remember that when Berlioz married Henrietta Smithson she brought as
dowry nothing but debts; and that he had only three hundred francs
himself, which a friend had lent him.]

[Footnote 26: Liszt repudiated him later.]

[Footnote 27: Written in an article on the _Ouverture de Waverley_
(_Neue Zeitschrift für Musik_).]

Wagner, who treated his symphonies with scorn before he had even read
them,[28] who certainly understood his genius, and who deliberately
ignored him, threw himself into Berlioz's arms when he met him in London
in 1855. "He embraced him with fervour, and wept; and hardly had he left
him when _The Musical World_ published passages from his book, _Oper und
Drama_, where he pulls Berlioz to pieces mercilessly."[29] In France,
the young Gounod, _doli fabricator Epeus_, as Berlioz called him,
lavished flattering words upon him, but spent his time in finding fault
with his compositions,[30] or in trying to supplant him at the theatre.
At the Opera he was passed over in favour of a Prince Poniatowski.

[Footnote 28: Wagner, who had criticised Berlioz since 1840, and who
published a detailed study of his works in his _Oper und Drama_ in 1851,
wrote to Liszt in 1855: "I own that it would interest me very much to
make the acquaintance of Berlioz's symphonies, and I should like to see
the scores. If you have them, will you lend them to me?"]

[Footnote 29: See Berlioz's letter, cited by J. Tiersot, _Hector Berlioz
et la société de son temps_, p. 275.]

[Footnote 30: _Roméo, Faust, La Nonne sanglante_.]