Hebbel's departure for Paris, in September, 1843, did not mean for him what Heine's settlement there twelve years before had meant for Heine--the beginning of a new life. Hebbel's knowledge of French was very imperfect, and he was as much isolated in Paris as he had been in Munich; he did not seek stimulus from without so much as freedom to develop the ideas that were teeming in his mind. When he left Hamburg, however, he was destined never to return thither except as a visitor, and started on the long, roundabout way to an unforeseen new home in Vienna. He had been but little over a month in Paris when he learned of the death of the little son that Elise had borne him three years before. He was deeply grieved both for himself and for the despairing mother, to whom he offered all the comfort he could give, not excepting marriage, as soon as he should ever be able to provide for her. In May, 1844, Elise bore him another son who, dying in 1847, was never seen by his father. Hebbel did not forget what he owed to the mother of his children, but he felt the debt more and more as an obligation, in the fulfilment of which there was no prospect of satisfaction to either. Despite the fact that she had a hundred times declared to him that he was free, all her dreaming and planning tended solely to keep him bound. He, who had been her pupil, had now far outgrown her capacity to understand his endeavors and achievements; and he felt that he could sacrifice much for her, but not himself, his personality, and his mission. And so the unwholesome relation wore on, with aggravating burdensomeness, to the inevitable crisis. In the fall of 1844 Hebbel journeyed from Paris to Rome. He had met few notables in Paris--Heine, Felix Bamberg, and Arnold Ruge almost complete the tale--but in Italy he, like Goethe, made the acquaintance of a group of German artists, and followed their leadership in the study of ancient art. He enjoyed this study in natural, unaffected appreciation of the beautiful; and a certain artistic polish distinguishes the poems which nature and art in Italy inspired him to write. The Italian journey, however, was far from being a renaissance to him as it had been to Goethe. Hebbel remained a Northern artist. Vesuvius impressed him, but Pompeii proved a disappointment; it was laid out, he said, like any other city. He departed from Rome in October, 1845, richer in the friendship of distinguished men--including Hermann Hettner--and in accumulated experience, but not as one to whom the _Ponte Molle_ is a bridge of sighs.