'Louis Bonaparte.'

"He had just been elected member of the Chamber of Deputies. As his name
appeared to be dangerous, he had been requested to take a vacation, and
he had returned to London, where he had formerly lived. I am glad that I
saw him: he may be somebody some day."

It was in April of the previous year (1847) that Roger went to a
concert, where he records how he heard a comic opera called _The
Alcove_, by Offenbach and Deforges: "A little inexperience, but some
charming things. Offenbach is a fellow who will go far if the doors of
the Opera Comique are not closed against him: he has the gift of melody
and the perseverance of a demon." It is rather curious to note, in
connection with this prophecy, that the doors of the Opera Comique,
which were closed against Offenbach after the failure of his _Vert-Vert_
some years before the war, are to be reopened to him next season, his
_Contes de Hoffman_ having proved the "Open, sesame!" to those
long-barred portals.

But to return to Roger's reminiscences of Jenny Lind, which are, after
all, the most interesting for music-loving readers. We find him writing
in July, 1848: "I have again been to see Jenny Lind in _Lucia_. She is
indeed a great, a sublime artist, in whom are united inspiration and
industry."

It was during this season that he concluded an engagement with the
English impresario Mitchell to become the tenor of the travelling
opera-troupe in which Jenny Lind was to be the prima donna, and which
was to undertake a tour through Scotland, Ireland and the provincial
towns of England. "I am delighted," he writes: "I shall now be able to
study near at hand this singular woman, whom Paris has never possessed,
but whose reputation, fostered at first in Germany under the auspices of
Meyerbeer, has attained in England such proportions that upon her
arrival in a certain city the bells were rung and the archbishop went
out to meet her and to invite her to his house. She is a noble-hearted
creature, and her munificence is royal: she founds hospitals and
colleges. In her blue eyes glows the flame of genius. Deprived of her
voice, she would still be a remarkable woman. Believing in herself, she
is full of daring, and achieves great things because she never troubles
herself about the critics. She lives the life of a saint: one would say
that she imagines herself sent by God to make the happiness of humanity
by the religion of art. Thus she remains cold and chaste in pri