Niemann was present.  This man had now arrived in Paris, at the request of the manager Royer, to arrange a contract.  I confess I was astounded at the pose he assumed, and the airs with which he presented himself at my door with the question, ’Well, do you want me or do you not?’ Nevertheless, when we went to the manager’s office he pulled himself together, so as to make a good effect.  In this he succeeded admirably, for every one was amazed to meet a tenor of such extraordinary physical endowments.  Nevertheless, he had to submit to a nominal trial performance, for which he chose the description of the pilgrimage in Tannhauser, acting and singing it upon the stage of the Grand Opera House.  Mme. Kalergis and Princess Metternich, who were secretly present at this performance, were both enthusiastically prepossessed in Niemann’s favour, as were also all the members of the management.  He was engaged for eight months at a monthly salary of ten thousand francs.  His contract referred solely to Tannhauser, as I felt obliged to protest against the singer appearing before this in other operas.

The conclusion of this agreement, and the remarkable circumstances under which it had been brought about, filled me with a hitherto unknown consciousness of the power thus suddenly placed in my hands.  I had also been drawn into closer contact with Princess Metternich, who was undoubtedly the good fairy of the whole enterprise, and I was now also received with flattering cordiality by her husband and by the whole diplomatic circle to which they belonged.  To the Princess, in particular, people attributed an almost omnipotent influence at the French Imperial Court, where Fould, the otherwise influential Minister of State, could effect nothing against her in matters pertaining to myself.  She instructed me to apply only to her for the fulfilment of all my wishes, and said she would know how to find ways and means of attaining the success of the project, on which she had now evidently set her heart, all the more firmly because she saw that I still had no real faith in the enterprise.

Under these more hopeful auspices I spent the months from summer to autumn, when rehearsals were to begin.  It was a great boon to me that I was just then able to make provision for Minna’s health, as the doctors had urgently prescribed her a visit to the baths of Soden, near Frankfort.  She accordingly set off at the beginning of July, when I promised myself the pleasure of fetching her on the completion of her cure, as it happened that I myself had occasion to visit the Rhine at that time.