But there was a surging crowd also in the festively-decorated university hall. All had come in their holiday attire, and joy and profound emotion beamed from all faces. Friends shook hands and greeted each other with radiant eyes; and even those who did not know each other exchanged kindly greetings and pleasant smiles on seating themselves side by side, and looked at each other as though they were friends and acquaintances, and not entire strangers. For all felt the great importance of this hour; all felt themselves Germans, owing to the homage which they were to render to the German maestro and to German music; and all knew that this festival would be looked upon beyond the Rhine as a hostile demonstration of the Germans against French pride and arrogance. They wished to show to France that, although Germany was dismembered, the heart of the Germans throbbed for Germany and German art, and that they did not feel at all alarmed at the grandiloquent threats of the Emperor of the French, but yielded with undisturbed equanimity to the enjoyment of German art. While the threatening words of the Emperor Napoleon were resounding, like ringing war-fanfares, from Paris, the Viennese desired to respond to him by the beautiful notes of sublime music; and, regardless of the growls of the lion beyond the Rhine, they wished to delight in the soul-stirring harmonies of "The Creation." All preparations were now completed. The hall was all ablaze with the wax-lights which were beaming down from those gigantic lustres, and whose rays were reflected in the large mirrors covering the walls. The imperial box was splendidly festooned with rare flowers, and decorated with carpets and gilt candelabra, whose enormous wax- lights filled the interior of the spacious box with broad daylight. Opposite the imperial box, on the other side of the hall, rose the large tribune destined for an orchestra of eighty performers and a choir of one hundred singers. All the latter, too, were in joyous spirits; all were animated to-day, not by the envy and jealousy so often to be found among artistes, but by the one great desire to contribute their share to the homage to be rendered to German art. They did not wish to-day to exhibit themselves and their artistic skill, but desired only to render homage to the music of the great maestro, and to German art. And now the hour was at hand when the concert was to commence. The audience had taken their seats, the orchestra ceased tuning their instruments, the singers were in readiness, and the committee of arrangements had gone down to the street-door to await Haydn's arrival.