work on which he built his supreme hope of success in France, his tragedy of _Les Troyens_. Since 1856 he had been invited every year to Baden by Bénazet, contractor for the gaming tables, to organize grand concerts for the benefit of the visitors. Thus when the king of Baden, as Bénazet was called, concluded to build a new entertainment hall, it occurred to him at once that it would be a fine idea to get Berlioz to write something for its inauguration, and the latter, from the first mention of the subject, felt a reawakening of the desire which had been haunting him for thirty years, to write a comic opera, at once sentimental and gay, on certain scenes arranged by himself after Shakespeare’s comedy _Much Ado About Nothing_. He acquitted himself of this agreeable task by fits and starts; the performance of the work at Baden took place three days sooner than he hoped, and the success was great enough with that cosmopolitan audience, in which the French predominated, to find an immediate echo at Paris. The following year Mesdames Viardot and Vendenheuvel-Duprez sang the delicious nocturne which closes the first act. For an instant Berlioz indulged in the hope that they were going to play his bit of comedy at the Opéra Comique, and in this fond hope he wrote two more things and had them engraved; but he was soon obliged to recognize that it would be impossible with such a director as Emile Perrin, and so thought no more about it. Besides, he was entirely occupied with his dear _Troyens_ and the production of this beloved work absorbed his every thought. In 1857 he was all in the heat of the composition; he talked about his antique tragedy to M. Bennett, to Auguste Morel, to Hans von Bülow; in default of the music he read his poem at the salons, sometimes at M. Edouard Bertin’s house, sometimes at his own, and everywhere he received the warmest congratulations. At a soirée at the Tuileries, the Empress spoke to him at length in regard to it, and immediately he proposed to read his poems to the sovereigns if the Emperor could find an hour to give him, but not until three acts were completed, so that they might order the immediate study of it at the Opéra. Alas, the Emperor, unlearned in matters of music, did not respond favorably to Berlioz’s demands; he took no notice of his poem, and did not give the longed-for order to mount _Les Troyens_ at the _Opéra_. But while Berlioz was chafing with impatience at seeing _La Favorite_ and _Lucie_, translated by Alphonse Royer, played over and over again, and Halévy’s _La Magicienne_ and Félicien David’s _Herculanum_ pass him by, the Emperor, through the solicitations of the princess Metternich, opened the doors of the _Opéra_ to Richard Wagner, and decreed that his _Tannhäuser_ should be given with great pomp and magnificence.