and more especially through a book on Leibnitz, and it could not but prove interesting to me to be brought through him into touch with a form of the French genius as yet unknown to me.

It is impossible to record all the passing acquaintances with whom I was brought in contact at this time, amongst whom a Russian Count Tolstoi was conspicuously kind; but I must here mention the excellent impression made upon me by the novelist Champfleury’s amiable pamphlet, of which I and my concerts formed the subject.  In a series of light and airy aphorisms he displayed such a comprehension of my music, and even of my personality, that I had never again met with such a suggestive and masterly appreciation, and had only come across its equal once before in Liszt’s lucubrations on Lohengrin and Tannhauser.  My personal acquaintance with Champfleury, which followed, brought me face to face with a very simple and in a certain sense easy-tempered individual, such as one seldom meets, and belonging to a type of Frenchman fast becoming extinct.