Paris, 1867
DEAR M.,—You will have heard so much about the Exposition, that I cannot tell you anything new. It is now in full swing, and I think it is magnificent. Of course I cannot compare it to any other, as it is the only one that I have ever seen.
I have a season ticket (costing one hundred francs) containing my photograph and my autograph; therefore no one but myself can use it. The Exposition building is round, and the section of one thing goes through all the countries; for instance, art, which seems to be the smallest thing, is in the inner circle. If you only want to study one particular industry you go round the circle; but if you want to study a country you go down a section. The outer circle is for machinery, and outside in the grounds, in front of the different countries, are the cafés belonging to them. Here you can listen to the different national musics, and see the different national types and costumes, and eat the different national foods. We go almost every day, and it is always a delight. You can see the whole art of cutting diamonds, from the gravel in which they are found to their final polish. The villa of the Bey of Tunis, a Buddhist temple, a Viennese bakery, where people flock to taste the delicious rolls hot from the oven, and where Hungarian bands of highly colored handsome zitherists play from morning till night, and a hundred other attractions, make the Exposition a complete success. You pass from one lovely thing to the other. The gardens are laid through avenues of trees and shrubs, where fountains play, and beds of flowers and bouquets of plants are arranged with the most artistic taste. All these wonders will in six months’ time be reduced to the level and monotony of the Champ de Mars. One can’t believe that these large horse-chestnut trees in full bloom are only temporary visitors, like the people.
The Prince Oscar of Sweden (he will one day be the King) came often to the Exposition, and went about with us. He was very much interested in everything he saw, especially in the American Steinway pianos. He sent me several times some of the famous punch they make in Sweden, also some silver brooches which the Swedish peasants wear. He has a bateau mouche, in which he takes his friends up and down the Seine. The Princess Mathilde and Madame de Gallifet were of the party last Monday. We mouched as far as Boulogne, where Baron James Rothschild has a charming place called Bagatelle, which the Prince wanted very much to see.
We got out of the boat and walked up to the entrance of the park; but the porter refused, in spite of all pleadings, to let us in, and was almost rude until Monsieur Dué mentioned the name of the illustrious visitor; then the gates were thrown wide open, and we walked in and all over the place. The porter, becoming most humble and servile, offered to escort us over the house, and even asked us to take tea; but we did not succumb to either of these temptations.
There are so many kings and sovereigns here: the Emperor of Russia, who is very handsome and stately; the King of Prussia, who is accompanied by the colossal Count Bismarck, very noticeable in his dazzling white uniform, and wearing a shining helmet with an enormous spread eagle on top of it, which made him tower still more above ordinary mortals, and reminded me of all the mythological heroes I knew of. He clanked his sword on the pavement, quite indifferent to the stare of wondering Frenchmen, and was followed by several other tall Germans, who regarded everything de haut en bas with Teutonic phlegm. The Prince of Italy (Umberto) looks rather small by the side of these German giants. The Khedive of Egypt, the Shah of Persia, the ex-Queen of Spain, and other sovereigns are flitting about.
The Baron James Rothschild invited us to go to Ferrière’s with Prince Oscar of Sweden. That was very amusing! We had a special train from Paris and Rothschild’s special car; when we arrived at Ferrière’s we first had refreshments, then we walked in the grounds till it was time to dress for dinner. We met before dining in the enormous salon in the center of the château. This salon is two stories high, with a gallery around it, and was so large that a billiard-table in one corner seemed too small to be noticed, and the concert-grand piano standing at the other end looked insignificant. The dining-table was beautifully decorated with garlands of roses and a whole collection of antique goblets, worth a fortune. There were huge bouquets of roses for the ladies, almost too big to carry.
Prince Oscar’s brother had once written a very pretty song, called “I Rosens duft,” which some one had arranged as a duet, and the Prince wanted me to sing it with him (he had thoughtfully brought the music). All through dinner he was teaching me the Swedish words, so that we could sing it afterward. He was so intent (and so was I) that every one, I am sure, thought we were having a tremendous flirtation, as they saw our heads almost touching when he was writing the words on the menu. He also wrote a poem to me (which I inclose), which he said he composed on the spot. How can he be so clever?
Prince Oscar’s Poem
Written at the Dinner-Table at Laferrière’s 1867
Din sång, hur skön, hur underbar!
En balsamdoft på dina läppar hvila,
En välljudsström från ditt hjarta ila,
Vill mana fram ur verldens haf ett svar:
Din sång, hur skön, hur underbar!
Din ton, hur stark, hur ljuf, hur ren!
En altareld som ingen flägt få störa,
Och dock en storm som sjalens djup kan röra,
En glod som smalta kan “de visas sten”:
Så är din ton—så stark, så ren.
Sjung mer, sjung mer, det här så godt
En stund få glämma verldens hvimmel
Och lyss till samklang ur en öppnad himmel,
Om ock för en minut i drömma blott:
Sjung mer, sjung mer, det gör mit hjärta godt.
(Translated literally)
Your voice, how beautiful, how wonderful!
A perfume of balsam rests on your lips,
A torrent of melody rushes from your heart,
That can only be echoed by the world’s ocean:
Your voice, how beautiful, how wonderful!
Your voice, how full of power, how enchanting and pure!
A sacred fire which no breeze can trouble,
And yet a tempest that stirs the very soul,
A glowing flame which can melt the philosopher’s stone:
Such is your voice—so powerful, so pure.
Sing more, sing more, it is so good
For one moment to forget the tumult of this world
And listen to the harmony of a heaven unveiled,
And if only for a moment to dream:
Sing more, sing more, it makes my heart rejoice.
We sang the duet after dinner with such success that we had to repeat it. Before our departure there was a grand display of fireworks: O’s appeared in every dimension and design, and a blaze of fire and Bengal lights in rapid succession kept us in a continual state of admiration.
I received a little note from Jenny Lind. She is in Paris, and wished to know when she could come to see me. I wrote to her directly that I would let Monsieur Auber know, and he would probably come at four o’clock (his usual hour). Therefore, it all came about. Jenny Lind came, so did Auber. The meeting was a pleasure to them both. They talked music, art, told many anecdotes of celebrated acquaintances: Alboni, Nilsson, Patti, etc. He had brought some of his music with him, and Jenny Lind and I sang the duo of his latest opera “Le Premier Jour de Bonheur.” He consulted me as to whether he might dare to ask her to dine with him, with a few congenial spirits. I said I was sure she would be enchanted to do so, which she was.
As to the congenial spirits, Auber suggested the Metternichs, Gounod, Duke de Massa, and ourselves, making ten in all.
No one refused, and we had the most delightful dinner. The Princess proposed to Auber to give his arm to Jenny Lind, and to put her at his right hand, la place d’honneur, adding, with her most ironical smile, “le génie avant la beauté.” Auber made a charming host, telling one funny anecdote after the other in his quiet and typical manner. Gounod, in his low and drawly voice, said: “Vous nous donnez, mon cher Auber, des choses par trop ennuyeuses aux concerts du Conservatoire. A la pensée des ‘Quatre saisons’ de Haydn je m’endors. Pourquoi ne s’est-il pas contenté d’une saison?” Princess Metternich replied, “Que probablement en les composant Haydn s’est mis en quatre.” “La moitié m’aurait suffi,” said Auber; “pour moi, elles sont toutes mon automne.” (monotone).
When we returned to the salon we discreetly waited for the promised song.
Suddenly Jenny Lind jumped up, saying, “Shall I sing something?”
Of course, every one was wild to hear her. She went to the piano and accompanied herself in “Qui la voce,” of “I Puritani.” We were all enchanted, clapping our hands with enthusiasm. Then Gounod played and sang, or rather hummed, a new song of his, saying to Jenny Lind, when he took his place at the piano, “I am not worthy to succeed you.”
We thought him much too modest.
He hummed deliriously!
They asked me to sing, and, though I really hated to sing after these great artists, I did so to please Auber, who accompanied me in “Los Djins,” of which he is very proud, because it has the same bass all the way through. How little it takes to please genius!
After this Jenny Lind and I performed the duo from “Le Premier Jour de Bonheur” we had practised at my house. She put her arm around my waist while we were singing, as if we were two school-girls.
Prince Metternich played one of his brilliant Austrian waltzes, which was so bewildering that if any man had dared to put his arm round Jenny Lind’s matronly waist I am sure she would have skipped off in the dance.
For la bonne bouche she gave us a Swedish peasant song, which was simply bewitching. Her high notes were exquisitely pure, the lower ones I thought weak; but that might have been owing to the good dinner she had eaten—at least she said so.
There is a musical phenomenon here just now in the shape of an American negro; he is blind and idiotic, but has a most extraordinary intelligence for music. All his senses seem to have been concentrated in this one sense. Prince and Princess Metternich, Auber, and ourselves went to his concert. Auber said, “Cet idiot, noir et aveugle, est vraiment merveilleux.” Blind Tom had learned his répertoire entirely by ear; therefore it was very limited, as he could only remember what he had heard played a few days before. His memory did not last long. He was wonderful. Not only could he execute well, but he could imitate any one’s mannerisms and their way of playing. The impresario came forward, saying, “I am told that Monsieur Auber is in the audience. May I dare to ask him to come up and play something?” Auber said he thought he should die of fright. We all urged him, for the curiosity of the thing, to play something of his new opera, which no one as yet had heard, therefore no one could have known it.
Auber mounted the platform, amid the enthusiastic applause of the audience, and performed his solo. Then Blind Tom sat down and played it after him so accurately, with the same staccato, old-fashioned touch of Auber, that no one could have told whether Auber was still at the piano. Auber returned and bowed to the wildly excited public and to us. He said, “This is my first appearance as a pianist, and my last.”
Prince Metternich, inspired by Auber’s pluck, followed his example, and mounting the stage rattled off one of his own fiery, dashing waltzes, which Blind Tom repeated in the Prince’s particular manner. After the concert we went into the artist’s room to speak with the impresario, and found poor Tom banging his head against the wall like the idiot he was. Auber remarked, “C’est humiliant pour nous autres.”
PARIS, June, 1867.
DEAR M.,—The famous pianist Liszt, the new Abbé, is pervading Paris just now, and is, I think, very pleased to be a priestly lion, taking his success as a matter of course. There are a succession of dinners in his honor, where he does ample honor to the food, and is in no way bashful about his appetite.
He does a great deal of beaming, he has (as some one said) “so much countenance.”
He dined with us the other night, the Metternichs, and twenty-five other people, among whom were Auber and Massenet.
In the boudoir, before dinner, he spied a manuscript which Auber had brought that afternoon. He took it up, looked at it, and said, “C’est très joli!” and laid it down again. When we went in to dinner, and after his cigar in the conservatory (he is a great smoker), he went to the piano and played the “joli” little thing of Auber’s. Was that not wonderful, that he could remember it all the time during the dinner? He seemed only to have glanced at it, and yet he could play it like that off from memory. He is so kind and good, especially to struggling artists, trying to help them in every way. He seemed extraordinarily amiable that evening, for he sat down at the piano without being asked and played a great many of his compositions—quite an unusual thing for him to do! One has generally to tease and beg him, and then he refuses. But I think, when he heard Massenet improvising at one of the pianos he was inspired, and he put himself at the other (we have two grand pianos), and they played divinely, both of them improvising. He is by far the finest pianist I have ever heard, and has a very seductive way of looking at you while playing, as if he was only playing for you, and when he smiles you simply go to pieces. I don’t wonder he is such a lady-killer, and that no woman can resist him; even my father-in-law stayed in the salon, being completely hypnotized by Liszt, who ought to consider this as one of his greatest triumphs, if he only knew.
I sang some of Massenet’s songs, accompanied, of course, by Massenet. Liszt was most attentive and most enthusiastic. He said Massenet had a great future, and he complimented me on my singing, especially my phrasing and expression.
I wonder if the story be true that he was engaged to be married to Princess Wittgenstein, and on the day of the wedding, when the bridal-dress was ready to be put on, she got a letter from her fiancé (can any one imagine Liszt as a fiancé) saying that he had taken holy orders that very morning.
They say that she bore it very well and wrote a sweet letter to him. It sounds rather unnatural; but one can believe anything from a person who was under Liszt’s influence. He has the most wonderful magnetism. His appearance is certainly original as you see him in his soutane, his long hair, and his numerous moles, that stand out in profile, whichever way he turns his broad face.
But one forgets everything when one hears him play. He is now fifty-five years old. I invited him to go to the Conservatoire with me in the box which Auber had given me for last Sunday’s concert. I inclose his letter of acceptance. (See page 164.)
Auber often gives me his box, which holds six people, and I have the pleasure of making four people happy. Auber sits in the back and generally dozes. We are all crowded together like sardines. Auber, being the director of the Conservatoire, has, of course, the best box, except the Imperial one, which is always empty.
The orchestra played Wagner’s overture to “Tannhäuser.” The applause was not as enthusiastic as Liszt thought it ought to be, so he stood up in the box, and with his great hands clapped so violently that the whole audience turned toward him, and, recognizing him (indeed, it would have been difficult not to recognize him, such a striking figure as he is), began clapping their hands for him. He cried, “Bis!” And the audience in chorus shouted, “Bis!” And the orchestra repeated the whole overture. Then the audience turned again to Liszt and screamed, “Vive Liszt!”
Madame,
Permettez-moi de venir vous remercier demain au Conservatoire de votre gracieuse invitation dont je serai charmé de profiter.
Mille respectueux hommages,
F. Listz
Dimanche matin.]
Auber said such a thing had never been seen or heard before in the annals of these severe and classical concerts. People quite lost their heads, and Auber, being afraid that there would be a demonstration at the sortie, advised us to leave before the end.
I think Liszt was very pleased with his afternoon.
The sovereigns are working themselves to death, and almost killing their attendants. Prince Radzivill said, speaking of the King of Prussia: “I would have liked him better if he had stayed at home. He has to be ready every morning at half-past eight, and is often up till three in the morning.” Radzivill and the others not only have to go to all the balls, but they must attend all the various civil, military, and charitable functions, and then the Exposition takes a lot of time and energy.
Prince Umberto is here from Italy. When Princess Metternich asked him how long he was going to stay he answered, with a toss of his head toward Italy, “Cela dépend des circonstances. Les affaires vont très mal là-bas.”
Aunt M—— says she wishes you had been at a matinée which Baroness Nathaniel Rothschild gave this afternoon at her beautiful new palace in the Faubourg St.-Honoré. At the entrance there were ten servants in gorgeous livery, and a huissier who rattled his mace down on the pavement as each guest passed. There was, besides all the élite of Paris, an Archduke of Austria. I sang the “Ave Maria” of Gounod, accompanied by Madame Norman Neruda, an Austrian violiniste, the best woman violinist in the world. Baroness Rothschild played the piano part.
PARIS, May 29, 1867.
DEAR M.,—The Metternichs’ big ball last night was a splendid affair, the finest of the many fine balls. We were invited for ten o’clock, and about half-past ten every one was there.
The Emperor and Empress came at eleven o’clock. Waldteufel, with full orchestra, was already playing in the ballroom of the embassy, which was beautifully decorated. At twelve o’clock the doors, or rather all the windows that had been made into doors, were opened into the new ballroom, which the Princess Metternich, with her wonderful taste and the help of Monsieur Alphand, had constructed in the garden, and which had transformed the embassy into a thousand-and-one-nights’ palace.
The ballroom was a marvel; the walls were hung with lilac and pink satin, and the immense chandelier was one mass of candles and flowers; from each panel in the room there were suspended baskets of flowers and plants, and between the panels were mirrors which reflected the thousands of candles.
One would never have recognized the garden; it was transformed into a green glade; all the paths were covered with fresh grass sod, making it look like a vast lawn; clusters of plants and palms seemed to be growing everywhere, as if native to the soil; flower-beds by the hundreds; mysterious grottos loomed out of the background, and wonderful vistas with a cleverly painted perspective. At the same moment that their Majesties entered this wonderful ballroom, which no one had dreamed of, the famous Johann Strauss, brought from Vienna especially for this occasion, stood waiting with uplifted baton and struck up the “Blue Danube,” heard for the first time in Paris.
When their Majesties approached the huge plate-glass window opening into the garden a full-fledged cascade fell over the stucco rocks, and powerful Bengal lights, red and green, made a most magical effect: the water looked like a torrent of fiery lava en miniature. It was thrilling.
No one thought of dancing; every one wanted to listen to the waltz. And how Strauss played it!… With what fire and entrain! We had thought Waldteufel perfect; but when you heard Strauss you said to yourself you had never heard a waltz before. The musicians were partly hidden by gigantic palmettos, plants, and pots of flowers arranged in the most attractive way. But he!—Johann Strauss!—stood well in front, looking very handsome, very Austrian, and very pleased with himself.
Then came the quadrille d’honneur. The Emperor danced with the Queen of Belgium, the Crown Prince of Prussia with the Empress, the King of Belgium with the Princess Mathilde, the Prince Leuchtenberg with the Princess Metternich.
The cotillon was led by Count Deym and Count Bergen, and they led it to perfection; there was not a hitch anywhere. Every one was animated and gay; certainly the music was inspiring enough to have made an Egyptian mummy get out of his sarcophagus and caper about. I danced with a German Durchlaucht, who, though far in the sear and yellow leaf, danced like a school-boy, standing for hours with his arm around my waist before venturing (he could only start when the tune commenced), counting one— two—three under his breath, which made me, his partner, feel like a perfect fool. When at last he made up his mind to start nothing short of an earthquake could have stopped him. He hunched up his shoulders to his ears, arched his leg like a prancing horse, and off we went on our wild career, lurching into every couple on the floor, and bumping into all the outsiders. When we were not careering together, he sat glued to his chair, refusing to dance. If any lady came up with a favor he would say, “I am a little out of breath; I will come and fetch you later.” And then he would put the favor in his pocket and never go near her. He seized everything in the way of favors that came his way; some he gave to me, and the rest he took home to his small children.
I was glad, all the same, to have him for a partner, as, being a Durchlaucht, he was entitled to a seat in the front row, and I preferred prancing about with my hochgeboren high-stepper to having to take a back seat in the third row with a minor geboren. After my partner and I had bounded about and butted into every living thing on the floor I brought him to anchor near his chair by clutching his Golden Fleece chain which hung around his neck. I felt like singing Tennyson’s “Home I brought my warrior (half) dead.” He was puffing and blowing, the perspiration glazing his face, his yellow hair matted on his forehead, and his mustaches all out of kilter.
I really felt sorry for him, and wondered why he exerted himself so much, when he could have been quietly seated watching others, or, better still, at home in bed.
The supper was served at one o’clock. Their Majesties the King and Queen of Belgium, Prince Alfred, the Prince and Princess of Prussia, the Prince of Saxe-Weimar, and all the other gros bonnets—too many to write about —went up-stairs through an avenue of plants and palms to a salon arranged especially for them where there were two large tables. The Emperor presided at one and the Empress at the other. Besides the salle à manger and some smaller salons, two enormous tents were put up in the garden, which contained numerous tables, holding about ten people each, and lighted by masses of candles and festooned with bright-colored Chinese lanterns. Prince Metternich told me later that the candles were replaced three times during the evening.
The favors for the cotillon were very pretty, most of them brought from Vienna. One of the prettiest was fans of gray wood with “Ambassade d’Autriche, 28th May, 1867,” painted in blue forget-me-nots.
We danced “till morning did appear,” and it appeared only too soon. The cotillon finished at half-past five, and the daylight poured in, making us all look ghastly, especially my sear and yellow leaf, whose children must have wondered why papa kam so spät nach hause.