These events were quickly followed by the publication of the Constitutional Charter of July and the retirement of the ex-King to England. The closing scene of the drama took place in the December of the year, when Polignac and the other Ministers, who had been members of the administration of 1829, were tried and sentenced to life-long imprisonment.
During the last months of 1830 Manuel Garcia attached himself to the military hospitals. His reason for taking this step was that he had determined to go through a course of preliminary study in the scientific side of singing before devoting his life to the career of teaching. At the hospitals he took up medicine and some specialised studies which embraced the physiology of everything appertaining to the voice and the larynx, for he had already perceived the importance of physiology as an aid to the rational development of the voice. His labours were crowned with success, and contributed much to the determination of the exact anatomy of the vocal cords.
During this time he used to carry home in his pockets the most extraordinary things from his anatomy class. Madame Viardot speaks of it thus:—
"What do you think he brought? You would never guess. The throttles of all kinds of animals,—chickens, sheep, and cows. You would imagine that these would have disgusted me. But it was not so. He would give me a pair of bellows, which I would insert in these windpipes, one after another, and blow hard. Heavens! what extraordinary sounds they used to emit. The chickens' throttles would cluck, the sheep's would bleat, and the bulls' would roar, almost like life."
At the remembrance of these rather gruesome incidents Madame Viardot laughs, much in the spirit, one may suppose, of the delicate Spanish beauty who applauds the thrusts of the matador at a bull-fight.
With the end of the year 1830 we find the first portion of Manuel Garcia's life brought to a close, the period of preparation. During the first twenty-five years we have found him brought up in music, learning the old Italian method of singing from his father and Zingarelli, with a few lessons from Ansani; while harmony he has studied under Fétis. He has acquired practical knowledge as an actor and singer upon stage and concert platform: he has heard nearly all the greatest operatic artists in Italy, France, and England: he has already had some experience of teaching, and is well acquainted with the lines followed by the famous maestri who have gone before him. Moreover, when he makes his regular start as professeur de chant in 1831, he is able to apply his medical knowledge to the greatest advantage.
With all these advantages, added to a fine intellect, intuitive perception, and extraordinary patience, what wonder that when once he embarks on his career as a singing-master he never again looks back, but speedily establishes himself as a scientific teacher, with a reputation unequalled by any of his contemporaries?