“Now come! That’s something like the truth. You have no money; what business is that of mine, oh mightiest of scamps?” “I’m no scamp. If you call me a scamp because I have no money, you are right, but if it is because I was two years at Civita Vecchia, you are wrong. I wasn’t sent to the galleys for stealing, but just for good honest shots at strangers in the mountains.” It was all nonsense, of course, I don’t believe he ever shot so much as a monk. However, he was hurt in his feelings and would only accept three piastres, a shirt and a neckerchief. The poor fellow was killed two years ago in a brawl. Shall I meet him in a better world? * * * * * In the miserable oblivion and dishonour into which music has sunk in Rome I found but one small sign of honest life. It was among the pfifferari, players of a little popular instrument, a surviving relic of antiquity. They were strolling musicians who, at Christmastide, came down from the mountains in groups of four or five armed with bagpipes and _pfifferi_, a kind of oboe, to play before the images of the Virgin. I used to spend hours in watching them, there was something so quaintly mysterious in their wild aspect as they stood--head slightly turned over one shoulder, their bright dark eyes fixed devoutly on the holy figure, almost as still as the image itself. At a distance the effect is indescribable and few escape its spell. When I heard it in its native haunts, among the volcanic rocks and dark pine forests of the Abruzzi, I could almost believe myself transported back through the ages to the days of Evander, the Arcadian. Of this time, musically, I have little to tell. I wrote a long and incoherent overture to _Rob Roy_, which I burnt immediately after its performance in Paris; the _Scène aux Champs_ of the _Symphonie Fantastique_, which I rewrote entirely in the Borghese gardens; the _Chant de Bonheur_ for _Lelio_, and lastly a little song called _La Captive_, inspired by Victor Hugo’s lovely poem. One day I was at Subiaco with Lefebvre, the architect. As he drew, he knocked over a book with his elbow; it was _Les Orientales_. I picked it up and it opened at that particular page. Turning to Lefebvre I said: “If I had any paper I would write music to this exquisite poem; I can _hear it_.” “That is soon done,” said he, and he ruled a sheet whereon I wrote my song. A fortnight later I remembered it and shewed it to Mademoiselle Vernet, saying: “I wish you would try this, for I have quite forgotten what it is like.” I scribbled a piano accompaniment, and it took so well that, by the end of the month, M. Vernet, driven nearly mad by its reiteration, said: