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Devrient informed me, with tolerable certainty, that the intention was to give the work on the birthday of the Grand Duchess in December, and that you would be invited to conduct it. I hope no change has taken place in this. Let me have particulars. Perhaps I shall be able to assist you in simplifying the matter. Do you know what I did a few days ago?
To meet the keenness of this reproach I could at first only tender my apologies for not having expressed my decision with the emphasis he had a right to expect, but as the Grand Duke had taken this matter so seriously and had thereby seemed to justify me in expressing my real opinion of this supposed friend with equal seriousness, I was bound, with all the earnestness at my command, to assure him that I did not wish to have anything more to do with Devrient.
My conduct seemed to trouble my former patron, and he therefore enlisted the tact and moderation of Eduard Devrient in his service, and asked him to use his influence with me to facilitate some further arrangement between us.
After the concert I shall see Schmidt, and shall inquire as to particulars. . . . In case J. is still here tomorrow, I shall pay my most humble respects to her. She appeared first as Romeo, and yesterday sang Fides for the benefit of the Pension Fund. With E. Devrient I spent a few hours yesterday at Badenweiler.
In the year 1840, the theatre at Wiesbaden was a poor affair even externally, and its company, for affected and pitiful mediocrity, for studious and vulgar commonplaceness, not one hair's-breadth above the level, which might be regarded up to now as the normal one in all German theatres, and which has been displayed in perfection lately by the company in Carlsruhe, under the 'illustrious' direction of Herr Devrient.
Later, Devrient finished the picture: "Cécile was one of those sweet, womanly natures whose gentle simplicity, whose mere presence, soothed and pleased. She was slender, with strikingly beautiful and delicate features; her hair was between brown and gold; but the transcendent lustre of her great blue eyes, and the brilliant roses on her cheeks, were sad harbingers of early death.
As Devrient, by his ingenious attitude, had led the Grand Duke to believe in his profound and genuinely solicitous friendship for me, my communications obviously pained the Grand Duke a great deal.
This episode, like so much else that I saw during these few days, gave me abundant food for thought and meditation. A second excursion, also undertaken with Devrient, took me in the December of that year to Berlin, where the singer had been invited to appear at a grand state concert. I for my part wanted an interview with Director Kustner about the Fliegender Hollander.
It is true his friend Devrient tells us that he was anxious to write one, and would have done so had not his fastidious taste prevented him ever finding a libretto to his liking which is equivalent to saying a man would have painted a fine picture could he only have secured a good subject. In some respects Schumann was even more antipathetic.
This opinion was opposed by one of his little choir, named Devrient, who insisted that Zelter should be approached on the subject. As he himself had been a pupil of Zelter, he persuaded Mendelssohn to accompany him to the director's house. Zelter was found seated at his instrument, enveloped by a cloud of smoke from a long stemmed pipe.
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