r effect upon his musical genius -- His return to France --
He tells the story of the first performance of "Le Desert" -- An
ambulant box-office -- His success -- Fame, but no money -- He
sells the score of "Le Desert" -- He loses his savings -- "La
Perle du Bresil" and the Coup-d'Etat -- "No luck" -- Napoleon
III. remains his debtor for eleven years -- A mot of Auber, and
one of Alexandre Dumas pere -- The story of "Aida" -- Why
Felicien David did not compose the music -- The real author of
the libretto.

I knew Auber from the year '42 or '43 until the day of his death. He and
I were in Paris during the siege and the Commune; we saw one another
frequently, and I am positive that the terrible misfortunes of his
country shortened his life by at least ten years. For though at the
beginning of the campaign he was close upon ninety, he scarcely looked a
twelvemonth older than when I first knew him, nearly three decades
before; that is, a very healthy and active old man, but still an old
man. So much nonsense has been written about his perpetual youth, that
it is well to correct the error. But the ordinary French public, and
many journalists besides, could not understand an octogenarian being on
horseback almost every day of his life, any more than they understood
later on M. de Lesseps doing the same. They did not and do not know M.
Mackenzie-Grieves, and half a dozen English residents in Paris of a
similar age, who scarcely ever miss their daily ride. If they had known
them, they might perhaps have been less loud in their admiration of the
fact.

What added, probably, to Auber's reputation of possessing the secret of
perpetual youth was his great fondness for women's society, his very
handsome appearance, though he was small comparatively, and his
faultless way of dressing. He was most charming with the fairer sex, and
many of the female pupils of the Conservatoire positively doted on him.
Though polite to a degree with men--and I doubt whether Auber could have
been other than polite with no matter whom--his smiles, I mean his
benevolent ones, for he could smile very sceptically, were exclusively
reserved for women. When he heard Mozart's "Don Juan" for the first
time, he said, "This is the music of a lover of twenty, and if a man be
not an imbecile, he may always have in a little corner of his heart the
sentiment or fancy that he is only twenty."

There was but one drawback to