cards in a neighboring _cafe_, explained to him the situation,
and in a few minutes the verses were written. It was about midnight, and
the composer, seating himself at the piano with the words before him, in
a fever of inspiration threw out the splendid _duo_ between _Raoul_ and
_Valentine_ which closes the act, and which always equally enchants
performers and audience; and when this music was performed at the next
rehearsal, the orchestra, players, and vocalists carried the composer in
triumph on the stage to receive their spontaneous plaudits and
congratulations, while Nourrit embraced him with tears of delight.

Eight years later came another triumph of elaborate Art in "Le
Prophete," a work which is generally underrated by the leading French
critics, though it contains many of the very noblest inspirations of the
genius of Meyerbeer. To this opera followed "L'Etoile du Nord," and "Le
Pardon de Ploermel," while to these will soon follow "L'Africaine," so
long promised, and in behalf of which the composer was visiting Paris at
the time of his death. The score of the opera has been completed since
1860.

On Friday, the twenty-second of April last, Meyerbeer dined alone at his
residence, his meal being, as usual, very frugal. On Saturday, the
twenty-third of April, he felt unwell, but a physician was not sent for
till the next week, and in the mean time Meyerbeer was busy
superintending the copyists engaged in his house on the score of
"L'Africaine," for which he had, instead of his customary orchestral
introduction, just written a long overture. On the following Sunday, the
first of May, his disorder, which was internal, grew worse, and his
weakness increased so that he became almost irritable about it,--he was
so anxious to continue at the work of the orchestration of his new
opera, and so annoyed by the illness which prevented him. His family
were sent for by telegraph, but were mostly too late to hold converse
with him; for on Sunday night, before they arrived, he turned in his bed
and bade them farewell with a faint smile, as he said, "I now bid you
good-night till to-morrow morning." These were his last words; for when
the morning was come, and daylight peered into the windows of the tall
house at Paris, he was shadowed by the mystery of that night which
awaits a resurrection-morning.

Among his papers in his travelling-portfolio was found a packet marked,
"To be opened after death," containing directions, writ