omething at all events." So the twain repaired to the theatre to
hear Spontini's "Olympie." All went well till one of the overwhelming
finales, which happened to be played that evening more _fortissimo_
than usual. The patient turned around beaming with delight, exclaiming,
"Doctor, I can hear." As there was no reply, the happy patient again
said, "Doctor, I tell you, you have cured me." A blank stare alone met
him, and he found that the doctor was as deaf as a post, having fallen
a victim to his own prescription. The German wits had a similar joke
afterward at Halevy's expense. The "Punch" of Vienna said that Halevy
made the brass play so loudly that the French horn was actually blown
quite straight.

Among the works produced at Berlin were "Nurmahal," in 1825; "Alcidor,"
the same year; and in 1829, "Agnes von Hohenstaufen." Various other new
works were given from time to time, but none achieved more than a brief
hearing. Spontini's stiff-necked and arrogant will kept him in continual
trouble, and the Berlin press aimed its arrows at him with incessant
virulence: a war which the composer fed by his bitter and witty
rejoinders, for he was an adept in the art of invective. Had he not been
singularly adroit, he would have been obliged to leave his post. But
he gloried in the disturbance he created, and was proof against the
assaults of his numerous enemies, made so largely by his having come
of the French school, then as now an all-sufficient cause of Teutonic
dislike. Spontini's unbending intolerance, however, at last undermined
his musical supremacy, so long held good with an iron hand; and an
intrigue headed by Count Bruehl, intendant of the Royal Theatre, at last
obliged him to resign after a rule of a score of years. His influence on
the lyric theatre of Berlin, however, had been valuable, and he had the
glory of forming singers among the Prussians, who until his time had
thought more of cornet-playing than of beautiful and true vocalization.
The Prussian King allowed him on his departure a pension of 16,000
francs.

When Spontini returned to Paris, though he was appointed member of the
Academy of Fine Arts, he was received with some coldness by the musical
world. He had no little difficulty in getting a production of his
operas; only the Conservatory remained faithful to him, and in their
hall large audiences gathered to hear compositions to which the
opera-house denied its stage. New idols attracted the public, an