92

MEDEMOISELLE DUVERNAY.

I

Exclusive of the prospective engagement of Mademoiselle Taglioni, I concluded one, for immediate purposes, with a lady whom some consider her rival; and who, by virtue of the means we placed in her hands, made herself as popular in Drury Lane Theatre, as the other was at the Italian Opera House. allude to Mademoiselle Duvernay, as genuine a specimen of a French dancer, both privately and publicly, as ever sandalled shoe. These and other arrangements having been completed, "I hastened home with joy." One soon sickens of Paris and of Paris people their perpetual swagger is nauseating, their trade of over-reaching offensive, their flippancy ridiculous. Beazley, who happened to hear one of my tirades on the bluster of "les braves," amused and consoled me very much by telling me a story very applicable to their vain boastings. A fellow was vaunting in very grandiloquent style of himself, and levelling the pretensions of every other person with the utmost contempt, when a listener said, " Pray, sir, what may your business be ?"-" O," replied the gascon, "I am but a cork-cutter, but then it is in a very large way."—" Indeed!" replied the other; "then I presume you are a cutter of bungs !" Superbe! magnifique! pretty well! is their daily theme from cock-crow to sundown.

My return to London was followed up, within a very few days, by an event almost national as it respected the public pleasure, personally distressing to me on the score of friendship, and seemingly in

MADAME MALIBRAN.

93

volving my ruin in a theatrical point of view. The death of Madame Malibran stunned me at the first. Three weeks before its occurrence I had seen her, apparently full of health and spirits, in the Variétés Theatre, laughing at the incongruities manifest in the drama of Kean; and to suppose that the voice which made such music was hushed for ever, was to me the supposition of an impossibility. During her late professional visit to London, I was leaving the theatre one evening, and going into Malibran's room I found her, after the performance of La Sonnambula, dressing for an evening concert. I remonstrated with her, pointed out the inroads she was making on her constitution, and urged her to send an excuse. She promised to do so; and in a belief she would keep that promise, I bade her good night, and drove home to Brompton. I was reading in bed about half an hour after the midnight chime, when the bell of the outer gate was rung violently, and on its being answered, I heard a voice say, "Tell Mr. Bunn not to get up-I am only come for a little fresh air in his garden." I dressed, and found in one of the walks Madame Malibran, Monsieur de Beriot, and Monsieur Thalberg, from whom I learnt that, despite all my injunctions, she had been to Two concerts, gone home afterwards to undress, and dress, and had taken a fancy to this slight country trip at such an extraordinary hour. I had supper laid under a huge walnut tree which overshadowed the entire southern aspect of the house;

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DEATH OF MALIBRAN.

and beneath its umbrage some viands, especially aided by a favourite beverage of hers-home-brew ed and (don't start readers!) ONIONS

beer

Swift says,.

"This is every cook's opinion

No sav'ry dish without an ONION."

for, as

So said she, and proved it too by pulling them fresh from their beds, and, thus humbly entertained, she seemed to be as happy as possible. She warbled, as late as three into the morning, some of her most enchanting strains, and wound up by saying, "Now I have had my supper, I will go and steal my breakfast;" and running into the hen-house, emptied every nest, and started off to town. That walnut tree bears, and will bear, unless some Goth shall desecrate the tree, and change its title, the name of the syren who sang beneath it; and the anecdote is perhaps only worth narrating for the purpose of mentioning that, on the morning of Sunday, September the 25th, 1836, I was seated beneath this very tree when intelligence was brought to me of her death.

Apart from every consideration of friendly intercourse, let the reader imagine the situation of a manager, who had, in consequence of his engagements with her, entered into others equally onerous, and having by such engagements built his main hopes of success on the issue of the season, found them suddenly blasted before even the season began. "Who

DEATH OF MALIBRAN.

95

would be a manager?" after this, may very reasonably be exclaimed, and such a visitation ought to operate as an apology for the commission of many an after error of judgment. The principal friend I have had stick to me in other trials-temper-did not forsake me in this, and it was necessary to repair the loss as far as possible-as quickly as possible. One of the first duties to perform was to render due honours to the dead.

A work has recently been published, entitled, "Memoirs of Madame Malibran, by the Countess de Merlin, and other intimate friends;" which, as far as regards her engagements with me, and the various circumstances connected therewith, is distinguished by such an extraordinary deviation from fact, that it is imperative upon me to be minute and circumspect to the last degree. It is not my intention to give any biography of Madame Malibran; but it will be expected that one so much mixed up with her, and who became the medium of familiarizing her peerless talent to the English public, should partially dwell on the living and on the dead-give some insight into her character, and a faithful report of her obsequies.

The death of Madame Malibran was an event of no ordinary nature, and it was the least attention her surviving friends could pay, to render their homage over her remains-a duty that became still more important, when it was known that Monsieur de Beriot, her husband, had quitted the scene of

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FUNERAL OF MADAME MALIBRAN.

death and desolation at Manchester, departed for Brussels, and left the performance of all funereal ceremonies attendant upon

"The loved, the lost, the distant, and the dead,"

to the hands of the strangers she died amongst. As one of those friends, I sent a letter to Mr. Willert, brother-in-law to Mr. Beale, of Regent Street, (one of the committee formed at Manchester for the purpose of making the necessary funereal arrangements,) stating my intention of repairing to Manchester to pay the last mark of respect to the deceased. I left London on this mournful expedition (having postponed the opening of Drury Lane theatre for a week) on Thursday, September 29th, and, during my short sojourn in that town, was entertained with the hospitality for which Mr. Willert is distinguished. My first impulse was to enter the chamber of the dead, to which I was admitted by the courtesy of Mrs. Richardson, landlady of the Moseley Arms. a very small room, lighted by two windows, looking out upon a dull wall, was a bed of narrow dimensions, and rather mean furniture, (green stuff edged with black worsted binding, if I remember rightly,) and in the centre of that bed lay a coffin, covered with common black cloth, on the lid of which, engraven on a brass plate, in the form of a shield, I read these words:

"MARIA FELICIA DE BERIOT

DIED 23rd SEPT. 1836,

AGED 28 YEARS."

In