energies, which should have been husbanded, not lavishly wasted. One
night at Milan she was deluged with bouquets of which the leaves were of
gold and silver, and recalled by the frantic acclamations of her hearers
twenty times, at the close of which she fainted on the stage. It was
during this engagement at Milan that she heard of the death of the young
composer, Vincentio Bellini, on September 23, 1835, and she set on
foot a subscription for a tribute to his memory, leading the list with
four-hundred francs. It was a premonition of her own departure from the
world of art which she had so splendidly adorned, for exactly a year
from that day she breathed her last sigh.

Her arrival in Venice during this last triumphant tour of her life
was the occasion for an ovation not less flattering than those she had
received elsewhere. As her gondola entered the Grand Canal, she was
welcomed with a deafening _fanfare_ of trumpets, the crash of musical
bands, and the shouts of a vast multitude. It was as if some great
general had just returned from victories in the field, which had saved a
state. Mali-bran was frightened at this enthusiasm, and took refuge in a
church, which speedily became choke-full of people, and a passage had
to be opened for her exit to her hotel. Whenever she appeared, the
multitude so embarrassed her that a way had to be made by the gendarmes,
and her gondola was always pursued by a _cortege_ of other gondolas,
that crowded in her wake. When she departed, the city presented her with
a magnificent diamond and ruby diadem.

In March, 1835, the divorce which she had long been seeking was granted
by a French tribunal, and ten months later, at the expiration of the
limit fixed by French law, she married M. De Bériot, March 29, 1836,
thus legalizing the birth of their son, Wilfred de Bériot, who, with
one daughter, that did not live, had been the fruit of their passionate