was soon rudely snatched
from De Beriot's grasp. The revolution of 1830, which began with
the excitement inflamed in Brussels by the performance of Auber's
revolutionary opera, "La Muette di Portici," better known as
"Masaniello," dissolved the kingdom, and Belgium parted permanently
from Holland. It was, perhaps, owing to this apparent misfortune that
De Beriot made an acquaintance which culminated in the most interesting
episode of his life. He lost his official position at Brussels, but he
met Mme. Malibran.

III.

De Beriot returned to Paris, where Sontag and Malibran were engaged in
ardent artistic rivalry, about equally dividing the suffrages of the
French public. Mlle. Sontag was a beautiful, fair-haired, blue-eyed
woman, in the very flush of her youth, with an expression of exquisite
sweetness and mildness. De Beriot became madly enamored of her at once,
and pressed his suit with vehemence, but without success. Henrietta
Sontag was already the betrothed of Count Rossi, whom she soon afterward
married, though the engagement was then a secret. The lady's firm
refusal of the young Belgian artist's overtures filled him with a deep
melancholy, which he showed so unmistakably that he became an object of
solicitude to all his friends. Among those was Mme. Malibran, whose warm
sympathies went out to an artist whose talents she admired. Malibran,
living apart from her husband, was obliged to be careful in her conduct,
to avoid giving food for the scandal of a censorious world, but this
did not prevent her from exhibiting the utmost pity and kindness in her
demeanor toward De Beriot. The violinist was soothed by this gentle and
delightful companion, and it was not long before a fresh affection, even
stronger than the other, sprang up in his susceptible nature for the
woman whose ardent Spanish frankness found it difficult to conceal the
fact that she cherished sentiments different from mere friendship.

The splendid career of Mme. Malibran shines almost without a rival in
the records of the lyric stage, and her influence on De Beriot, first
her lover and afterward her husband, was most marked. Maria Garcia,
afterward Mme. Malibran, was one of a family of very eminent musicians.
She was trained by her father, Manuel Garcia, who, in addition to being
a tenor singer of world-wide reputation, was a composer of some repute,
and the greatest teacher of his time. Her sister, Pauline Garcia, in
after years became one of the