on this occasion. In the
admirable quartette of the second act a child is introduced, as in
"Norma," to awaken the sympathies of an untractable tenor papa. This
juvenile, by no means a young Apollo, took not the slightest interest in
the music, and was so indifferent to the publicity of the situation, so
utterly _blase_, (and sleepy,) as to yawn during the most affecting
passages. At the first yawn, the audience smiled; the _prima donna_,
proceeding with her part, exclaimed in tragic Italian, "Restrain thy
tears!"--and the child gaped again for the second time, while the
audience grinned. "Heaven will comfort thee!" shrieked the
singer,--whereat the child gave such a prodigious yawn that the house
burst into laughter, and the vocalist could not finish the piece.

In 1827 Meyerbeer married, and retired from public life for a while. Two
of the children born to him died, their loss casting so deep a shade on
his soul that for nearly two years he composed only religious music to
words selected from the Book of Psalms, or written by Klopstock. He also
wrote a collection of melodies, among them an elegy entitled "At the
Tomb of Beethoven." But erelong the glorious old instinct for operatic
composition returned. On the seventeenth of September, 1829, M. Lubbert,
then director of the opera, received a letter couched in these terms:--

"_17 Septembre, 1829_.

"J'ai l'honneur de vous prevenir, Monsieur, que par decision
de ce jour j'ai accorde a M. Meyerbeer, compositeur, ses
entrees a l'Academie Royale de Musique....

"L'Aide-de-Camp du Roi,

"Directeur-General des Beaux-Arts,

"VICOMTE DE LAROCHEFOUCAULD."

And two years later, on the twenty-first of September, 1831, Dr. Veron,
the successor of Lubbert, opened his doors for the first performance of
"Robert le Diable." This wonderful and popular opera was written in
French, to a _libretto_ sent to Berlin by Scribe, and was at first
intended for the Opera Comique, but its three acts were subsequently
increased to five, and its destination changed to the Grand Opera.
Meyerbeer himself had to bear much of the expense of preparing the
stage-appointments, though not to such an extent as on the production of
his "Romilda" in Italy, when he bought the _libretto_, gave the music
gratis, paid the singers, and provided the costumes.

Dr. Veron, in his Memoirs, gives an amusing account of the accidents
which attended the first production of "Robe