The three years' stay in Paris did Wagner no particular harm that I have been able to trace beyond implanting in him that deadly fear of being hard up which haunted him all his life thenceforward, and is an offensive and yet pathetic feature of his letters to all his friends. On the other hand, he heard opera performances on a scale outside and beyond his past experience; he heard Habenek direct the Choral Symphony at the Conservatoire, and learnt much, not only about that mighty work--which he must already have known by heart--but also of the art of conducting; he finished _Rienzi_ and sent it off to Dresden, where it was accepted; and he planned and completed _The Flying Dutchman_, which was accepted for production at Berlin. He had also written the _Faust_ Overture in its first form. And probably also he had acquired that almost fatal fluency of the pen which was to make so many enemies for him afterwards, and yet to lead to the realization of his life's dream in Bayreuth. A bare list of the names of the friends and opponents he gained at this time would take up more space than is available in so brief a study as this, and I must pass over many interesting incidents. The most important is that connected with _The Flying Dutchman_ libretto. Wagner submitted his sketches to the opera, where they were placed at the disposal of another composer, and he was offered (I think) £20 or nothing for them. He took the £20, and then, his artistic conscience happily triumphing over his commercial conscience, he used the money to live upon until he had completed his own opera on the same subject. The French _Dutchman_ (music by Dietsch) was produced. It failed and is forgotten. How Wagner's fared all the world knows.