The year 1842 was an important date in Berlioz’s career. From that time his life was a divided one. Misunderstood in his own country, disheartened by his unsuccessful attempts to win the heart of the great public, inconsolable for the failure of _Benvenuto_ which closed to him forever the doors of the Academy of Music, he resolved to undertake an artistic tour through Europe, and began with Belgium in the latter part of the year 1842. He met with rather more success there than in France, though he was still the subject of heated discussion. He took with him a decidedly mediocre singer, Mademoiselle Martin Recio, who had made a failure at the Opéra, and had managed to attach herself to him. He married her later, soon after the death of Miss Smithson, from whom he had been separated; but he was no happier in his second marriage than in his first; his first wife drank, his second made unjustifiable pretensions as a singer, which always exasperated him. After this little excursion to Belgium, Berlioz determined to try his fortune in Germany, where already some of his works had found their way; from this time onward, his life was nothing more than a series of journeys through France and foreign countries. His first grand tour was through northern Germany. At Leipsic he saw Mendelssohn, whom he met on the best of terms, forgetting all about their youthful quarrels; at Dresden he inspired an equal devotion on the part of Richard Wagner, who received him as a brother and treated him as a master; at Berlin he was no less warmly welcomed by Meyerbeer, who recruited the necessary artists for him and enabled him to direct a part of his _Requiem_.