MOZART IN FRANCE, ENGLAND, AND HOLLAND
After visiting Vienna the Mozart family spent some months quietly at home. This time was well used by the children. Never a day went by that they did not devote many hours to their studies. Their progress was amazing. In fact they improved so much that their father concluded to take them on another tour.
This time they were to go to Paris. The summer after Wolfgang's seventh birthday, Leopold Mozart set out with his children. They stopped at so many towns and cities that it took them five months to complete the journey to Paris.
They decided to give a concert in Frankfurt, one of the German towns that they visited. At that time Goethe was a lad of fourteen. He attended the concert and never forgot little Wolfgang Mozart. Years afterward the poet wrote, "In imagination I can still see the little man in his wig and sword."
The first Paris concert was a great success. The people applauded again and again. When the children came upon the stage, the men clapped their hands, and the ladies waved their handkerchiefs. In writing about this very concert to a friend, Leopold Mozart said, "We burned more than sixty candles."
At New Year's the Mozart children were presented at the French court, where they were kindly received by the king and queen. The queen had Wolfgang placed beside her and talked with him in German. He had the honor of playing the great organ in the king's chapel. Those who heard him play both the piano and the organ could not decide which he played the better.
The children of a royal family are not often allowed to play with children of lower rank. The king's daughters admired Wolfgang and Marian Mozart very much. The princesses and the little musicians had many romps together in the palace.
From the French capital the Mozarts went to London. On their journey the children saw the sea for the first time. They liked to watch the great waves break against the cliffs. They clapped their hands with delight when the spray dashed over the rocks on the shore. They liked to run down upon the beach to meet the incoming waves. "See, brother," exclaimed Marian, "how the sea runs away and grows again."