re."

"Well, General," continued the composer, "I have come to place myself at
your majesty's orders."

"I must really beg you," rejoined Napoleon, "not to address me in this
manner."

"Forgive me, General," said Paisiello. "But I cannot give up the habit
I have contracted in addressing sovereigns, who, compared with you, are
but pigmies. However, I will not forget your commands, and, if I have
been unfortunate enough to offend, I must throw myself on your majesty's
indulgence."

Paisiello received ten thousand francs for the mass written for
Napoleon's coronation, and one thousand for all others. As he produced
masses with great rapidity, he could very well afford to neglect
operatic writing during this period. His masses were pasticcio work made
up of pieces selected from his operas and other compositions. This could
be easily done, for music is arbitrary in its associations. Love songs
of a passionate and sentimental cast were quickly made religious by
suitable words. Thus the same melody will depict equally well the rage
of a baffled conspirator, the jealousy of an injured husband, the grief
of lovers about to part, the despondency of a man bent on suicide, the
devotion of the nun, or the rapt adoration of worship. A different text
and a slight change in time effect the marvel, and hardly a composer
has disdained to borrow from one work to enrich another. His only opera
composed in Paris, "Proserpine," was not successful.

Failure of health obliged Paisiello to return to Naples, when he
again entered the service of the king. Attached to the fortunes of the
Bonaparte family, his prosperity fell with theirs. He had been crowned
with honors by all the musical societies of the world, but his pensions
and emoluments ceased with the fall of Joachim Murat from the Neapolitan
throne. He died June 5,1816, and the court, which neglected him living,
gave him a magnificent funeral.

"Paisiello," says the Chevalier Le Sueur, "was not only a great
musician, but possessed a large fund of general information. He was
well versed in the dead languages, acquainted with all branches of
literature, and on terms of friendship with the most distinguished
persons of the age. His mind was noble and above all mean passions; he
neither knew envy nor the feeling of rivalry.... He composed," says the
same writer, "seventy-eight operas, of which twenty-seven were serious,
and fifty-one comic, eight _intermezzi_, and an immense number of