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Indolent and prolific as Rossini, compelled, like great poet-comedians, like Moliere and Rabelais, to see both sides of everything, and all that is to be said both for and against, he is a sceptic, ready to laugh at all things. Fulgence Ridal is a great practical philosopher.
I said, at the beginning of this study, that we were ungrateful to Meyerbeer, and this ingratitude is double on the part of France, for he loved her. He only had to say the word to have any theatre in Europe opened to him, yet he preferred to them all the Opéra at Paris and even the Opéra-Comique where the choruses and orchestra left much to be desired. When he did work for Paris after he had given Margherita d'Anjou and Le Crociato in Italy, he was forced to accommodate himself to French taste just as Rossini and Donizetti were. The latter wrote for the Opéra-Comique La Fille du Régiment, a military and patriotic work, and its dashing and glorious Salut
"By a learned elaboration, which Capraja could explain to you, this appeal to heaven is accompanied by brass instruments only; it is that which gives it such a solemn, religious cast. And not merely is the artifice fine in its place; note how fertile in resource is genius. Rossini has derived fresh beauty from the difficulty he himself created.
But Guillaume Tell had its admirers from the start. I heard it spoken of constantly in my childhood. If the work did not appear on the bills of the Opéra, it furnished the amateurs with choice bits. In my opinion, if Rossini committed suicide as far as his art was concerned, he did so because he had nothing more to say. Rossini was a spoiled child of success and he could not live without it.
An engagement was procured for her without difficulty at the Opéra, which was then controlled by the triumvirate, Rossini, Robert, and Severini. Rossini remembered the beautiful débutante for whom he had predicted a splendid future, and secured a definite engagement for her at the Favart to replace Mme. Malibran.
People do not dine as luxuriously in the country as they do in Paris, but they dine better; the dishes are meditated upon and studied. In rural regions we often find some Careme in petticoats, some unrecognized genius able to serve a simple dish of haricot-beans worthy of the nod with which Rossini welcomed a perfectly-rendered measure.
When I heard of this, I did not for a moment hesitate to pay Rossini a visit, and was received by him in the friendliest manner, which I afterwards described in a memorandum devoted to reminiscences of him.
It must be said that at that particular moment Ogla-Moga's nostrils were convicting him of a genius for music of a most discordant kind. He was snoring a profound snore whose chords could not be found in Beethoven or Rossini, nor even in Liszt or Wagner. Just as the professor finished his eulogy, there came a terrific rumble and rattle, and the Indian snored so loud that he fairly woke himself up.
They gathered daisies to pull the petals off, and sang the most impassioned duets, using the notes set down by Pergolesi or Rossini as faithful interpreters to express their secrets. The day of the dance came. Clara Longueville and her brother, whom the servants persisted in honoring with the noble DE, were the principle guests.
I remembered a Comte de Keratry who had been introduced to me at my aunt's house, the evening I had recited poetry accompanied by Rossini, but he was a young lieutenant, good-looking, witty, and lively. He had introduced me to his mother. I had recited poetry at her soirees.
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