Though generous and obliging, his pride was deeply hurt by these hostilities, and he could not conceal deep irritation at the cavillings of his enemies, to which he gave a sharp retort. He had caused to be suppressed a pamphlet in which Rellstab had accused him of withholding from the stage, or else playing with an evident intention of ruining them, the works of composers whom he had reason to fear; he had brought about Rellstab's arrest and detention for several months for a spiteful article in which the critic expressed doubt that the composer of "Nurmahal," "Alcidor," and "Agnes" was the same as the composer of "La Vestale" and "Cortez." But Rellstab responded with violent satires published at Mayence, in which Spontini, without being named, was easily recognizable by his personal peculiarities of manner and speech, which were cleverly depicted. Finally, as the natural result of Rellstab's imprisonment, the entire party of which he was the mouthpiece redoubled its spiteful attacks against Spontini. Thenceforth the latter, feeling himself more and more an object of attack, began to cherish the project of returning to France. His absence had calmed all the jealousies which his colossal self-love had excited against him, and in one of the long vacations which he spent in Italy or France during his twenty years' service in Prussia, there had been talk of his writing for the Paris _Opéra_ a grand work, "Les Athéniennes," in place of the opera "Louis IX.," which Louis XVIII. had previously wished him to compose, and the first ideas of which he had put on paper. At length, in 1838, the Académie des Beaux Arts nominated him, unhesitatingly, in Paër's place, provided he would return and settle in Paris. His protector, King Frederick William III., died in August, 1840; but even if this event had not taken place, Spontini would not have accepted a third engagement of ten years with the royal house of Prussia. The new king would have preferred to retain him, but the disgust which Spontini felt at the open hostility of the intendant of the royal theatre, and also the promise which he had made to his colleagues of the Institute of France, decided him to refuse these overtures. He left Berlin in July, 1842, under conditions very painful to his self-love, but advantageous to his purse, since the king provided that he should retain all his honorary titles and receive an annual pension of about $3,200.