be selected by him; and he added that if I still wished to try my
luck at the Opera House, I had better see the 'ballet-master,' as
he might want some music for a certain dance. Seeing that I
contemptuously refused this proposal, he left me to my own
devices.

After endless and unsuccessful attempts at getting the matter
settled, I at last begged Edouard Monnaie, the Commissaire for
the Royal Theatres, who was not only a friend of mine, but also
editor of the Gazette Musicale, to act as mediator. He candidly
confessed that he could not understand Pillet's liking for my
plot, which he also was acquainted with; but as Pillet seemed to
like it--though he would probably lose it--he advised me to
accept anything for it, as Monsieur Paul Faucher, a brother-in-
law of Victor Hugo's, had had an offer to work out the scheme for
a similar libretto. This gentleman had, moreover, declared that
there was nothing new in my plot, as the story of the Vaisseau
Fantome was well known in France. I now saw how I stood, and, in
a conversation with Pillet, at which M. Faucher was present, I
said I would come to an arrangement. My plot was generously
estimated by Pillet at five hundred francs, and I received that
amount from the cash office at the theatre, to be subsequently
deducted from the author's rights of the future poet.

Our summer residence in the Avenue de Meudon now assumed quite a
definite character. These five hundred francs had to help me to
work out the words and music of my Fliegender Hollander for
Germany, while I abandoned the French Vaisseau Fantome to its
fate.