Still the theatrical scandal-mongers did not hesitate for a moment to declare that the two queens of the lyrical stage were devoured by mutual envy and jealousy, and they thought there could not be a doubt of it, from a circumstance which occurred the night Madlle. Sontag sang the _Barbiere_ for the first time since her return. Rossini came in the interval betwixt the acts to tell the Rosina of the night, at that moment surrounded by a crowd of admirers, that he had left Malibran in tears in her box, in despair at ever attaining such a purity of tone and such a perfection of execution as she had displayed. This was a sincere tribute of admiration, and not of envy, on the part of that lamented vocalist; whose real character, being impressed with the eccentricity which too often besets genius, few could understand, and whose warmth of heart and imagination made her too often the victim of cold-blooded worldliness. The truth is, that on her arrival in Paris, Malibran received her fair colleague with open arms. Their meeting produced friendly emulation, instead of hostile pique and rivalry, and the two incomparable singers agreed to perform, in turn, the same operas. Thus did they enact, on alternate nights, Desdemona, Rosina, Cenerentola, &c., whilst they performed together such operas as _Tancredi_, &c. This was the most glorious--the culminating epoch of the _Italiens_ in Paris. On one occasion, _Don Giovanni_ was given; Madlle. Sontag performing Donna Anna (perhaps the greatest of her triumphs); Malibran, Zerlina; and Heinfetter, Elvira. On this, one of the coldest nights on record, amongst the most stirring, elbowing their way from without, in the rush of the eager aspirants to seats in the house, were observed at the same time, Rossini, Cherubini, Paer, Meyerbeer, and Auber! Well might the journals of the day observe, that no better criterion was needed of the merits of the performers. No doubt each great _maestro_ went there revolving in his mind how such voices might be turned to account in his next composition; for then even the authors of _Masaniello_ and the _Philtre_, of _Il Crociato_ and _Robert le Diable_, had not adopted that style of overwrought harmony, of clamorous choral, and of deafening instrumental combination, from which all pure voices of such quality shrink--despairing to find melodic phrases to be uttered without contention with ophicleides and double-drum. Such was the sisterly love and confidence which existed betwixt the two marvellous vocalists, then engaged at the _Italiens_, and which is so powerfully recorded in the letters of the lamented Malibran, that the latter was, for a time, in 1828, the only depositary of Sontag's secret, that amongst the crowd of sighing and adoring swains who followed her respectfully at a distance, tendering their offers of marriage, there was one on whom she had bestowed her heart, and was about to bestow her hand.