“Das Liebesverbot” was accepted by Jolly, director of the Renaissance Theatre, which went into bankruptcy before the work was rehearsed. Wagner wrote “A Faust Overture,” which also failed to come to a performance, and other attempts were fruitless. He was now reduced to arranging music for a publisher, and contributing to a musical journal. He wrote at this time some charming songs and his notable article, “A Pilgrimage to Beethoven,” and he worked hard at his “Rienzi.” An overture, “Columbus,” was played, but was not liked. He tried to get a position as a chorus singer at a small theatre, but was rejected. In “the last stage of his misery,” Meyerbeer arrived, and Leon Pillet, under his influence, allowed Wagner to have hopes of preparing a work for the Grand Opéra. He wrote a sketch of the book of “Der Fliegende Holländer” (“The Flying Dutchman”), and to his disgust, Pillet proposed to buy it of him and have some one else write the music. Finally, reserving the German rights, he did sell the sketch to Pillet for five hundred francs. Then he wrote the libretto and began to compose his own fine music. He had not composed for so long a time that he doubted his powers. “As soon as the piano had arrived,” he writes, “my heart beat fast for very fear; I dreaded to discover that I had ceased to be a musician. I began first with the ‘Sailors’ Chorus’ and the ‘Spinning Song’; everything sped along as though on wings, and I shouted for joy as I felt within me that I still was a musician.” His sketch, sold to Pillet, was made into a French opera under the title of “Le Vaisseau Fantôme,” music by Dietsch, and failed signally. Wagner, taking no thought for the future, but working according to his own artistic impulses, completed his own version in seven weeks, and began to develop the system which was to remodel opera. In the mean time “Rienzi” had been accepted by the Dresden Court Theatre, and early in 1842 the “Holländer” was accepted. “As regards Paris itself,” he writes, “I was completely without prospects for several years; I therefore left it in the spring of 1842. For the first time I saw the Rhine; with hot tears in my eyes, I, poor artist, swore eternal fidelity to my German fatherland.” [Illustration: LUDWIG GEYER. Reproduction of a portrait painted by himself. Original now in possession of the Brockhaus family in Leipsic. ]