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Updated: June 7, 2025
The Memorial states "that the celebrated singer Madame Grasaini attracted his attention at the time of the Coronation." Napoleon alleges that Madame Grassini on that occasion said to him, "When I was in the prime of my beauty and talent all I wished was that you would bestow a single look upon me. That wish was not fulfilled, and now you notice me when I am no longer worthy your attention."
At the moment I was to get into the post-chaise that was to convey me to the inn near my place of embarkation, the charming Mme. Grassini appeared on the scene. I thought she had simply come to bid me farewell, but she declared she wished to take me to the inn, and made me get into her carriage, which I found full of pillows and packages. "What is all this for?" I inquired.
Italy had continued its reputation as the home of music, and now, as in the eighteenth century, Italian singers, men and women, were wearing the laurel in all the capitals of Europe. Among the women who were thus celebrated the best known were Grassini, Catalani, Pasta, and Alboni.
The effect of Grassini's singing on people of refined taste was even greater than the impression made on regular musicians. Thomas De Quincey speaks of her in his "Autobiographical Sketches" as having a voice delightful beyond all that he had ever heard. Sir Charles Bell thought it was "only Grassini who conveyed the idea of the united power of music and action.
But at all events Grassini accompanied the French general to Paris, ambitious to play the rôle of Cleopatra to this modern Cæsar. Josephine's jealousy and dislike proved an obstacle difficult to meet, and this, in connection with the fact that the French opera did not prove suited to her style, made her first residence in Paris a short one, in spite of the brilliant success of her concerts.
"Did you notice the way Grassini bowed when the Cardinal's carriage drove up? It's all one to them who a man is, so long as he's talked about. I never saw such lion-hunters in my life. Only last August it was the Gadfly; now it's Montanelli. I hope His Eminence feels flattered at the attention; a precious lot of adventurers have shared it with him."
The choruses were divine to hear, and when Grassini appeared in some interlude, as she often did, and poured forth her passionate soul as Andromache at the tomb of Hector, &c., I question whether any Turk, of all that ever entered the Paradise of Opium-eaters, can have had half the pleasure I had.
The Grassini cannot be known without being liked, she is so warm-hearted, unaffected, and sincere. The prettiest sight imaginable was a party of our friends in sledges, who yesterday passed through the streets. This was the first time I had ever seen this mode of conveyance, and nothing can be more picturesque.
"When I went into her dressing-room after the first act," says Kelly, "her Majesty not having arrived, Grassini, suspicious that I had made up a trick to cajole her, taxed me with it; and when I confessed, she took it good-naturedly and laughed at her own credulity."
"It's all very well to be particular and exclusive, Grassini; but these 'common malefactors' died for their belief, which is more than you or I have done as yet." "And another time when people tell you the stale gossip of Paris," added Galli, "you can tell them from me that they are mistaken about the Duprez expedition.
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