Nowadays, although a person of power, the great singer has not the field so entirely to himself as to be able to dictate as to what he will or will not do: a certain tenor, for example, at Marseilles early in 1905 withdrew his promise to sing at a certain concert for the reason that a rival tenor had been engaged. Great was his amazement to find that this refusal by no means jeopardized the concert, as he had hoped, but rather became an additional source of amusement; for the management, having advertised him, determined that he should be seen upon the stage, and a ridiculous effigy of him was brought forward, and a trio from _Faust_ sung by other singers grouped round it. This may not have been very dignified, or even witty, but a few drastic measures of this kind might induce singers to be a little more reasonable in their treatment of the public. Strange measures are sometimes taken to prevent the success of an opera: a hired body of fellows to hiss in opposition to the organized claque is by no means a rare sight in a French house; but sometimes more militant measures are taken. Rousseau’s _Le Devin du Village_, for example, received its _coup de grace_ from the fact that in 1828 some person (supposed to have been Berlioz) threw a huge powdered wig on to the stage in the midst of the performance. So bad was the opposition to Jomelli’s _Armida_, produced in 1750, that its composer flew the house for his life by a back door. The opposition to _Lohengrin_ in Paris has already been commented upon, but that to _Tannhäuser_, organized by the Jockey Club in 1866, was even stronger: noise and disorder filled the theatre; people in the pit played flageolets, while the gallery sang riotous songs. So prejudiced was public opinion that a fair hearing was not accorded to the work. Under these conditions it is not altogether incredible that Merimée should have exclaimed that he could write similar music after hearing his cat walk up and down the pianoforte!