s Dagmar, the Empress gave her a priceless and
beautiful pair of diamond earrings, the public, through the leader of
the orchestra, presented her with a splendid diadem covered with
precious stones, and the members of the orchestra subscribed and made
her a present of a laurel wreath in gold. But the greatest demonstration
in her honor occurred when she organized a concert for the benefit of
indigent students, the receipts of which exceeded ten thousand rubles.
Then she was called forward thirty times, and the students unharnessed
her horses and dragged her carriage home. They seized her shawl and tore
it into fragments for mementos, and she also had to give up her gloves
and handkerchief for the same purpose.

Similar demonstrations have taken place at different times, and in
other cities, in honor of other singers. It is quite an ordinary matter
in Russia for a singer to be called forward ten or twenty times, and
even thirty times is not by any means so extraordinary as it would be in
London or New York, or, more particularly, in Boston.

Jenny Lind lost a shawl in New York through the enthusiasm of the
public, and in 1881 Patti enjoyed the experience in Brooklyn of being
dragged home by a crowd of enthusiasts.

Perhaps Patti had the most curious demonstration in London, just before
she sailed for New York under Mapleson's management, and Mapleson is the
authority for the anecdote.

After the last performance of the season, Patti was escorted from the
theatre to the train en route for Liverpool by a procession of
theatrical people in costume, with a brass band. This was at one o'clock
in the morning. Full accounts of it were, of course, obtained somehow
by the American papers.

In 1865 Pauline Lucca had married a German military officer, Baron von
Rahden, who, when the Franco-German war broke out, went to the front,
and was severely wounded in the celebrated charge of Mars-La-Tour.
Lucca, hearing of his misfortune, made her way to the scene of the
conflict, and sought him out in the military hospital, where she
tenderly nursed him until he could be taken home. Her devotion to him
was admirable; but, unfortunately, a change in her feelings seems to
have occurred before very long, for when in 1872 she was in New York she
brought suit for divorce against the Baron, and he, being unaware of the
proceedings, made no defence, so that rightly or otherwise Madame Lucca
secured her divorce. Later on, when von Rahden forwa