Paganini played at a concert, and some of the audience expressed
dissatisfaction with the singer, Madame Pallerini, and hissed her.
Paganini decided to have revenge, and when about to commence his last
solo, he amused the public by giving an imitation of the notes and cries
of various animals. The chirping of various birds, the crowing of the
chanticleer, the mewing of cats, the barking of dogs were all imitated
and the audience was delighted. Now was the time to punish the
reprobates who hissed. Paganini advanced to the footlights exclaiming,
"This for the men who hissed," and gave a vivid imitation of the braying
of an ass. Instead of exciting laughter and thus causing the confusion
of the enemy as he expected, the whole audience rose as one man, scaled
the orchestra and footlights, and swore they would have his blood.
Paganini sought safety in flight. He was eventually enlightened as to
the mistake he had made.

Once, when he was at Naples, Paganini was taken ill, and in his desire
to secure lodgings where the conditions would be favourable for his
recovery, he made a mistake and soon became worse. It was said that he
was consumptive, and consumption being considered a contagious disease,
his landlord put him out in the street, with all his possessions. Here
he was found by Ciandelli, the violoncellist, who, after giving the
landlord a practical and emphatic expression of his opinion by means of
a stick, conveyed his friend Paganini to a comfortable lodging, where he
was carefully attended until restored to health.

In 1817 Paganini was urged by Count Metternich and by Count de Kannitz,
the Austrian ambassador to Italy, to visit Vienna, but several times he
was prevented from carrying out his plans by illness, and it was not
until 1828 that he reached Vienna and gave his first concert. His
success was prodigious. "He stood before us like a miraculous apparition