It was not only by his almost constant indisposition that Paganini expiated his glory and his success, for the malignity of his enemies pursued him for more than fifteen years with calumnious imputations, which everywhere left their traces, and compromised his honour. Crime was even imputed to him. The versions varied, as regards the deeds laid to his charge; according to one, his liaisons, unworthy of his talent, led him in his youth to the commission of highway robbery; others attributed to him a maddening and vindictive jealousy in love affairs, which frequently brought him to the verge of murder. Now his mistress, now his rival, had fallen victims to his irrepressible fury. It was even said, a long incarceration in prison had expiated his crime. The long intervals which took place between his concerts, either for the re-establishment of his health or for repose and meditation, favoured these calumnious reports. The qualities even of his talent were but weapons for his enemies, and it was said that the solitude of a prison, and the impossibility of replacing the strings of his Violin which had broken, led to his marvellous performance on the fourth, the only one that remained upon his instrument. When Paganini visited Germany, France, and England, envy pursued him, greedy of collecting odious calumny, to oppose his success, as if it were decreed that genius and talent should ever expiate the advantages which nature and study had endowed them with. Paganini was frequently driven to defend himself in the columns of the press; vainly had he appealed to the testimony of the ambassadors of the foreign powers; vainly did he call upon his enemies to cite, with precision, the facts and dates which they had vaguely propagated; but no advantageous results were derived from this. Paris, especially, was hostile to him, although that city contributed principally to his fame. Apart from the real public, who entertain neither hatred nor prejudice, and who yield to the pleasure which talent provides for them, there is, in that city, a hunger-starved population, which exists on the ill it does and the good it prevents. This contemptible world speculated upon the celebrity of the artist, and persuaded itself that he would purchase their silence. Lithographic prints presented him a prisoner; journals attacked his morals, his humanity, his integrity. These reiterated attacks--this pillory to which he saw himself attached, as actor and as spectator--affected him deeply. He confided his sorrows to me, and took counsel from me, satisfying me perfectly of their unjust malice. I requested him to furnish me with some notes to enable me to write a letter, which I published with his signature, and was copied into most of the Paris journals. The facts, related in that letter, possess so much interest for the history of the most extraordinary man of our age, that I deem it important to give it a place here. I conceive it, besides, a duty to