“That I heard,” said Gluck; “I shall be glad if you will visit me; here is my address.” He handed it to him, then turned to the squinter, who sat without daring to look up, by turns red and pale. Gluck enjoyed his embarrassment a few moments, then addressed him with a mixture of indignation and contempt; “Mr. Elias Hegrin! I am rejoiced to meet you so unexpectedly in Paris, in order to tell you once more out of my honest heart, what a miserable rascal you are. So, sir! I understand nothing of music and of songs; and yet you went the whole year in Vienna in and out of my house at your pleasure, and received instruction from me how to correct your works, and took without a scruple of conscience what I gave you out of my own pocket, as well as what I procured you through patrons. Truly, your stupid arrogance must take umbrage, because I candidly told you, you can master only the lifeless form, not the spirit. You seek what you can never obtain, not for the sake of art, but for your own temporary advantage; and you would do better to be an honest tailor or shoemaker, than a mean musician.—That is what you could never forgive me; and so you go off and abuse me for money in Gottingen! You are pardoned, sir, for I bear no malice. Go hence in peace, and grow better, if you can; but that, I think, will be difficult; for he who blasphemes the pure and sacred maiden Art, because she repels his degrading embraces, will be likely to remain a rascal as long as he lives.—Adieu, Messieurs!”
And Gluck walked out of the room, nodding courteously once more to young Mehul.
A gay group was assembled in the apartment of the young queen Marie Antoinette. The Comte d’Artois, the favorite of the Parisian world of fashion, had just returned to the capital from his hunting-castle, and had come this morning in company with his brother, the Comte of Provence, to pay his homage to his lovely sister-in-law.
The queen received the youthful count with great kindness; Provence presenting him as Grand Master of the chase. D’Artois asked with vivacity, “What is there new in Paris? how many balls have they danced without me? how many flirtations have begun and ended without me? who has served my brother of Provence as accoucheur, at the birth of a new piece of wit? what is the newest spectacle? and what are the good Parisians quarrelling about?”
“A good many questions in a breath!” replied Antoinette, with a smile; “I will answer the last, since we are all warmly interested therein. The newest spectacle we are looking for, is the contest between Gluck and Piccini. Both have composed a piece on the same subject; and it is now to be decided which of the two shall keep the field. This is what the Parisians are disputing about.”
“I am for Gluck!” cried D’Artois, “for by my faith, madame, your countryman is a noble fellow!—He was on the chase with me, and made five shots one after the other. As to the Italians, they do not know how to hold a gun.”
“Despite that,” said Provence, “I like better the music of the Italian, than the German, which can only be recited, but to which one cannot well either sing or dance, as our Noverre very justly observes.”
“Oh! Noverre has been obliged to dance to it,” interrupted the queen; and began in her lively manner to tell how Noverre had gone one morning to the Chevalier Gluck, and told him his music was worth nothing, and that no dancer in the grand opera could dance to his Scythian dances: and how Gluck in a rage had seized the little man, and danced him through the whole house, upstairs and down stairs, singing the Scythian ballets the while;—and had asked him at last, “Well, sir! now think you, a dancer in the grand opera can dance to my music?” To which Noverre, panting and blowing, replied, “Excellent! sir, and the ballet corps shall dance!”
All laughed, and thought such a dancing master just the thing for the gentlemen and ladies of the grand opera, who were all growing every day more arrogant and insufferable in their behavior.