In addition to this festive morning, I met Liszt again at a dinner at the Austrian embassy, on which occasion he once more showed his kindly sympathy by playing several passages from my Lohengrin on the piano to Princess Metternich.  He was also summoned to a dinner at the Tuileries, to which, however, it was not thought necessary to invite me to accompany him.  With regard to this he related a conversation, which was very much to the point, with the Emperor Napoleon about the episode of my Tannhauser performances in Paris, the upshot of which appears to have been that I was not in my right place at the Grand Opera House.  Whether Liszt ever discussed these matters with Lamartine I do not know, I only heard that my old friend several times addressed him, to try and arrange a meeting with him, for which I was very anxious.  Tausig, who at first had taken refuge chiefly with me, fell back later into his natural dependence upon his master, so that in the end he quite vanished from my sight, when he went with Liszt to visit Mme. Street in Brussels.

I was now longing to leave Paris.  I had fortunately managed to get rid of my house in the Rue d’Aumale by sub-letting it, a transaction in which I was helped by a present of a hundred francs to the concierge, and was now merely waiting for news from my protectors.  As I did not wish to press them, my situation became most painfully prolonged, though it was not altogether devoid of pleasant but tantalising incidents.  For instance, I had won the special favour of Mlle. Eberty, Meyerbeer’s elderly niece.  She had been an almost rabid partisan of my cause during the painful episode of the Tannhauser performances, and now seemed earnestly desirous of doing something to brighten my cheerless situation.  With this object she arranged a really charming dinner in a first-class restaurant in the Bois de Boulogne, to which we and Kietz, of whom we were not yet rid, were invited, and which took place in lovely spring weather.  The Flaxland family also, with whom I had had some differences over the publication of Tannhauser, now exerted themselves in every possible way to show me kindness, but I could only wish that they had had no reason for doing so.

It was now settled that we must at all costs leave Paris soon.  It was proposed that Minna should resume her treatment at the Soden baths and also revisit her old friends in Dresden, while I was to wait until it was time for me to return to Vienna for the preliminary study of my Tristan.  We decided to deposit all our household belongings, well packed, with a forwarding-agent in Paris.  While thus occupied with thoughts of our painfully delayed departure, we also discussed the difficulty of transporting our little dog Fips by rail.  One day, the 22nd of June, my wife returned from a walk, bringing the animal back with her, in some mysterious way dangerously ill.  According to Minna’s account, we could only think that the dog had swallowed some virulent poison spread in the street.  His condition was pitiable.  Though he showed no marks of outward injury, yet his breathing was so convulsive that we thought his lungs must be seriously damaged.  In his first frantic pangs he had bitten Minna violently in the mouth, so that I had sent for a doctor immediately, who, however, soon relieved our fears that she had been bitten by a mad dog.