n concert that her grand
voice at this period shone at its best. Her intimate friends were wont
to say that it was as disagreeable and agitating for her to sing in
opera, as it was delightful in the concert-room; for here she poured
forth her notes with such a genuine ecstasy in her own performance as
that which seems to thrill the skylark or the nightingale. Though the
circumstances of her marriage were of such a romantic kind, and she
seems to have been deeply attached to her husband through life, M.
Valle-bregue appears to have been a stupid, ignorant soldier, and, as is
common with those who make similar matrimonial speculations, to have had
no eyes beyond helping his talented wife to make all the money possible
and spend it with the utmost freedom afterward. Mme. Catalani made a
brief visit to Paris in the spring of 1806, sang twice at St. Cloud, and
gave three public concerts, each of which produced twenty-four thousand
francs, the price being doubled for these occasions.

Napoleon was always anxious to make Paris the center of European art,
and to assemble within its borders all the attractions of the civilized
world. He spared no temptation to induce the Italian cantatrice to
remain. When she attended his commands at the Tuileries she trembled
like a leaf before the stern tyrant, under whose gracious demeanor she
detected the workings of an unbending purpose. "Ou allez vous, madame?"
said he, smilingly. "To London, sire," was the reply. "Remain in Paris.
I will pay you well, and your talents will be appreciated. You shall
receive a hundred thousand francs per annum, and two months for _conge_.
So that is settled. Adieu, madame." Such was the brusque and imperious
interview, which seemed to fix the fate of the artist. But Mme.
Catalani, anxious to get to London, to which she looked as a rich
harvest-field, and regarding the grim Napoleon as the foe of the
legitimate King, was determined not to stay. "When at Paris I was
denied a passport," she afterward said; "however, I got introduced
to Talleyrand, and, by the aid of a handful of gold, I was put into
a government boat, and ordered to lie down to avoid being shot; and
wonderful to relate, I got over in safety, with my little boy seven
months old."

II.

Catalani had already signed a contract with Goold and Taylor, the
managers of the King's Theatre, Haymarket, at a salary of two thousand
pounds a month and her expenses, besides various other emoluments. At