home: "And why? I cannot tell.
Perhaps I regret the life of excitement, those great theatres, the
audiences that changed every day, the struggle of the singer with new
_partitions_, the boundless admiration I experienced for that strange
being, that compound of goodness and coldness, of egotism and
benevolence, whom one might not perhaps love, but whom it is impossible
to forget."

The next prominent event in the great tenor's career was his creation of
the character of John of Leyden in Meyerbeer's _Prophete_. There is
something very charming in the naive delight and enthusiasm with which
he speaks of this, the crowning glory of his life. Contrary to the usual
theory respecting the production of a great dramatic effect, he declares
that the grand scene between the prophet and Fides in the third act,
where John of Leyden, by the sheer force of intonation of voice and play
of feature, forces his mother to retract her recognition of him and to
fall at his feet, was created, so to speak, by Madame Viardot and
himself on the inspiration of the moment and without any preliminary
conference or arrangement. How wonderful this fine dramatic situation
appeared when interpreted by these two great artists, I, who had the
delight of seeing them both, can well remember. To this day it forms one
of the great traditions of the French lyric stage.

In the month of July, 1859, just ten years after that crowning triumph,
Roger one day, being then at his country-seat, took his gun and went out
to shoot pheasants: an hour later he was brought I back to the house
with his right arm horribly shattered by the accidental discharge of his
gun. His first action after having the wound dressed was to sing. "My
voice is all right," he remarked to his wife: "there is no harm done."
Unfortunately, the bones were so shattered that amputation was judged
necessary. That accident brought Roger's operatic career to a close.
Notwithstanding the perfection of the mechanical arm that replaced the
missing limb, he was oppressed by the consciousness of a physical
defect. He imagined that the public ridiculed him, and that the critics
only spared him out of pity. He retired from the stage, and devoted
himself to teaching, his amiable character and great artistic renown
gaining him hosts of pupils. In the autumn of 1879 the kindly, blameless
life came to a close.

A devoted husband, a generous and unselfish comrade in his profession
even to his immediate riv