circumstances. Unfortunately, the amount of public money which he
had at his disposal at that moment for subsidising literature
only allowed of his offering him the sum of five hundred francs,
which he enclosed with apologies, asking him to accept it as a
recognition of his merits on the part of the French Government,
and adding that it was his intention to give earnest
consideration as to how he might materially improve his position.

This filled us with the utmost thankfulness on poor Lehrs'
account, and we looked on the incident almost as a miracle. We
could not help assuming, however, that M. Villemain had been
influenced by Didot, who had been prompted by his own guilty
conscience for his despicable exploitation of Lehrs, and by the
prospect of thus relieving himself of the responsibility of
helping him. At the same time, from similar cases within our
knowledge, which were fully confirmed by my own subsequent
experience, we were driven to the conclusion that such prompt and
considerate sympathy on the part of a minister would have been
impossible in Germany. Lehrs would now have a fire to work by,
but alas! our fears as to his declining health could not be
allayed. When we left Paris in the following spring, it was the
certainty that we should never see our dear friend again that
made our parting so painful.

In my own great distress I was again exposed to the annoyance of
having to write numerous unpaid articles for the Abendzeitung, as
my patron, Hofrath Winkler, was still unable to give me any
satisfactory account of the fate of my Rienzi in Dresden. In
these circumstances I was obliged to consider it a good thing
that Halevy's latest opera was at last a success. Schlesinger