This Prince d'Hennin was a favourite butt for the wit of the vivacious Count de Lauragais, who, as the reader, perhaps, remembers, was one of Sophie Arnould's earliest and most devoted admirers. One day when the interesting Sophie was unwell, the Count asked her physician whether it was not especially necessary to think of her spirits, and to keep away everything that might tend to have a depressing effect upon them. The doctor answered the Count's sagacious question in the affirmative. [Sidenote: THE PRINCE D'HENNIN.] "Above all," continued De Lauragais, "do you not consider it of the greatest importance that the Prince d'Hennin should not be allowed to visit her?" The physician admitted that it would be as well she should not see the prince; but De Lauragais was not satisfied with this, and he at last persuaded the obliging doctor to put his opinion in the form of a direct recommendation. In other words, he made him write a prescription for Mdlle. Arnould, forbidding her to have any conversation with the Prince d'Hennin. This prescription he sent to the prince's house, with a letter calling his particular attention to it, and entreating him, for the sake of Mdlle. Arnould's health, not to forget the injunction it contained. The consequence was a duel, which, however, was attended with no bad results, for, in the evening, the insultor and the insulted met at Sophie Arnould's house. It now became the fashion at the Court to attend the rehearsals of _Orpheus_, which took place once more in the theatre. On these occasions, the doors were besieged long before the performance commenced; and numbers of persons were unable to gain admission. To see Gluck at a rehearsal was infinitely more interesting than to see him at one of the ordinary public representations. The composer had certain habits; and from these he would not depart for any one. Thus, on entering the orchestra, he would take his coat off to conduct at ease in his shirt sleeves. Then he would remove his wig, and replace it by a cotton night-cap of the remotest fashion. When the rehearsal was at an end, he had no necessity to trouble himself about the articles of dress which he had laid aside, for there was a general contest between the dukes and princes of the Court as to who should hand them to him. _Orpheus_ is said to have been quite as successful as _Iphigenia_. One thing, however, which sometimes makes me doubt the completeness of this success, in a musical point of view, is the recorded fact, that "_the ballet_, especially, was very fine." The _ballet_ is certainly not the first thing we think of in _William Tell_, or even in _Robert_. It appears that Gluck himself objected positively to the introduction of dancing into the opera of _Orpheus_. He held, and with evident reason, that it would interfere with the seriousness and pathos of the general action, and would, in short, spoil the piece. He was overruled by the