Part 7

During the great English revolution of 1688, Lord Wharton, as Macaulay says, wrote "a satirical ballad on the administration of Tyrconnel. In this little poem an Irishman congratulates a brother Irishman, in a barbarous jargon, on the approaching triumph of popery, and of the Milesian race. The Protestant heir will be excluded. The Protestant officers will be broken. The Great Charter, and the praters who appeal to it, will be hanged in one rope. The good Talbot will shower commissions on his countrymen, and will cut the throats of the English. These verses, which were in no respect above the ordinary standard of street poetry, had for burden some gibberish which was said to have been used as a watchword by the insurgents of Ulster in 1641. The verses and the tune caught the fancy of the nation. From one end of England to the other, all classes were constantly singing this idle rhyme. It was especially the delight of the English army. More than seventy years after the revolution, a great writer delineated, with exquisite skill, a veteran who had fought at the Boyne and at Namur. One of the characteristics of the good old soldier is his trick of whistling 'Lillibullero.'

"Wharton afterward boasted that he had sung a king out of three kingdoms. But in truth the success of 'Lillibullero' was the effect, and not the cause, of that excited state of public feeling which produced the revolution."

The English revolution had its "Lillibullero," the French Revolution its "Marseillaise." The former is never heard now; the latter, in which spirited words are wedded to inspiring music, is undying. Lamartine said, "Glory and crime, victory and death, are mingled in its strains." Sir Walter Scott called it "the finest hymn to which Liberty has ever given birth." Heine exclaimed, "What a song! It thrills me with fiery delight, it kindles within me the glowing star of enthusiasm;" and Carlyle pronounced it "the luckiest musical composition ever promulgated."

In the spring of 1792, a young officer of artillery was in garrison at Strasburg. His name was Rouget de Lisle, and his talents as poet, singer, and musician had rendered him a welcome guest at the house of Dietrich, the mayor of the city. Famine reigned in Strasburg, and one day, when the Dietrich family could offer but a scanty repast to the youthful soldier, Dietrich produced a bottle of wine, and said, "Let us drink to Liberty and to our country. There will soon be a patriotic celebration at Strasburg; may these last drops inspire De Lisle with one of those hymns which convey to the soul of the people the intoxication from whence they proceed." The wine was drunk and the friends separated for the night. De Lisle went to his room and sought inspiration, "now in his patriotic soul, now in his harpsichord; sometimes composing the air before the words, sometimes the words before the air, and so combining them in his thoughts that he himself did not know whether the notes or the verses came first, and it was impossible to separate the poetry from the music, or the sentiment from the expression. He sang all and set down nothing."

In the morning De Lisle wrote down the words and music and went with them to Dietrich's house. The old patriot invited some friends, who were as fond of music as himself, to listen, and his eldest daughter played the accompaniment, while Rouget sang. "At the first stanza all faces turned pale; at the second tears ran down every cheek, and at the last all the madness of enthusiasm broke forth. The hymn of the country, destined also to be the hymn of terror, was found. A few months afterward the unfortunate Dietrich went to the scaffold to the sound of the very notes which had their origin on his own hearth, in the heart of his friend, and in the voices of his children."

It was on April 25th that De Lisle's hymn was sung at Dietrich's house. The next day it was copied and arranged for a military band, and on April 29th it was performed by the band of the Garde Nationale at a review. On June 25th, a singer named Mireur sang it with so much effect at a civic banquet at Marseilles that it was at once printed and distributed to the volunteers of the battalion just starting for Paris, which they entered by the Faubourg St. Antoine on July 30th, singing their new hymn. It was heard again on August 10th, when the mob stormed the palace of the Tuileries. From that time the "_chant de guerre pour l'armée du Rhin_," as it had been christened, was known as the "Chanson" or "Chant de Marseillais," and finally as "La Marseillaise." The original edition contained only six couplets; the seventh was added by the journalist Dubois.

Rouget de Lisle's authorship of the music has been often contested, but it is proven by the conclusive evidence contained in the pamphlet on the subject, by his nephew, published in Paris, in 1865. Schumann has used the "Marseillaise" in the overture to "Hermann and Dorothea," and also in his song of the "Two Grenadiers."

Its author, Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle, was born at Montaigu, Lous-le-Saulnier, in 1760. Entering the school of Royal Engineers at Mezières in 1782, in 1789 he was a second lieutenant and quartered at Besançon. Here, a few days after the fall of the Bastille, on July 14th, he wrote his first patriotic song to the tune of a favourite air. The next year found him at Strasburg, where his "Hymn to Liberty," set to music by Pleyel, was sung at the fête of September 25, 1791. One of his pieces, "Bayard en Bresse," produced at Paris in 1791, was not successful. Being the son of royalist parents and one of the constitutional party, Rouget de Lisle refused to take the oath to the constitution abolishing the crown, and was therefore cashiered, denounced, and imprisoned, not escaping until after the fall of Robespierre. It is told that as he fled through a pass of the Alps he heard his own song. "'What is the name of that hymn?' he asked his guide. 'The Marseillaise,' was the peasant's reply. It was then that he learned the name of his own work. He was pursued by the enthusiasm which he had scattered behind him, and escaped death with difficulty. The weapon recoiled against the hand which had forged it; the Revolution in its madness no longer recognised its own voice."

De Lisle afterward reëntered the army, made the campaign of La Vendée under Hoche, was wounded, and at length, under the consulate, returned to private life at Montaigu. Poor and alone, he remained there until the second Restoration, when, his brother having sold the little family property, he came to Paris. Here he was unfortunate and would have starved but for a small pension granted by Louis XVIII., and continued by Louis Philippe, and for the care of his friends, the poet Béranger and the sculptor David d'Angers, and especially M. and Madame Voiart. At the house of the Voiarts in Choisy-le-Roi, Rouget de Lisle died in 1836.

His other works include a volume of "Essais en vers et en prose," issued in 1797, "Cinquante Chants Français" (1825), and "Macbeth," a lyrical tragedy (1827). He also wrote a song called "Roland at Roncesvalles," and a "Hymn to the Setting Sun."

Two statues, if no more, have been erected to him in France,--one at Lous-le-Saulnier, from the hand of Bartholdi, and another at Choisy-le-Roi.

Pils, to whom we owe the picture of Rouget de Lisle singing his immortal chant, was a French artist, who died in 1875, at the age of sixty-two, having gained many medals and a professorship of painting at the Paris School of Fine Arts. His fame was mostly won by pictures of the war in the Crimea, notably by his "Battle of the Alma," now in the gallery at Versailles. The "Rouget de Lisle," painted in 1849, belongs to the French nation. Pils decorated the ceiling over the grand staircase in the Paris Opera House.

PAGANINI.

Earth's effective picture of the great violinist in prison is an instance of the use of that license which we are generally willing to allow the painter and the poet. Among the many astounding fictions which were related about Paganini is one which asserts that, during years spent in confinement on the charge of murdering his wife, he solaced himself and perfected his art by the constant use of his beloved instrument, and this story must serve as the artist's excuse. Doubtless as many believers were found for this baseless tale as for these others.

Some declared that he had a league with Satan, and held interviews with him in an old Florentine castle, much frequented by the artist, from which, they said, fearful sounds were heard proceeding on stormy nights, and where the great master was known to have lain as one dead for hours together, on different occasions. These persons believed that at such times Paganini had only come back to life by magical agency. Another swore to having seen a tall, dark shadow bending over him at one of his concerts, and directing his hand; while a third testified that he had seen nine or ten shadowy hands hovering about the strings of the great master's violin.

Many of his admirers warmly upheld it as their opinion that he was in reality an angel sent down to this world, in pity, for the purpose of lightening the miseries of earthly life by giving man a foretaste of what the heavenly harmonies will be hereafter. They said that it was as if a choir of sweet-voiced spirits lay hid within the instrument, and that at times it seemed as though this choir turned into a grand orchestra.

It was not only Paganini's wonderful playing, but his weird appearance which helped to gain credence for such surprising anecdotes. Leigh Hunt has left us a graphic description of the renowned fiddler.

"Paganini, the first time I saw and heard him, and the first time he struck a note, seemed literally to strike it, to give it a blow. The house was so crammed that, being among the squeezers in the standing-room at the side of the pit, I happened to catch the first glance of his face through the arm akimbo of a man who was perched up before me, which made a kind of frame for it; and there, on the stage in that frame, as through a perspective glass, were the face bent and the raised hand of the wonderful musician, with the instrument at his chin, just going to commence, and looking exactly as I described him:

His hand, Loading the air with dumb expectancy, Suspending ere it fell a nation's breath, He smote, and clinging to the serious chords, With godlike ravishment drew forth a breath So deep, so strong, so fervid thick with love, Blissful yet laden as with twenty prayers, That Juno yearned with no diviner soul To the first burthen of the lips of Jove. Th' exceeding mystery of the loveliness Sadden'd delight, and with his mournful look, Dreary and gaunt, hanging his pallid face 'Twixt his dark flowing locks, he almost seem'd Too feeble, or to melancholy eyes One that has parted with his soul for pride, And in the sable secret lived forlorn.'

"To show the depth and identicalness of the impression which he made upon everybody, foreign or native, an Italian, who stood near me, said to himself, after a sigh, O Dio!' and this had not been said long when another person in the same manner exclaimed, 'O Christ!' Musicians pressed forward from behind the scenes to get as close to him as possible, and they could not sleep at night for thinking of him."

Another writer shows us Paganini in his lodgings.

"Everything was lying in its usual disorder; here one violin, there another, one snuff-box on the bed, another under one of the boy's playthings. Music, money, caps, letters, watches, and boots were scattered about in the utmost confusion. The chairs, tables, and even the bed had all been removed from their proper places. In the midst of the chaos sat Paganini, his black silk nightcap covering his still blacker hair, a yellow handkerchief carelessly tied around his neck, and a chocolate-coloured jacket hanging loose upon his shoulders. On his knees he held Achillino, his little son of four years of age, at that time in very bad humour because he had to allow his hands to be washed. His affectionate forbearance is truly wonderful. Let the boy be ever so troublesome, he never gets angry, but merely turns around and observes to those present, 'The poor child is wearied; I do not know what I shall do, I am already quite worn out with playing with him. I have been fighting with him all the morning; I have carried him about; made him chocolate; I do not know what more to do!'

"It was enough to make one die of laughing to see Paganini in his slippers fighting with his little son, who reached to about his knee. Sometimes the little Achillino would get into a rage; draw his sabre upon his father, who would retreat into the corner of the room and call out, 'Enough, enough! I am wounded already;' but the little fellow would never leave off until he had laid his gigantic adversary tottering and prostrate on the bed. Paganini had now finished the dressing of his Achillino, but was himself still in _dishabille_. And now arose the great difficulty, how to accomplish his own toilet, where to find his neckcloth, his boots, his coat. All were hid, and by whom?--by Achillino. The urchin laughed when he saw his father pacing with long strides through the apartment, his searching looks glancing in all directions; and upon his asking him where he had put his things, the little wag pretended astonishment, and held his tongue, shrugged up his shoulders, shook his head, and signified by his gesture that he knew nothing about them. After a long search, the boots were found; they were hid under the trunk; the handkerchief lay in one of the boots; the coat in the box; and the waistcoat in the drawer of the table. Every time that Paganini had found one of his things, he drew it out in triumph, took a great pinch of snuff, and went with new zeal to search for the remaining articles, always followed by the little fellow, who enjoyed it vastly when he saw his papa searching in places where he knew nothing was hid. At last we went out, and Paganini shut the door of the apartment, leaving behind him, lying about upon the tables and in the cupboards, rings, watches, gold, and what I most wondered at, his most precious violins. Any idea of the insecurity of his property never entered his head; and, fortunately for him, in the lodgings which he occupied the people were honest."

The famous violinist, like the rest of us, had his faults, but we can easily find instances to prove the kindness of his heart.

One day, while walking in Vienna, Paganini came across a poor boy playing upon a violin. He went up to him and learned that he maintained his mother and a flock of little brothers and sisters by the money which he picked up as an itinerant musician. Paganini turned out his pockets, gave the boy all the coins he could find, and then, taking the boy's violin, commenced playing. A crowd soon assembled, and, when he had finished playing, Paganini went around with his hat, collected a goodly sum, and then gave it to the boy, amid loud acclamations from the bystanders.

In the autumn of 1832 Paganini was an invalid at Paris, and seldom saw any one but Nicette, a merry country girl who waited upon him, and often cheered him up in hours of sadness. One morning she appeared with weeping eyes, and waited upon the musician without saying a word.

"What's the matter, child?" said the musician. "Has any misfortune happened to you?"

"Alas! yes, sir."

"Speak! speak! What is it?"

She was silent.

"Now, out with it," said he. "I see it all clearly enough. After he had made you a thousand promises he has forsaken you. Is it not so?"

"Alas! poor fellow, he has indeed forsaken me, but he is quite innocent."

"How has that happened?"

"He has drawn a bad number in the conscription, and must go off for a soldier. I shall never see him again!" sobbed the poor girl.

"But can't you buy a substitute for him?"

"How could I get such a large sum? Fifteen hundred francs is the lowest price, for there is a report that a war will soon break out," said she.

Paganini said no more, but when Nicette had left the room, he took his pocketbook and wrote in it, "To think what can be done for poor Nicette."

It was toward Christmas-time, and Paganini's health was improved, when one afternoon Nicette came into the room where he was, and announced that a box had come, addressed to Signer Paganini. It was brought in, and the first thing which he pulled out was a large wooden shoe.

"A wooden shoe," said Paganini, smiling. "Some of these excellent ladies wish to compare me with a child, who always receives presents and never gives any. Well, who knows but that this shoe may earn its weight in gold?"

Nothing now was seen of Paganini for three days, during which time his clever hand had transformed the shoe into a well-sounding instrument. Soon afterward appeared an advertisement announcing that, on New Year's eve, Paganini would give a concert, and play five pieces on the violin and five on a wooden shoe. A hundred tickets at twenty francs each were instantly sold. Paganini duly appeared, and played on his old violin as he alone ever did. Then, taking up the wooden shoe, he commenced a descriptive fantasia. There it was,--the departure of the conscript, the cries of his betrothed at the parting, the camp life, the battle and victory, the return-rejoicings, and marriage-bells, all were vividly portrayed.

The company departed, but in the corner of the room stood Nicette, sobbing bitterly.

"Here, Nicette," said Paganini, going up to her, "are two thousand francs,--five hundred more than you require to purchase a substitute for your betrothed. That you may be able to begin housekeeping at once, take this shoe-violin and sell it for as much as you can get for it."

Nicette did so, and a wealthy collector of curiosities gave her a very large sum indeed for Paganini's wooden shoe.

Here is another anecdote of Paganini, as related by one who took part in some of the frequent demands upon his goodness of heart. When Paganini was in London, he resided at No. 12 Great Pulteney Street, in a house belonging to the Novellos, next door to which was a "young ladies'" school, kept by a humpbacked old lady. The girls were perfectly aware who their next-door neighbour was, and, with the fondness of female youth for mischief, had nicknamed Paganini "the devil."

Now, in order to avoid being heard from the street, "the devil" used to practise his violin in a back room, which happened to be divided only by a thin partition from the next house. The adjoining room was one devoted by the old lady to the most advanced of her pupils, and here they were allowed to do their needlework apart from the others, and were frequently left to themselves.

When the cat's away, however, the mice will play. The temptation to make overtures to "the devil" was too great for the young ladies; and whenever they heard him in his room, while one kept a lookout at the door for the intrusions of "old humpback," there was a delicate "tat-tat-tat" at the partition, and a half-singing, half-speaking call, "Pag-an-in-ee, Pag-an-in-ee--the Carnival--'Carnival de Venise';" whereupon he would go to his window, open it, and accede to the request, playing the piece exactly as he did in public, nor did the maestro ever once fail to gratify the wishes of his fair neighbours.

"Paganini received some enthusiastic receptions in his time, but probably never a more spontaneous outburst than that which came from a son of Erin's Isle, after one of his performances in Dublin. On the occasion in question, Paganini had just completed that successful effort, the rondo _à la Sicilienne_ from 'La Clochette,' in which was a silver bell accompaniment to the fiddle, producing a most original effect (one of those effects, we presume, which have tended to associate so much of the marvellous with the name of this genius). No sooner had the outburst of applause ended, than the excited Paddy in the gallery shouted out as loud as he was able:

"'Arrah now, Paganini, just take a drop o' whisky, my darling, and ring the bell again like that!'

"At a soirée given by Troupenas, the music publisher, in Paris, in 1830, Paganini gave one of the most wonderful exhibitions of his skill. Rossini, Tamburini, Lablache, Rubini, De Beriot, and Malibran were of the party. Malibran, after singing one of her spirited arias, challenged Paganini, who said, 'Madam, how could I dare, with all the advantages you possess in beauty and your incomparable voice, take up your glove?' His declining was of no avail; the whole company, aware that such an opportunity might never occur again, urged him most strongly, and finally persuaded him to send for his violin. After an introduction, in which gleamed now and then the motive of Malibran's song, he gave the whole melody with additional _fiorituras_, so that the audience, amazed and overwhelmed, could not help confessing that he was the master. Malibran herself was most emphatic of all in proclaiming him the victor."

Paganini's favourite violin was a Joseph Guarnerius. An Italian amateur, who evidently knew its value, lent it to the great maestro, and, after hearing him play upon it, declared that no other hand should touch it, and presented it to Paganini. He left it to his native city of Genoa, where it is preserved in the town hall.

Ferdinand Barth, who painted "Paganini in Prison," was the son of a carpenter, and was born in Bavaria in the early forties. For some time he worked as a wood carver, and then began to paint, and studied at the Munich Academy, under Piloty. Probably his best known picture is "Choosing the Casket," in which he has depicted the familiar scene from the "Merchant of Venice."

MENDELSSOHN.

Like Mozart, the composer of the "Songs without Words" had a sister, a few years older than himself, who was possessed of great musical talent.

Mendelssohn's sister, Fanny, was born in 1805. In 1829 she became the wife of Wilhelm Hensel, a noted historical and portrait painter. Probably the most valuable and interesting of his works is the series of portraits of all the celebrities who, from time to time, were the guests of the Mendelssohn family. They number more than a thousand drawings, and include, besides likenesses of poets, painters, and philosophers, portraits of many people famous in the annals of music,--Weber, Paganini, Ernst, Hiller, Liszt, Clara Schumann, Gounod, Clara Novello, Lablache, and Grisi.

Rockstro tells the story of Fanny Mendelssohn's early death in the following words: