seraglio, composed of women of all colors, from all countries, in magnificent costumes; but that no visitor crossed the threshold of his dwelling. On the other hand, persons who pretended to know him intimately, depicted him as an unsocial man, gloomy and sullen, living in jealous retreat, having for sole companionship two large black dogs. This wild solitude was tolerable, and even pleased me; but the idea that a feeling of polite gratitude might force him to break through it in my favor troubled me greatly. On this account I wrote an extremely complicated letter, saying, that passing through Lucerne by chance, only passing, I begged him to inform me if he were still there and would permit me the pleasure of greeting him. By this arrangement the fear of his disturbance being prolonged beyond that of a short interview would be averted. To tell the truth, chance had nothing to do with this journey, and there was nothing to hurry me. The following letter entirely reassured me:

"Madam,—I am at Lucerne, and I have no need to tell you how much pleasure I shall have in seeing you. I shall but beg you to prolong your sojourn at Lucerne in order that the happiness you accord me may not vanish too quickly. I suppose that you go to Munich for the Exposition of pictures; however, as I have the presumption to believe that it will be agreeable to you to hear some of my works, I would inform you that the representation of Tanhäuser, Lohengrin, Tristan, and the Mastersingers will take place in the month of June, that the theatre is at the present moment closed, and that Rhinegold will be given at the earliest on the 29th of August, if indeed it be given then. But I trust that neither the postponement of the exposition, nor the closing of the theatre, will retard your visit to Lucerne. Quite on the contrary, I shall hope for a prolongation of your stay here, and while begging you to kindly notify me by a word, of the day when you expect to arrive, I pray you to accept the assurance of my respectful gratitude.

RICHARD WAGNER."

I arrived in Lucerne on a beautiful afternoon in the month of July, 1869. On entering the station I looked out of the carriage-door, when I suddenly perceived Wagner on the platform. He did not in the least resemble the unfavorable photographs which I had seen. I had no hesitation in recognizing him and ran toward him. We shook hands in silence, and he enveloped me with that intense glance which is peculiar to himself, and seems to pierce one's soul. I experienced no embarrassment during that moment of strange silence, in which my heart was, so to speak, bare beneath his gaze, but a profound emotion, a wild joy. "Come," he said, offering me his arm, "If you do not care for magnificence, the Lake Hotel will please you; I have engaged rooms there." The hotel was near by, and we went on foot. He stopped a moment on the way, and with a very grave, almost solemn expression, said to me: "We are bound by a very noble sentiment, madam." But an instant later, after having recommended me to the innkeeper, he took leave of me. "I am going to prepare for your reception," he said, "else I should be stupid. Come presently when you have taken a little rest." From my window I saw him move away with a rapid step, cross the old bridge of Lucerne, and step into a boat. He told me later that he was in haste to impart to his wife his impressions, which were not in the least what he had anticipated. At sunset I reached Tribscheu, that consecrated bit of land where, since that time, I have passed so many charming hours.

It was a sort of promontory, extremely picturesque, jutting into the lake. There was neither grating nor door; the garden had no defined limits, and extended indefinitely toward the neighboring mountains. The exterior of the house was perfectly plain,—gray, with dark tiles; but in the interior arrangements, full of grace and elegance, one felt the presence of a woman. Madame Wagner appeared in the midst of her children, fair, tall and gracious, with a charming smile, and tender, dreamy-blue eyes. The sympathy with which she inspired me from the first moment has never been broken, and our friendship, already of long standing, has never known a cloud. It was a delightful evening; the master displayed incomparable animation and gayety of spirits. I was unprepared for this vivacity of mind, these witticisms, the delicacies of language which we are wont to consider the monopoly of the Parisian, and which acquired in him a peculiar charm from his foreign accent, and, in spite of the great facility with which he spoke French, his original and unexpected expressions. He spoke of Paris, where he had greatly suffered, but which he still loved, and of the great contest over Tanhäuser, without bitterness. I remember, among others, this phrase:" Since the public at the opera do not like my music why inflict it upon them?" The group of warm partisans which had formed itself in France appeared to touch him deeply. Perhaps he founded secret hopes upon the initiative spirit of the French. In spite of his steadily increasing success in Germany he still had bitter adversaries, and was still exposed to base persecutions. The press reviled him incessantly with a coarseness and violence of which our French journals, even those most eager for scandal, can give no idea. The calumnies went even so far that Wagner, for the first and last time in his life, decided to reply to them. "I have seen," he said, among other things, "the London and Paris papers mock my works and tendencies without pity; these works have been dragged through the mire, they have been hissed in the theatres; but it still remained to me to see my person, my private character, my domestic life, exposed to public contempt in the country where my works are admired, and where a masculine energy and lofty aspirations are recognized in my efforts." The nobility and clergy were arrayed against him. What they sought for in him was doubtless the revolutionist of the days in May, 1849; the deep thinker, the powerful and energetic man of action, marching toward progress and the liberation of thought. And what hatred! Banished, pursued, and not knowing where to take refuge. Thus came about this almost incredible thing, that, at one time, he might be thought the only German who had not seen the representation of Lohengrin.

Notwithstanding the unalterable affection of King Louis II. he was, at the time I saw him, morally exiled from Bavaria. His long-cherished project of a theatre, the plans of which were already drawn by the great architect, Semper, and which the king wished to have erected in Munich, nearly revolutionized the city. The project was relinquished and the plaster model of the building was sorrowfully banished to an attic in the palace. But Wagner had not ceased to think of it, and who knows if at this moment Paris was not the aim of his dreams? He was then working upon the third part of the Nibelungen, Siegfried. I saw the manuscript on his study piano, in a little apartment adjoining the drawing-room. There was a portrait of his noble friend, handsome as a hero of the Edda. I was told that he sometimes escaped from Munich to pass a few days at Tribscheu, and that in this same room a bed was arranged for him.

There is nothing more touching than the enthusiastic affection with which this young king was inspired by the man of genius. He came to him like a saving angel at the moment when all abandoned him. "What shall I say to you," wrote Wagner to a friend, some time after his first interview with the king; "the most incomprehensible thing, and the only one, moreover, which could save me, is completely realized. In the very year of my first representation of Tanhäuser, a queen brought into this world the good genius of my life, him who was destined later, in the depth of my distress, to give me safety and consolation. It seems as if he had been sent me from heaven." The king was obliged, however, to do battle for his great friend, for the entire court was hostile to him, and the struggle was not