In _The Memoirs of Malibran_, by the Countess de Merlin, is the emphatic statement that out of respect to the wishes of M. de Beriot, the husband of Malibran, no posthumous sketch or cast of her face of any kind was taken. M. Edmond Cottinet, however, in a private note to Mrs. Clara Bell, wrote: “When Madame Malibran died I was very young, but I remember distinctly hearing my mother told that de Beriot, the husband of her friend, had taken her mask, and that it had helped him to execute the crowned bust of the great singer which now decorates the private cabinet of her son. His bust, nevertheless, is not a good likeness, nor is it agreeable. But it is a touching proof of the love of the widower. Is it not wonderful that simply by the force of this love a musician should have been transformed into a sculptor? This was M. de Beriot’s only work in this line of art.” Later, M. Cottinet, having seen a photograph of the mask, added: “It is she! The first moment I saw it I recognized it, with feelings of profound emotion and tender pity. It is she, with her slightly African type, containing, perhaps, a little negro blood (her father, Garcia, being of Spanish-Moorish descent). It is she as death found her, her face ruined by that terrible fall from her horse.... It is undoubtedly the mask from which her husband made the bust, which did not seem to be as charming as she was. Mr. Hutton may be perfectly satisfied that he possesses an authentic cast.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration: MARIA F. MALIBRAN] ------------------------------------------------------------------------