the opera world. He was passing
through that stage: he had not yet passed through it; in scheming
_Rienzi_ he had started, so to speak, with an immense rush to follow
Meyerbeer, and for some time the momentum acquired in that first rush
kept him going. When disillusionment came--well, we shall see.

He was an obscure German kapellmeister, and had never been conductor
in a theatre which did not suffer bankruptcy or where something worse
did not occur. Meyerbeer had certainly never heard his name, and
Wagner was aware of his: he had heard of Meyerbeer's name, and even if
he had not admired the musician he cannot at that period have been
insensible to the man's supremacy in the opera trade. And when we add
to this latter fact, the other fact, that he _did_ admire the
musician, it is easy to understand the feelings with which he
approached this emperor of the barren Sahara of opera. To the emperor
he got an introduction--whether or not in the way Praeger relates is
not worth inquiring into--and the emperor received him not merely with
courtesy, but with what appears to have been something a great deal
warmer than courtesy. He hearkened to the two finished acts of
_Rienzi_, and beginning with an expression of admiration for the
beautiful clear handwriting, presently grew interested in the music
and ended by commending it heartily. Wagner departed for Paris with
the autocrat's letters in his pocket and, as I have said, little
money, but a breast packed with glorious hopes. The most successful
opera-composer of the day had declared that he would succeed, and
guaranteed his belief by giving him those precious introductions. One
was to the direction of the Grand opera, one to Joly, director of the
Renaissance Theatre, another to Schlesinger, the publisher, another
again to Habeneck, the director of the Conservatoire. Of these the
letter to Habeneck proved useful to Wagner from the artistic point of
view; that to Schlesinger useful pecuniarily. The others were useless,
and were never meant to be of any service. Had Meyerbeer told Wagner
to go back to Germany it is just possible Wagner might have gone.
Instead, Meyerbeer sent him into a _cul de sac_--to starve, or get out
as he best could. In the whole history of the art of the world no more
cruel swindle was ever played on an obscure artist by a man occupying
a brilliant position.

For, figuratively, Wagner had not been in Paris twenty minutes before
he discovered that to be p