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As before mentioned, for some years he had applied himself especially to the finding out of novel effects or novel sounds. Ernst, the celebrated violinist, followed Paganini everywhere; as soon as he knew him to be in a certain town, he would hasten thither, and installing himself in an adjoining room to the maestro, would listen. Paganini was no sooner at Marseilles than Ernst arrived. Not being able this time to lodge near him, he implored M. Léa, who was also entertained by M. Brun, and was in the next room to Paganini, to allow him to pass a few nights in his apartment. M. Léa assured him without avail that he would be losing his time; he insisted, and obtained the favor that he solicited. Towards eleven o'clock, the hour at which the maestro generally went to his room, Ernst was at his post. He placed his ear to the keyhole and waited. Oh, happiness! the violin sounds; no doubt he is about to hear some divine harmony, some enchanting prelude. Alas! the prelude came not, and in place of harmony our listener heard nothing but the strangest sounds, sharp and strident scrapings. Ernst was not long in comprehending whence came the motive for these strange exercises. Paganini pressed the bow heavily on the fourth string till he made it crack, and the result was the most extraordinary growlings and mewings. It was evident that he wanted to get from the G a lower note than that which is obtained from the chord when it is attacked naturally, and it was in searching for this impossible note that he passed part of his nights. Ernst returned to the charge every evening for a week, and remained listening at the door of communication, still hearing nothing but the diabolical grindings of the fourth chord; at length his back ached so, that he had to give it up. It may be said that Paganini passed the latter part of his existence in searching for this coveted note, for up to the last moment he endeavored with great persistence and grinding to obtain it from the inexorable G, which continued obstinately to refuse it to him.

He was daily becoming weaker, and he felt that the time was approaching when it would be no longer possible for him to play in public. However, he still found vigor enough to answer a call from the King of Sardinia, who, in return for having legitimated a natural son under exceptional circumstances, stipulated that he should come to Turin and give two concerts for the poor. He gave them, but made the Piedmontese government pay his board while there, which amounted to about sixty francs. This was his last adieu to the public.

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II.

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In November, 1839, the Count de Cessole received a letter from Paganini, announcing his immediate return to Nice, where he proposed passing the winter. When he arrived he was so weak that he had to be carried to the apartment he was to occupy, on the third floor of an old house situated on the corner of the Rue du Gouvernement and the one leading to the Cathedral. He had gone away sick, but able-bodied; he returned worn-out, alınost a corpse. His emaciation was frightful; the larynx so much affected that it hardly acted at all; the faint sounds which came from it, instead of passing by the

mouth, escaped into the nasal cavities, so that to make himself heard he pinched his nostrils, and the voice was as it were forced to pass out by the lips, and by stooping and carefully listening a few scarcely articulate sounds could be distinguished. However, he seemed to have no idea of the danger of his situation; he constantly spoke to M. de Cessole of his future journeys to Russia and America, where he promised himself a rich harvest of roubles and dollars; he showed with childish joy a letter in which a speculator announced that he was about to construct a hall in the United States capable of holding ten thousand persons, and that it was to be specially destined to his concerts. He was a wreck, a moribund, a shadow, yet the sacred fire still burned brightly within this almost ruined exterior, and it was only extinguished by his death. He had surrounded himself with stringed instruments of all kinds, dozens of violins, altos, and violoncellos, all of them valuable, and any one of them worthy of figuring in illustrious hands. He desired to die in the midst of these faithful companions of his glory, which recalled his purest and liveliest joys. Sometimes he would ask for his favored instrument, and then, forgetful of his weakness, he drew from it the most ravishing sounds. The powerful emotions which possessed him during these periods of musical inspiration must have worn out the last springs of life. M. de Cessole was with him every day, and they passed their time in trying the various instruments of which I have spoken. Paganini consented as an exception to become a teacher, and initiated his pupil into secrets known only to himself. The point upon which he laid the greatest stress was exactness. Exactness," said he, "is a point of the compass to which performers approach more or less."

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One day he undertook to re-string the violin of M. de Cessole, and passed six or seven hours over it. When the Count returned he found him improvising all kinds of airs and variations. His face was flushed, his eyes sparkling, his hair in disorder; he appeared to be in an indescribable state of nervous agitation. He did not perceive the entrance of his pupil and continued playing, until, overcome by fatigue, he fell fainting into his arm-chair. In his latter days he sometimes played the guitar, but merely to try over the music he composed. Only a few days before his death, M. de Cessole observed upon his table a sheet of music-paper that he had covered with melodious thoughts. When his pupil did not please him in the execution of an air or passage, he would seize the violin, and steadying his left elbow against some piece of furniture, he would play it over in a feeble manner, to indicate the fingering, the management of the bow, and the sense of the air or passage in question. I mentioned that Paganini had taken a pupil as an exception, but M. de Cessole was not the only favored one, as he also consented to give a few lessons to his countryman, Sivori, who had come to Nice expressly to entreat the great master to teach him his method.

Paganini possessed neither the carelessness nor the generosity of the artist. His avarice is well known. At Marseilles, as at Paris, he refused to play for the poor. His passion for gold appeared to augment as the time drew near when he would have to leave the treasure acquired by his skilful bow and amassed by his avarice.

At Nice he lived poorly and meanly; though a millionaire, his table was really insufficiently provided - a strange peculiarity in an artist; indeed, it would seem that avarice should not find a place in these richly endowed natures, where prodigality and disinterestedness are met with. However, Paganini was not the only phenomenon of this class; it is well known that Rembrandt was also governed by this sordid passion. Examples are given which show that the great painter pushed this mania to indelicacy of the worst kind, which certainly was not the case with the great Genoese. But these two grand artists possessed many traits in common.

It may be said that Paganini died under arms, that is to say, violin in hand. Only a week before the event, he taught M. de Cessole to finger a concerto passage. He had requested him to procure the duetts of Viotti, that they might play them together. Alas! they arrived too late.

III.

For three days Paganini had kept his bed, and was becoming weaker, though without suffering; and on the 27th May, 1840, he expired peaceably, at five o'clock in the evening, just as he had commenced his dinner. He showed a strength of mind to the last worthy of a greater nature. He was never heard to complain, nor to express a regret. Of what illness did he die? He did not cough, he only suffered at intervals, and yet he faded gently away, devoured by some hidden disease. The doctors called it consumption; it may be so, but those who are in the secret of the lives of great artists would tell you that he died of his genius. Work, long sleepless nights, ambition, the emotions of success, the anxieties for the future which sometimes so cruelly follow the previous popularity, all this would alone have been sufficient to ruin so nervous and delicate an organisation. But what crowned the trouble was the idol which had taken possession of his soul, the sacred fire of which I just now spoke. The public in listening to his most delicious notes only thought of the marvellous mechanism they had before them, they only saw the agile fingers and the skilful arm which directed the bow; they knew nothing of the deep emotions which agitated the slender body when his docile instrument so well translated his thoughts in impassioned accents. Only those who studied the face of the illustrious Genoese when he executed some melancholy chant or an andante of Mozart, divined the presence of the implacable enemy which was preying upon this gifted being.

The life of Paganini had, for the outside world, been surrounded by mystery, and almost marked, as he was physically, with the seal of fatality. His death did not give the lie to his antecedents. Living, he was unlike any one else; and dead, he was no less exceptional. A priest declared that Paganini had refused the last sacraments, which was an error: the sick man, brusquely pressed to confess himself, had replied that he did not believe he was so near death as to require the consolations of the Church, and that when the time came he would not neglect the solemn duty. Besides this, he experienced so much difficulty in speaking as to be unable to make

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He deferred it, and the

himself clearly understood by a confessor. priest believed it to be from a fixed determination to repulse him. For this reason he was refused Christian burial; the bells even were silent when the soul of the great artist solicited the funereal knell. The Count de Cessole and the artist's heir insisted; the Count de Maistre, Governor of the province and a fervent Catholic, joined his entreaties to those of the son and friends of the defunct; the King, Charles Albert, himself wrote confidentially to the bishop advising him to avoid a scandal, but the prelate remained inflexible. Foreseeing a long struggle, the body was embalmed and placed on an estrade, dressed up in a wonderful fashion, with monstrous collars, a huge white cravat, and a cotton cap decorated with a blue ribbon and tied on the side in a large bow. The doors of the funereal chamber were then thrown open, and the curious came from all parts to view the remains of the illustrious man. A few days later a coffin took the place of the estrade; but the number of visitors was still considerable, and all wanted to see the body itself. To satisfy their wishes a small opening was cut in the coffin above the face and a pane of glass inserted, through which the features of the dead could be seen. But the clergy of Nice were outraged that a man who, as they asserted, had died in impenitence, and whose remains were anathematised by the Church, should be the object of so much respectful homage, and they obtained an order from the Government to have the triumphant body removed. A lawsuit was then commenced, and it became necessary to provide some place where the defunct could await judgment.

IV.

Villafranca, the military post of Nice, is now quite a considerable town, with streets so picturesque that almost at every step one sees something worthy of a painter's brush. The road leading to St. Jean, on the other side of the gulf, passes below the little town, and leaves it on the right to follow the windings of the hills which bind the port on the northern side; it winds amidst immense olive, huge carob, and vigorous lemon trees. There is no richer vegetation in the environs of Nice. The white walls of farms and luxurious dwellings glisten through the foliage which protects them from the burning heat of the summer sun. Below them, and sometimes at considerable depth, shimmer the limpid waves of the deep blue sea. All the slopes are covered with a shady verdure; and the eye, as it pierces the dark arches formed by the overhanging boughs, discovers innumerable charming perspectives. If you pause about the middle of the horseshoe which is formed by the further end of the port, choose an opening between two tufts of orange-trees and your astonished eyes will behold a picture which is not to be excelled. You will see the gulf in its whole length, and can trace the graceful windings of this miniature Bosphorus. You will observe Villafranca almost in profile; a little beyond it the buildings of the Marine Arsenal and of the LazaIf your eye follows the left line, it will rest at the extremity upon the lighthouse, the elegant tower of which rises straight and bold upon its solitary rock. If you move a little to the side, you will per

retto.

ceive the point of Saint Hospice, crowned by its old round tower and pretty little church.

For my part, I think it would be difficult to see even in a picture a more exquisite landscape. It was to the Lazaretto that the body of Paganini was taken at night with a military escort, as though they feared a rescue; and then he was left alone in the sombre little building, deposited there like something pestiferous, or like suspected merchandise. The lighthouse of Villafranca throws its bright rays upon his coffin at stated intervals, the tempest howls around him, the waters murmur gently as though they would soothe his eternal sleep. There he lies, the powerful magician who electrified crowds with his enchanting bow, and excited as much admiration among men as the hero of a thousand victories. He lived for the multitude, and he sleeps in a desert; he possessed the secret of angelic music, and he is refused a De Profundis.

However, the lawsuit went on, and the accusers showed a zeal of which the following is a specimen :

"He refused the last sacraments," said the bishop.

"He did not refuse them," replied the defence; "he merely put them off, and death overtook him. He was so good a Catholic, and so firm was his 'intention of dying in the sacraments of the Church, that he had commissioned a lawyer, who was one of his friends, to purchase a small slate for him, upon which he purposed writing his confession, the faculty of speech being denied him, and effacing it as soon as the priest should have read it."

"His habits were licentious," said the curé of the cathedral; "for with my own eyes I saw in his saloon a picture of so abominable a character that the mere recollection of it makes me shudder."

"Had you entered the chamber of the sick man," was the reply, "you would have seen the Virgin of Raphael and a repentant Magdalene. These prints, however, belonged to the proprietor of the house, for Paganini occupied a furnished lodging."

"Could a musician, could an artist, be a good Christian and good Catholic?"

"What a question! Paganini was a member of the brotherhood of the White Penitents of Genoa. He refused to marry an Englishwoman because she was a Protestant and would not become a Catholic. Morning and evening he inquired if his son had said his prayers. Up to his last hour he always wore a medal of the Virgin and Saviour hanging around his neck. Open his coffin, draw aside. the funereal garments, and you will see the pious emblems still on his breast.'

The end of it was that the inquiry proved that the deceased had been not only a good Christian, but an excellent Catholic. All in vain, however. He might have been a saint, and the Bishop of Nice would still have condemned him to the Lazaretto of Villafranca.

While this suit was pending, a Jewish dealer in curiosities came and proposed to the Count de Cessole to sell him the body, to be exhibited in England. He was disposed to do things handsomely, and offered 30,000 francs for the mummy of Villafranca. Thus no kind of originality was wanting for Paganini; refused by the priests

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