frequently in the depths of despair. At one time he is said to have
attempted suicide by drowning in the Seine. There is also a story told
to the effect that the notorious detective, Vidocq, who lived in the
same house with him, and knew something of his circumstances, prevailed
upon him to risk five francs in a gambling saloon. Vidocq stood by and
watched the game, and Ole Bull came away the winner of eight hundred
francs, presumably because the detective was known, and the proprietors
of the saloon considered discretion to be the better part of valour. It
was a delicate method of making the young man a present in a time of
difficulty, but one of which the moral effect could hardly fail to be
injurious.

At one time, when he was ill and homeless, he entered a house in the Rue
des Martyrs in which there were rooms to let. He was received and
treated kindly, and was nursed through a long illness by the landlady
and her granddaughter.

He tried to secure a place in the orchestra of the Opera Comique, but
his arrogance lost him the position, for when he was requested to play a
piece at sight, it seemed to him so simple that he asked at which end he
should begin. This offence caused him to be rejected without a hearing.

Fortune, however, began at last to smile upon him when he made the
acquaintance of M. Lacour, a violin maker, who conceived the idea of
engaging him to show off his violins. Ole Bull accordingly played on one
of them at a soiree given by the Duke of Riario, Italian charge
d'affaires in Paris. He was almost overcome by the smell of assafoetida
which emanated from the varnish, and which was caused by the heat.
Nevertheless, he played finely, and as a result was invited to breakfast
the next morning by the Duke of Montebello, Marshal Ney's son. This
brought him into contact with Chopin, and shortly afterwards he gave his
first concert under the duke's patronage, and with the assistance of
Ernst, Chopin, and other celebrated artists.

He now made a concert tour through Switzerland to Italy, and on reaching
Milan he played at La Scala, where he made an immense popular success,
but drew from one of the journals a scathing criticism, which, however
humiliating it may have been, struck him by its truth.

"M. Bull played compositions by Spohr, Mayseder, and Paganini
without understanding the true character of the music, which he
marred by adding something of his own. It is quite obvious that