"Believe me, Madame, things being as they are, there is nothing for me to do but devote myself entirely to the writing of my operas, and as to their fate, in my own country as well as abroad, to leave it to their guiding star and to my friends. I am not the man for compromises, and yet these compromises are sometimes indispensable.
"I keep out, then, in order not to render more difficult to my French friends the rugged path they have chosen in attempting to naturalise in France an essentially Germanic individuality. If this naturalisation is possible, it will be accomplished by them without my help; if it is not possible, I shall deplore their pains, at the same time consoling myself in the thought that they as well as I have drawn their forces elsewhere than from the idea of a success, and that their conviction, like mine, renders them independent of good or of bad fortune.
"Pray, Madame, pardon the length of this explanation, and believe me gratefully and respectfully yours,
"The Master was nevertheless, very well satisfied with the success of the piece," said Cosima, "and above all, with the expressions of appreciation that it won for him from unknown friends. Then too, in order to celebrate his birthday, the 22nd May--inspired by one of the most popular scenes in the opera--I dressed the children as 'Messengers of Peace' and while an invisible choir sang for them, the little girls, all four of them, marched, keeping step with one another, into the drawing-room with travelling staffs in their hands. Wagner thought it a very pretty idea."
"Eva as a messenger of peace must have been delicious...."
"I also preserved your father's article about _Rienzi_,[1] which was very good," said Cosima. "Wagner ought to have written to thank him."
"If they represent _Rienzi_ again," said I, "we shall also faithfully renew our pilgrimage to the theatre. Think of us then, two and a half weeks from now, as going every day from the heart of Neuilly to the Théâtre Lyrique, and never failing to be in our places in time for the Overture!"
ARTICLE PUBLISHED IN THE "JOURNAL OFFICIEL"
Rarely has Parisian curiosity been more vividly excited than by the following simple words inscribed upon the placards of the "Théâtre-Lyrique."