strove to hearten her up. At length she told me, dropping a few lovely
tears, that her former friends and comrades, when they got wind of her
meditated desertion, had come to her weeping violently, and had flung
themselves at her feet imploring her not to abandon them to certain
ruin. Moved by a spirit of compassion, she had signed a paper which
obliged her to remain with them for some years to come.

Although I knew the tenderness of her heart, I did not think her
capable of such a breach of promise through mere sensibility. She must
have had stronger reasons for breaking the engagement she had entered
into with me; and if she ever writes her Memoirs, we shall hear of
them.[36] Perhaps I ought to have lost my jovial humour, as I did with
Derbes. I could not do so in the face of so much beauty. I only told
her, with a smile upon my lips, that she was her own mistress; Sacchi
might get a first actress of any sort he could; I should have wit enough
to make the person as able an artist as my fair renegade. With these
words I engaged myself to a new point of honour.

I have never regretted that I treated Signora Manzoni in this courteous
fashion. She has always shown me the attentions of delicate and cordial
politeness; and it is only justice to declare that she possesses
qualities which would be estimable in a gentlewoman. A few years after
the events related here she married, retired from the profession, and
devoted herself to the education of her two little boys in sound moral
and religious principles.

When I reported the failure of my negotiation to Sacchi, he replied
roughly: "I knew that the person in question could never have adjusted
herself to my company." Then he pushed forward his correspondence for
the engagement of another prima donna.

I should like my readers to believe that my intervention in the affair I
have described was due principally to my regard for the Cavaliere[37]
who granted his theatre at my request to Sacchi's company. Really afraid
that their internal dissensions, rivalries, and intrigues might reduce
them to a state of impotence, and that his interests would suffer in
consequence, I wished to avoid having any share in this disaster. A
barren and old-fashioned delicacy!

XLVI.

_Sacchi forces me to give advice.--Teodora Ricci enters his company as
first actress.--An attempt at sketching her portrait.--The beginnings of
my interest in this comedian._

Whenever Sacchi had to eng