admiration, even in a city where the love of musical novelty had been
sated by a continual supply of art prodigies. Young as he was, he wrote
at this time not a few charming compositions, which were in after-years
occasional features of his concerts. His delicate constitution succumbed
under hard work, and for a while a severe attack of typhoid fever
interrupted his studies. On his recovery, our young artist spent a few
months in the Ardennes. On returning to Paris, he became the pupil of
Hector Berlioz, who felt a deep interest in the young American, as an
art prodigy from a land of savages in harmony, and devoted himself so
assiduously to the study that he declined an invitation from the Spanish
queen to become a guest of the court at Madrid.

An amusing incident occurred in a pedestrian trip which he made to the
Vosges in 1846. He had forgotten his passport, and, on arriving at a
small town, was arrested by a gendarme and taken before the maire. The
latter official was reading a newspaper containing a notice of his last
concert, and through this means he assured the worthy functionary of his
identity, and was cordially welcomed to the hospitality of the official
residence.

His friend Berlioz, who was ever on the alert to help the American pupil
who promised to do him so much credit, arranged a series of concerts
for him at the Italian Opera in the winter of 1846-'47, and these proved
brilliantly successful, not merely in filling the young artist's purse,
but in augmenting his fast-growing reputation. Steady labor in study and
concert-giving, many of his public performances being for charity, made
two years pass swiftly by. A musical tour through France in 1849 was
highly successful, and the young American returned to Paris, loaded
down with gifts, and rich in the sense of having justly earned the
congratulations which showered on him from all his friends. A second
invitation now came from Spain, and Louis Gottschalk on arriving at
Madrid was made a guest at the royal palace. From the king he received
two orders, the diamond cross of Isabella la Catholique and that of
Leon d'Holstein, and from the Duke de Montpensier he received a sword of
honor. We are told that at one of the private court concerts Gottschalk
played a duet with Don Carlos, the father of the recent pretender to the
Spanish throne.

Among the romantic incidents narrated of this visit of Gottschalk to
Madrid, one is too characteristic to be overlooke