had made a
journey from Windsor to London by the "iron horse," and then Veron was
sorely pressed. He had his answer ready. "The Queen of England has got a
successor: the Veron dynasty begins and ends with me. I must take care
to make it last as long as possible." He stuck to his text till the end
of his life.

On no consideration would Veron have sat down "thirteen at table." Once
or twice when the guests and host made up that number, his coachman's
son was sent for, dressed, and made presentable, and joined the party;
at others he politely requested two or three of us to go and dine at the
Cafe de Paris, and to have the bill sent to him. We drew lots as to who
was to go.

It was through Dr. Veron that I became acquainted with most of the
operatic celebrities--Meyerbeer, Halevy, Auber, Duprez, etc.; for though
he had abdicated his directorship seven or eight years before we met, he
was perhaps a greater power then in the lyrical world than at the date
of his reign.

It was at Dr. Veron's that I saw Mdlle. Taglioni for the first time--off
the stage. It must have been in 1844, for she had not been in Paris
since 1840, when I had seen her dance at the Opera. I had only seen her
dance once before that, in '36 or '37, but I was altogether too young to
judge then. I own that in 1840 I was somewhat disappointed, and my
disappointment was shared by many, because some of my friends, to whom I
communicated my impressions, told me that her three years' absence had
made a vast difference in her art. In '44 it was still worse; her
performances gave rise to many a spiteful epigram, for she herself
invited comparison between her former glory and her decline, by dancing
in one of her most successful creations, "L'Ombre." Those most leniently
disposed towards her thought what Alfred de Musset so gracefully
expressed when requested to write some verses in her album.

"Si vous ne voulez plus danser,
Si vous ne faites que passer
Sur ce grand theatre si sombre,
Ne courez pas apres votre ombre
Et tachez de nous la laisser."

My disappointment with the ballerina was as nothing, however, to my
disappointment with the woman. I had been able to determine for myself
before then that Marie Taglioni was by no means a good-looking woman,
but I did not expect her to be so plain as she was. That, after all, was
not her fault; but she might have tried to make amends for her lack of
personal charms by her amiability. She rarely at