“6th July 1861.—The Trojans has been accepted for the Opera, but I cannot tell when they will produce it as Gounod and Gervaert have to come first. But I am determined to worry myself no more; I will not court Fortune, I will lie in bed and await her.
“All the same, I could not resist a little uncourtly frankness when the Empress asked me when she should hear The Trojans.
“‘I do not know, madame, I begin to think one must live a hundred and fifty years in order to get a hearing at the Opera.’
“The annoying part is that, thanks to these delays, my work is getting a sort of advance reputation that may injure it in the end.
“I am getting on with a one-act opera for Baden, written round Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. It is called Beatrice and Benedict; I promise there shall not be much Ado in the shape of noise in it. Benazet, the king of Baden, wants it next year.
“An American director has offered me an engagement in the Disunited States; but his proposals are unavailing in view of my unconquerable antipathy to his great nation, and my love of money is not sufficiently great to prick me on. I do not know whether your love for American utilitarian manners and customs is any more intense than my own.
“In any case, it would be a great mistake to go far from Paris now; at any moment they might want The Trojans.”
“30th June 1862.—In my bereavement I can write but little.
“My wife is dead—struck down in a moment by heart disease. The frightful loneliness, after the wrench of this sudden parting, is indescribable. Forgive me for not saying more.”
To Louis Berlioz.