our prospects were as hopeless as ever. At last our concierge
recommended us to a family who were willing to take the whole of
our apartment, furniture included, off our hands for a few
months. We gladly accepted this offer; for, at any rate, it
ensured the payment of the rent for the ensuing quarter. We
thought if only we could get away from this unfortunate place we
should find some way of getting rid of it altogether. We
therefore decided to find a cheap summer residence for ourselves
in the outskirts of Paris.

Meudon had been mentioned to us as an inexpensive summer resort,
and we selected an apartment in the avenue which joins Meudon to
the neighbouring village of Bellevue. We left full authority with
our concierge as to our rooms in Rue du Helder, and settled down
in our new temporary abode as well as we could. Old Brix, the
good-natured flutist, had to stay with us again, for, owing to
the fact that his usual receipts had been delayed, he would have
been in great straits had we refused to give him shelter. The
removal of our scanty possessions took place on the 29th of
April, and was, after all, no more than a flight from the
impossible into the unknown, for how we were going to live during
the following summer we had not the faintest idea. Schlesinger
had no work for me, and no other sources were available.

The only help we could hope for seemed to lie in journalistic
work which, though rather unremunerative, had indeed given me the
opportunity of making a little success. During the previous
winter I had written a long article on Weber's Freischutz for the
Gazette Musicale. This was intended to prepare the way for the
forthcoming first performance of this opera, after recitatives