At last the opera ended amid a real storm of applause; and, with their enthusiasm at the highest pitch, the audience claimed to know the names of the poet and of the composer. After a long pause the curtain rose and the registrar appeared; he made the three customary bows, and in a loud voice named Marsollier as the author and Mehul as the composer of the opera Irato.
The audience received this news with an unceasing storm of applause. They, like the consul and the singers who had taken part in the opera, knew nothing of the mystification, so well had the secret been kept.
Josephine turned smilingly to Bonaparte, and with her own charming grace offered her hand to Mehul and thanked him for the twofold enjoyment he had that day prepared for her, by furnishing her his entrancing opera, and by having prepared a little defeat of Bonaparte, that traitor to his country, who dared prefer the Italian music to the French.
Bonaparte himself looked at the affair on its bright side; he had enjoyed the opera; he had laughed; he was satisfied, and consequently he overlooked the deceitful surprise.
“Conquer me always in this manner!” said he, laughing, to Mehul, “and I shall enjoy both your fame and my amusement.”
The friends of Cherubini thought of this little event when the question arose as to the appointment to the situation of first singer at the Grand Opera, and they therefore did not hesitate to wager that Cherubini would be appointed, since he was an Italian.
But they knew not that Bonaparte had pardoned Mehul, and frequently joked with him, whilst he ever grumbled at Cherubini on account of an expression which the latter had once allowed himself to use against General Bonaparte.
Bonaparte had conversed with Cherubini after a representation of one of his operas, and, while he congratulated him, he however added that this opera did not please him as much as the other pieces of Cherubini—that he thought it somewhat sober and scientific, and that he missed in it the accustomed richness of the maestro’s melodies. This criticism wounded Cherubini as if pierced by a dagger, and with the irritable vehemence of an Italian he replied:
“General, busy yourself in winning battles—that is your trade; but leave me to practise mine, about which you know nothing.”
The Consul Bonaparte had neither forgotten nor pardoned Cherubini’s answer; and, despite his fondness for Italian music, he was resolved to give to Mehul the position vacated by Paesiello.