Lablache was originally a double-bass player, and his first appearance in opera as a singer came about through a happy chance. A celebrated vocalist was suddenly indisposed just before the performance one night, and Lablache was induced to take his place and attempt the _rôle_. His rendering of the character was entirely successful, and he abandoned his old career for this new one. A few months afterwards Weber, who had known his massive figure in the orchestra, heard him sing in opera. After listening to the enormous voice and magnificent basso notes, the composer exclaimed, "Mein Gott! he is still a double-bass." The size of Lablache's voice aroused the emulation of Garcia, who, as his sister Mme. Viardot puts it, proceeded to play the part of the frog that wanted to make itself as big as a bull. In trying to imitate this Gulliver of _bassi_ he undoubtedly did further injury to his voice, which had already been much overstrained by the hard usage it had received in Mexico. When, therefore, about the beginning of 1829, he made a public appearance at Naples, as his parents had persuaded him to do, he did not come through the ordeal with much success. "Il débuta à Naples, je crois," says Mme. Viardot, "et il eût ce qu'il désirait, un four noir." The next day Manuel collected copies of the newspaper critiques, which were unanimous in recommending him to tempt Fate no more on the stage, but to abandon the lyric career for which he was unfitted. These articles he dispatched to his father with a letter in which he wrote: "You see from these notices that I can never hope to become an operatic artiste." ("Je ne puis être artiste.") "From now onward I am going to devote myself to the occupation which I love, and for which I believe I was born." With this letter he definitely abandoned the operatic calling. He then made his way back to France, and there joined his parents, who had arrived from Mexico in the late autumn of 1828. During the period of the elder Garcia's stay in Mexico, political events occurred which were the very reverse of propitious to any musical venture. In 1828 the candidates for the Presidency were Generals Pedraza and Guerrero. On the election of the former the opposite party took up arms, and a bloody contest ensued, which terminated in the downfall of Pedraza's Government and in his flight from the country on January 4, 1829. The months which followed were full of turmoil, and at last in March it became necessary for all Spaniards to leave. Owing to this state of affairs the elder Garcia, after some eighteen months of hard work and considerable financial success, was obliged to bring his Mexican season to a hasty conclusion. He accordingly prepared at once to journey to the coast with the £6000 which he had made during his stay in America.