“It is an affair,” continued the Emperor, “quite unconnected with the exercise of your profession.”
“I am wholly at your Majesty’s service.”
“Well, come to the palace to-morrow morning, at twelve precisely. You shall be immediately shown into my cabinet, and I will tell you what I have to request. It is a favour which will greatly oblige me.”
“Boucher puzzled himself the whole night, but without being able to form any probable conjecture of what the Emperor wanted. Next day, he repaired to the palace at the appointed hour. When he was ushered into the Emperor’s cabinet, the persons there, among whom was the Grand Duke Constantine, immediately withdrew. Alexander desired Boucher to follow him into an adjoining apartment. There he saw, on a sofa, a small three-cornered hat, a sword, a Colonel’s uniform of the chasseurs of the French Imperial Guard, and a cross of an officer of the Legion of Honour.
“Now,” said the Emperor Alexander, “I will explain to you the favour I have to request. All those objects which you see there, belonged to the Emperor Napoleon; they were taken during the campaign of Moscow. I have frequently heard of your resemblance to Napoleon; but I did not expect to find the likeness so strong as it is. My mother often regrets that she never saw Napoleon; and what I wish you to do—is to put on that dress—and I will present you to her.”
“The Emperor withdrew, and left Boucher to array himself in the imperial costume. When he had completed his toilette, he was conducted to the apartment of the Empress. The Emperor assured his mother that the illusion was complete, and that she might now say she had seen the great man. These were Alexander’s words.”
—Libon, born in 1775, was one of the pupils of Viotti. He became first violinist at the Chapel of the King of Portugal—and subsequently held a similar appointment at Madrid, under Charles IV. In this our Protestant country, where the violin holds no place in the musical service of the church, the mention of such engagements as these, represents hardly any definite idea to the mind. “What can the fiddle possibly have to do with religion?” is a question very likely, here, to precipitate itself from the lips of some honest mystified Englishman. It is a question which I do not undertake to answer, having no such experience on the subject as would give any value to my reply; but I recommend those who are anxious for a solution of the point, to travel abroad—to witness personally this kind of conjunction, as it exists there—and to test it by its effects upon heart and mind.—In 1803, Libon returned to Paris, and was successively first violinist to the Empresses Josephine and Maria Louisa, and to Charles X. He was the composer of several much-admired Studies, and of various pieces played at the Conservatoire. He died in 1838.
—Bellon, who presents oddly the example of a fine artist made out of a man of commerce, is one of the French violinists who have displayed their talents in our metropolis. The following notice of him was given in the Harmonicon, on the occasion of his performing, in 1826, a Concerto of Kreutzer’s, at the Philharmonic Concert:—
“The composition denotes a rich invention, united to great practical knowledge, and was played with a feeling, a firmness, a length of bow, and a breadth of tone, which, in these squeaking days, were as unexpected as delightful. M. Bellon is already a highly distinguished disciple of that fine school of the violin which boasts of Viotti as its head, and enumerates among its members, Rode, Baillot and Kreutzer; the latter of whom—the well-known composer of many admired operas—is his master, and has so well seconded his natural inclinations, that he has enabled him, in the short space of four years, to stand forward and be acknowledged as one of the greatest violinists of the day. His history is rather curious: he was a respectable tradesman in Paris, and was offered a violin in barter for one of his commodities, an umbrella. He agreed to the exchange, acquired some little knowledge of the instrument, became a pupil of Kreutzer, was accepted (though beyond the prescribed age) at the Conservatoire, and is now what we have described him.”
François-antoine Habeneck (the eldest of three brothers of this name) was born at Mezières, June 1st, 1781. Being the son of a performer in a regimental band who was a native of Manheim, but had taken service in France, he learned from his father to play the violin, and at the age of ten he played Concertos in public. After residing in several towns where his father’s regiment was in garrison, he went to Brest, and passed many years there, solely occupied with the care of developing his faculties, as far as he could do so, without model, and without master. While there, he wrote several Concertos and even Operas, without any other guide than his instinct, and without possessing any notions of the art of writing. He was more than twenty years of age when he arrived in Paris. Being admitted to the Conservatoire, as a pupil of M. Baillot, he was not long in placing himself in the first rank amongst the violinists who proceeded from that school; and, after a brilliant competition, he obtained the first prize in 1804, and was appointed répétiteur of his Master’s class. The Empress Josephine, after having heard him in a solo, testified her satisfaction by a pension of 1200 francs. About the same epoch, he obtained, as the result of a competition, a place among the first violins at the opera. Less fortunate in a second competition, which was shortly after opened, for the post of leader of the second violins at the same theatre, Habeneck saw preferred to himself a violinist of moderate ability, of the name of Chol, a very respectable man, but by no means equal to the young artist in talent. In a short time, however, this injustice was repaired, for he was trusted with the post of first violin adjoint for the solos; and when Kreutzer took the direction of the orchestra, after the retirement of Persuis, Habeneck succeeded him as first violin.