accordingly invited to come to Paris with a view of being engaged.  Besides him, M. Royer wished me to agree to his securing a certain Mme. Tedesco, a tragedienne, who, on account of her beauty, would be a very valuable addition to the repertoire of his theatre, protesting that he could think of no woman better fitted for the part of Venus.  Without knowing the lady I gave my consent to this excellent proposal, and moreover agreed to the engagement of a Mlle. Sax, a still unspoiled young singer with a very beautiful voice, as well as of an Italian baritone, Morelli, whose sonorous tones, as contrasted with the sickly French singers of this class, had greatly pleased me during my visits to the Opera.  When these arrangements were concluded, I thought I had done all that was really necessary, though I did not cherish any very firm conviction on the matter.

Amid these labours I passed my forty-seventh birthday in a far from happy frame of mind, to which, however, on the evening of this day, the peculiarly bright glow of Jupiter gave me an omen of better things to come.  The beautiful weather, suitable to the time of year, which in Paris is never favourable to the conduct of business, had only tended to increase the stringency of my needs.  I was and still continued to be without any prospect of meeting my household expenses, which had now become very heavy.  As I was ever anxious, amid all my other discomforts, to find some relief from this burden, I had made an agreement with the music-dealer Flaxland for the sale of all my French rights in the Fliegender Hollander, Tannhauser, and Lohengrin for whatever they would fetch.  Our contract stipulated that for each of these three operas he was to pay me a sum of one thousand francs down, and further payments on their being performed in a Paris theatre, namely, one thousand francs after the first ten performances, and the same amount for the following performances up to the twentieth.  I at once notified my friend Pusinelli of this contract, having made this condition in his favour when selling my operas to Meser’s successors.  This I did by way of guaranteeing him the repayment of the capital advanced for their publication.  I begged him, however, to allow me to retain Flaxland’s first instalment on account, as otherwise I should be stranded in Paris without the means of bringing my operas to the point of being profitable.  My friend agreed to all my suggestions.  The Dresden publisher, on the contrary, was just as disagreeable, and complained at once that I was infringing his rights in France, and so worried Flaxland that the latter felt justified in raising all sorts of difficulties against me.