"Her _sostenuto_ is firm, clear, and sonorous; the silver tone of her voice unsurpassed; her method excellent. She is daring, and launches at all hazards into a sea of flourishes, the result of which is always successful, particularly as she concludes them, by darting towards the audience one of those glances which have called down in Berlin, as they will in Paris and London, thunders of applause." Thus was Henriette Sontag, during the first period of her fame. From Berlin she came to London, where enthusiasm reached a height hitherto unknown, because it included, as well as admiration, respect for the virtues and conduct of the loveliest woman who had ever trod on the stage. Then she went to Paris, and Paris set its seal upon her artistic reputation, classing her with all who had hitherto stood at the head of artistic celebrity. Yet she had powerful competitors to contend with, for she sang with Malibran and Pisaroni. Here it was her marriage (which she had been compelled to keep secret till the end of her engagement) was declared. Certainly few men have been so envied as Count Rossi, when he was known to be the husband of the world's idol. Society, which was as much attached to the woman as to the artist, seemed to think it an injustice, and felt for the first time inclined to quarrel with the actions of her it had proclaimed faultless in both mind and person. Scribe founded the libretto of the Ambassadress on this marriage, but he little thought he should be prophetic in the catastrophe he put to his opera, as he has been; for Henriette Sontag, like the Henriette in the play, _has_ returned to the stage. The Countess Rossi, though she had no taste for the publicity of the stage, having gone uncorrupted and unscathed through all its glittering temptations, had an innate enthusiasm for her art. The young Countess, therefore, cultivated it as assiduously as the young prima donna; and in Frankfort and in Berlin, where she principally resided, in St. Petersburg, which she visited, her saloon was the resort of all that was renowned in the artistic world. That wondrous voice sang on as admirably as before, following all the progress of musical science, and knowing all the _repertoire_ of the best masters, as their compositions appeared before the world. Her silvery tones now resounded in the halls of palaces; and, instead of a public, she had kings and princes for her guests. Yet she was the same simple-minded and unaffected woman, with a mind pure as in infancy, and a heart beating only with good and tender emotions. Often during these years did she sing for public charities, and her name was sure, as in former days, to fill the coffers of the institution for which she sang. But this bright destiny, which seemed placed beyond the reach of change, and which time seemed to have consolidated, was, during the revolution of 1848, from circumstances of an entirely private nature, completely destroyed.