Hearing that in spite of everything a third performance was fixed, I was confronted with only two possible solutions of the difficulty.  One was, to try once more to withdraw my score; the other, to demand that my opera should be given on a Sunday, that is to say, on a non-subscriber’s day.  I assumed that such a performance could not be regarded by the usual ticket-holders as a provocation, for they were quite accustomed on such days to surrender their boxes to any of the general public who chanced to come and buy them.  My strategical proposal seemed to please the management and the Tuileries, and was accepted.  Only they refused to conform to my wish to announce this as the third and last performance.  Both Minna and I stayed away from this, as it was just as embarrassing for me to know that my wife was insulted as to see the singers on the stage subjected to such behaviour.  I was really sorry for Morelli and Mlle. Sax, who had proved their genuine devotion to me.  As soon as the first performance was over, I met Mlle. Sax in the corridor on her way home, and chaffed her about being whistled off the stage.  With proud dignity she replied, ‘Je le supporterai cent fois comme aujourd’ hui.  Ah, les miserables!’ Morelli found himself strangely perplexed when he had to weather the onslaught of the hooligans.  I had explained to him in the minutest detail how to act his part from the time when Elizabeth disappears in the third act, until the beginning of his song to the evening star.  He was not to move an inch from his rocky ledge, and from this position, half turning to the audience, he was to address his farewell to the departing lady.  It had been a difficult task for him to obey my instructions, as he maintained that it was against all operatic custom for the singer not to address such an important passage straight to the public from the footlights.  When in the course of the performance he seized his harp to begin the song, there was a cry from the audience, ‘Ah! il prend encore sa harpe,’ upon which there was a universal outburst of laughter followed by fresh whistling, so prolonged, that at last Morelli decided boldly to lay aside his harp and step forward to the proscenium in the usual way.  Here he resolutely sang his evening carol entirely unaccompanied, as Dietzsch only found his place at the tenth bar.  Peace was then restored, and at last the public listened breathlessly to the song, and at its close covered the singer with applause.

As the vocalists showed a courageous determination to encounter fresh onslaughts, I could not protest.  At the same time I could not endure to be in the position of a passive spectator suffering at the infliction of such unworthy methods, and as the third performance was also likely to be attended with doubtful consequences, I stayed at home.  After the various acts messages reached us informing us that after the first act Truinet at once came round to my opinion that the score should