At the close of the season of 1850 Mme. Sontag went to Paris with Mr. Lumley, who took the Théâtre Italien, and she was warmly welcomed by her French audiences. "Even amid the loud applause with which the crowd greeted her appearance on the stage," says a French writer, "it was easy to distinguish the respect which was entertained for the virtuous lady, the devoted wife and mother."
Before her acceptance of the offer to go to America, in 1852, she appeared in successive engagements at London, Vienna, and Berlin, where her reception was of the most satisfying nature both to the artist and the woman. On her arrival in New York, on September 19th, she commenced a series of concerts with Salvi and Signo-ra Blangini. At New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and the larger cities of the South, she quickly established herself as one of the greatest favorites who had ever sung in this country, in spite of the fact that people had hardly recovered from the Lind mania which had swept the country like wildfire, a fact apt to provoke petulant comparisons. Her pecuniary returns from her American tour were very great, and she was enabled to buy a château and domain in Germany, a home which she was unfortunately destined never to enjoy.
In New Orleans, in 1854, she entered into an engagement with M. Masson, director of opera in the city of Mexico, to sing for a fixed period of two months, with the privilege of three months longer. This was the closing appearance in opera, as she contemplated, for the task of reinstating her family fortunes was almost done. Fate fulfilled her expectations with a malign sarcasm; for while her agent, M. Ullman, was absent in Europe gathering a company, Mme. Sontag was seized with cholera and died in a few hours, on June 17, 1854. Such was the lamentable end of one of the noblest women that ever adorned the lyric stage. Her funeral was a magnificent one, in presence of a great concourse of people, including the diplomatic corps. The service was celebrated by the orchestras of the two Italian theatres; the nuns of St. Francis sang the cantata; the prayer to the Virgin was intoned by the German Philharmonic Society, who also sang Lindpainter's chorus, "Ne m'oubliez pa "; and the leading Mexican poet, M. Pantaleon Tovar, declaimed a beautiful tribute in sonorous Spanish verse. The body was taken to Germany and buried in the abbey of Makenstern, in Lausitz.
THE END.