As regards the accusations of violence, strictness, and tyranny which were brought against him, Madame Viardot asserts that he was much calumniated both as a father and as a man. "How often," she says, "have I heard my sister Maria remark, 'Si mon père n'avait pas été si sévère avec moi, je n'aurais rien fait de bon; j'étais paresseuse et indocile.' As for myself," she adds, "I never saw my father lose his patience with me while he taught me the solfège, music and singing." When Manuel Garcia returned to France after his _début_ at Naples, he did not immediately begin teaching at the vocal conservatoire which his father had started. His predilections had always been scientific, and he was passionately fond of all such studies, but specially of anatomy and all that had to do with the human body. On his arrival he was suddenly seized with an idea that he would prefer a seafaring life, and without thinking the matter over twice he resolved to become an officer in the French mercantile marine. With this object in view he began the study of astronomy and navigation, and pursued the work with so much diligence that he obtained a post on a ship. He was, in fact, on the point of going on board to take up this new career when his mother and sisters besought him with tears and supplications to relinquish his intentions. So ardently did they implore him, that when actually starting he was overcome with emotion and gave way to their entreaties. Upon this he settled down with his parents in the Rue des Trois Frères in Montmartre, and was of great assistance in helping the elder Garcia to give lessons at the vocal conservatoire. The hall porter of their house was no less a person than the father of Henry Mürger! Manuel often used to catch up the boy Henry in his arms and kiss him as he ran about the passages. "Little Mürger was a most charming child," recalls Mme. Viardot, "full of fun and the pet of the house. At that time he was winning prizes at school, and used to arrive home with his arms full of them. Perhaps he was rather ashamed of his origin, for in the day of his success he never came to see us. We should have been so happy if he had." And what a day of success it was! After having commenced as a notary's clerk, he gave himself to literature, and led the life of privation and adventure described in his first and best novel, 'Scènes de la Vie de Bohème,' published in the year when Manuel Garcia was celebrating his fortieth birthday. During Mürger's later years his popularity was secure and every journal open to him, but he wrote slowly and fitfully in the intervals of dissipation, and died in a Paris hospital over forty-five years ago. Unhappily Manuel with his nature found, on settling down in Paris with his parents, that the somewhat overbearing manner of his father was difficult to get on with, considering that he himself was now twenty-five years of age.