The Componium was enormously successful, but at last public curiosity was exhausted, and it was withdrawn, after bringing in the owner one hundred thousand francs clear profit in a year. This amount, whether correct or not, was adroitly published, and some time after the instrument was put up for sale. A speculator by the name of D----, seduced by the hope of obtaining equally large receipts in a foreign country, bought the instrument, and took it to England. Unfortunately for D----, at the moment when this goose with the golden eggs arrived in London, George IV. died; the court went into mourning, and no one visited the instrument. In order to avoid useless expense, D---- thought it prudent to give up a scheme commenced under such evil auspices, and determined on returning to Paris. The Componium was consequently taken to pieces, packed up and carried to France.
D----, hoped the instrument would enter duty free, but, on leaving France, he had omitted some formality indispensable before obtaining this favor. The Customs stopped it, and he was obliged to refer the case to the Minister of Trade. While awaiting his decision, the chests were deposited in damp ware-rooms, and it was not till the end of the year, and after numberless formalities and difficulties, that the instrument returned to Paris.
This will give an idea of the state of disorder, confusion and damage in which the Componium was left.
Discouraged by the ill success of his trip to England, D---- resolved on selling his mechanical improviser, but, before doing so, he cast about for a mechanician who would undertake to put it in working order. I have forgotten to state that, on the sale of the Componium, M. Koppen had handed over with it a very clever German workman, who was, as it were, the driver of this gigantic instrument. This person, finding he must sit with his hands before him during the interminable formalities of the French Customs, thought he could not do better than return home.
The repair of the Componium was a tedious business--a work of perserverance and research--for, as its arrangement had always been kept secret, no one could supply the least information. D---- himself, having no notion of mechanism, could not be of the slightest use, so the workman must only depend on his own ideas.