"This accident of nature was a cruel horoscope. Thirty years afterward poor Gretry saw three other flowers alike fated, fade and fall under the wintry wind of death. He had forgotten the name of the flowers of the Roman convent, but in dying he still repeated the names of the others. They were his three daughters, Jenny, Lucile, and Antoinette. 'Ah!' exclaimed the poor musician, in relating the death of his three daughters, 'I have violated the laws of nature to obtain genius. I have watered with my blood the most frivolous of my operas, I have nourished my old mother, I have seized on reputation by exhausting my heart and my soul; Nature has avenged herself on my children! My poor children, I foredoomed them to death!' "Gretry's daughters all died at the age of sixteen. There is something strange in their life and in their death, which strikes the dreamer and the poet. This sport of destiny, this freak of death, this vengeance of Nature, appears here invested with all the charms of romance. You will see. "Jenny had the pale, sweet countenance of a virgin. On seeing her, Greuze said one day, 'If I ever paint Purity, I shall paint Jenny.' 'Make haste!' murmured Gretry, already a prey to sad presentiments. 'Then she is going to be married?' said Greuze. Gretry did not answer. Soon, however, seeking to blind himself, he continued: 'She will be the staff of my old age; like Antigone, she will lead her father into the sun at the decline of life.' "The next day Gretry came unexpectedly upon Jenny, looking more pale and depressed than ever. She was playing on the harpischord, but sweetly and slowly. As she was playing an air from _Richard Coeur-de-Lion_, in a melancholy strain, the poor father fancied that he was listening to the music of angels. One of her friends entered. 'Well, Jenny, you are going to-night to the ball?' 'Yes, yes, to the ball,' answered poor Jenny, looking toward heaven; and suddenly resuming, 'No, I shall not go, my dance is ended.' Gretry pressed his daughter to his heart, 'Jenny, are you suffering?' 'It is over!' said she. "She bent her head and died instantly, without a struggle! Poor Gretry asked if she was asleep. She slept with the angels.