HKB
literally sang herself to death. Her loss was mourned most of all in France, where her death has been commemorated by Alfred de Musset's beautiful threnody ending with the lines:
Die, then. Thy death is sweet, thy goal is won; What is called genius by men here below Is the great cry for Love; all else is but show; And since, soon or late, human love is undone, It is for great hearts and great voices like thine To die as thou didst--for Love all-divine.
[Sidenote: Meyerbeer's "Huguenots"]
[Sidenote: Gounod]
[Sidenote: Chopin]
[Sidenote: Liszt]
[Sidenote: Georges Sand]
[Sidenote: Death of Ampere]
In France, great strides had been made in music, art and literature. Giacomo Meyerbeer, whose real name was Jacob Beer, surpassed the success of his "Robert le Diable" with his greatest opera "Les Huguenots," produced on February 20, at the Paris Opera House. The success of this masterpiece so disheartened Rossini that he resolved to write no more operas, and withdrew to Bologna. Charles Francois Gounod, on the other hand, now began his musical career by entering the Paris Conservatory. Frederick Chopin, the Polish composer, at this time was at the height of his vogue as the most recherche pianist of Paris. He was the favorite of a circle of friends consisting of Meyerbeer, Bellini, Berlioz, Liszt, Balzac, and Heine. It was during this year that Liszt introduced Chopin to Madame Dudevant, better known as Georges Sand, the famous French novelist. Their attachment was the talk of Paris. Andre Marie Ampere, the noted French mathematician and physicist, died during this year at sixty-one years of age. He was the inventor of the electrical unit of measure which bears his name.
[Sidenote: Thiers Prime Minister]
[Sidenote: Algerian reverses]
[Sidenote: Thiers resigns]
[Sidenote: Fiasco of Strasburg]
[Sidenote: Louis Napoleon exiled]
[Sidenote: Amnesty acts]