As soon as they arrived, Madame Jaubert took the Prince to the pianoforte and said he must sing a duet with Madame de Vergennes, and that it should be the duet out of the “Pirate,” as Bellini was there. The Prince said that he was loth to sing before the Master, but Madame Jaubert appealed to Bellini, and they both succeeded in persuading him. Madame de Vergennes herself accompanied at the pianoforte. The Prince has a real tenor voice, his méthode is excellent, and they sang the duet as it should be sung. Madame Jaubert said to me that if you ask musicians to a party you must let them play an active part at once in public, but if, on the other hand, you invite politicians and literary men it is best to place them in corners and let them talk.
Bellini was childish about the music: he danced with delight when they had finished, and clapped his hands and said: “Do sing it again!” Somebody suggested their singing a French song, but Bellini said: “No, no, please sing some more of my own music: I do enjoy it so much more, and you know it is much better.” So they sang something from “Norma,” and after that the trio from “The Comte Ory,” in which the Prince, M. du Tillet, and a young girl took part, with Madame de Vergennes at the pianoforte.
When the trio was over, Madame Jaubert interrupted the music, although we were all anxious to hear more, I myself among others; but she took me aside and whispered to me that you must always stop music before people have had enough, because the moment they have one second too much of it they will go away with the impression that they have spent a tiresome evening. I think she was right. But there was a young man there, a M. de Musset—he writes—who was both obstinate and persistent, and never ceased for a moment asking for more. Madame Jaubert was firm and turned a deaf ear to him. This young man was introduced to me: he is good-looking and well-mannered, but sulky and overdressed. He is in love with Princess Belgiojoso, and this I suppose affected him on this occasion because she was paying but scant attention to him, and talked incessantly to Major Fraser, who was there.
Gradually the greater part of the people took their departure, and we all sat down round the table in a small room and talked about table-turning and spirits. Then, I forget how, the conversation turned upon caricatures, and Princess Belgiojoso said, with a lovely smile, that nobody had ever been able to caricature her. Upon which M. de Musset instantly accepted the challenge and said he would make a caricature of the Princess at once. He fetched a scrap-book which was in the room, and a pencil, and on a blank page, drew, in four strokes, her face and figure in profile, exaggerating her thinness and making an enormous black eye. It exactly resembled her; we all craned over the table to look at it, and she took up the book and said in a tone of the utmost indifference: “Really, M. de Musset, it is unfair that you should have all the talents,” and she shut the book.
Madame Jaubert took the book and put it away, and I heard her whisper to M. de Musset: “You have burnt your boats.” He turned round and looked at the Princess and his eyes filled with tears, and at that moment I felt that I could have gladly chastised her.
After that we went in to supper. Almost everybody had gone; the only people who remained were Prince and Princess Belgiojoso, M. de Musset, Major Fraser, Mlle. de Rutières, a lovely Créole, the Comte d’Alton-Shée, Bellini, and Herr Heine, the German writer. I sat between him and Prince Belgiojoso. M. de Musset was on Madame Jaubert’s left, Bellini and the Princess were sitting opposite us.
Herr Heine, like all Germans, is a trifle tiring and long-winded; of course he is cultivated and accomplished, and they say he has written most interesting books, but I cannot read a word of German. He talks French well, but he is heavy and continues a subject long after one has sufficiently discussed it. This is so different from the French, who skate over every topic so lightly and never dwell too long on any subject, and understand what you want to say before you have half said it. All the same, you see at once that he is an interesting man, and every now and then he says something truly remarkable. He wears big spectacles, and his hair, which is very fair, is cut straight and is rather long and bunches over his low collar. He astonished everybody at supper by saying that the perpetual praise of Goethe and Byron tired him.
“I cannot understand you Parisians,” he said, “when you talk about poetry. You go out of the way to search out and idolize all sorts of foreign poets when you have got a real native poet who is worth all these foreigners put together.” Somebody said “Victor Hugo.” “Nothing of the sort,” he answered, “Victor Hugo is like a wheel which turns round and round in space without any intellectual cog-wheel. It is all words, words, words. But he has no thought and no real feeling. He is screaming at the top of his voice about nothing.”
“Then who is our great poet?” asked Madame Jaubert.
“Why, M. de Musset, of course,” said Herr Heine.