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_PRICE TWENTY-FIVE CENTS._

THE LIFE OF

HENRIETTE SONTAG,
COUNTESS DE ROSSI.

[Illustration: portrait of Henriette Sontag]

NEW YORK:
STRINGER & TOWNSEND, 222 BROADWAY

1852

Now Ready--Third Edition of "The Heirs of Randolph Abbey." Price 25 cents.
Second Edition of "The Upper Ten Thousand." Price 50 cents.
And Nearly Ready--"The Adventures of Lilly Dawson." Price 25 cents.


"DAGUERREOTYPE VIEWS OF UPPERTENDOM"

THE UPPER TEN THOUSAND:

Sketches of American Society.

By C. ASTOR BRISTED.

SECOND EDITION REVISED.

[Illustration]

With ORIGINAL ILLUSTRATIONS. Price 50 cents in paper; cloth, 75 cents.

Opinions of the Press.

"NEW-YORK LIFE, by a New-Yorker, clever, sparkling, and life-like. A set
of daguerreotypes, in which figure the drawing-rooms of the Avenue and
Union Place--the most noted _salons_ of the town--the butterfly crowds
of the watering-places, and pre-eminently--the Course. The hero of the
book, a modern fast young man, who has in a measure outgrown his
fastness, and looks patronizingly on the aspiring efforts of a very
young New-Yorker, cicerones you about, showing up the lions of town and
country, and all with a cool _blase_ sort of air that is wondrously
telling. With a stroke of the pen he annihilates the huge pretensions of
some _parvenu_ or bestows the final stab on the waning virtue of some
dashing belle. In the same moment giving a pithy _rationale_ of American
Society, and the best _recipe_ for concocting a sherry cobbler;
discussing, in the same breath, the popular theology of the town, and
the winning pacer on the Long Island course. Throughout, quietly
satirical yet seldom exaggerated. Looking at American life and manners
from no distant point, but as one who has been in, and of, and through
it all, pausing now and then to take down a jotting here, put in a bit
of shadow there, making more of life than 'John Timon;' not mere squints
through a _Lorgnette_, but broad, steady stares with the naked eye, with
now and then the help of a quizzing-glass."--_New-York Evening Mirror._

"They are sufficiently sprinkled with local satire, on a ground of a
pervading egotism, to be attractive in a book--in which capacity they
will hold their own with such memorable local effusions as IRVING and
PAULDING'S _Salmagundi_, HALLECK'S _Croakers_, and MITCHELL'S
_Lorgnette_."--_Literary World._

"We are glad to see these brilliant 'Sketches of American Society,'
incorporated into an elegant and portable volume, for they are
unquestionably the most veritable pictures of certain classes of
New-York society that have been written; we do not except even the
equally graphic portraits of 'The Lorgnette.' The great charm of Mr.
Bristed's sketches is the life-like characters he introduces as
illustrations of the varied phases of American society. These sketches
have been read with avidity as they appeared in the serial form, and
will doubtless form an inseparable travelling companion to our tourists
in their present compact shape, for they possess the interest of a
novel, with the piquancy and truthfulness of a personal
narrative."--MORRIS & WILLIS'S _Home Journal_.

"We must say that this little volume contains some true and vivid
sketches of men and manners, and that, notwithstanding its tone of
levity, it has within it a good moral. The moral is applicable in all
highly-civilized communities, and is simply this--when fashion is made
the _exclusive_ rule of life, one may search in vain for a man or woman
worth more than a moment's passing glance. All that is manly and
intelligent in the one sex, all that is feminine and lovely in the
other, gives place to a tasteless coating clumsily laid over a worthless
substance."--_New-York Albion._

"These sketches are lively, and adorned with characters whose types, we
may safely say whose originals, can be found in New-York in any winter,
and in Saratoga and Newport every summer. Mr. BRISTED'S descriptions of
gay life in those places certainly gave the English readers of _Fraser's
Magazine_ a very truthful and amusing picture of the trifling, bustling
existence of the New-Yorker's whose days and nights are passed in the
struggle for social notoriety. The book might better be styled,
_Germanics_ Sketches of the
Ever-striving-to-let-you-see-that-they-the-Upper-Ten-Thousand-are."--_New-York
Courier and Enquirer._

"These sketches contain much truthful sarcasm and quiet stabs at
vulgarism among the 'upper ten,' all under the garb of pictures of
American society in New-York, or 'Sketches of American Society,' as they
were called. Written in a rapid and pleasing style, and by a man who had
few prejudices against the Americans, they may be considered a pretty
fair expose of the ridiculous follies of the American people, while at
the same time their many excellent qualities are placed prominently
before the reader."--_Rough Notes._

Published by STRINGER & TOWNSEND, 222 Broadway, N. Y.

[Illustration: HENRIETTE SONTAG, COUNTESS DE ROSSI.]




LIFE

OF

HENRIETTE SONTAG,

COUNTESS DE ROSSI.

WITH

INTERESTING SKETCHES

BY

SCUDO, HECTOR BERLIOZ, LOUIS BOERNE, ADOLPHE ADAM,
MARIE AYCARD, JULIE DE MARGUERITTE, PRINCE
PUCKLER-MUSKAU, AND THEOPHILE GAUTIER.

NEW YORK:
STRINGER & TOWNSEND, 222 BROADWAY.

1852.

ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1852, by

STRINGER AND TOWNSEND,

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of
New York.

_B. CRAIGHEAD, Printer and Stereotyper,

53 Vesey Street._




CONTENTS.


LIFE OF THE COUNTESS DE ROSSI,                                         5

PEN AND INK PORTRAIT, BY              _Marie Aycard_,                 37

HENRIETTE SONTAG, BY                  _M. Scudo_,                     39

HENRIETTE SONTAG IN FRANCFORT, BY     _Louis Boerne_,                 46

PAST AND PRESENT, BY                  _Theophile Gautier_,            51

HOW SONTAG SINGS, BY                  _Hector Berlioz_,               53

THE PRIMA DONNA AND THE COUNTESS, BY      "    "                      53

IS IT THE MOTHER OR THE DAUGHTER? BY  _Adolphe Adam_,                 57

SOUVENIR OF THE OPERA, BY             _Julie de Margueritte_,         59

SONTAG AND THE EMPEROR OF RUSSIA, BY  _Prince Puckler-Muskau_,        64




MEMOIR OF THE COUNTESS DE ROSSI.


WHETHER in rapid memoir or in ponderous biography, the life-sketcher or
the chronicler must always fain behold the object before him as a model
endowed not only with surpassing moral and physical beauties, but with
that individuality of genius, and that peculiar destiny, which separate
the few from the crowd. To the readers remains the duty of acting as
those did who were wont to attend the triumphs of Roman conquerors, and
urge the deduction of their mistakes and misdeeds--or, as the "Satanic
advocate" in the process of canonization in the Pope's court, show how
much more of a sinner than of a saint was the mortal about to pass into
the heaven of human invention. Although, thus, well aware of how much
our trifling office here is prone to exaggeration, we feel that there is
no fear of transgressing in the present case, and that the readers will
rather feel how much below than above the truth we remain.

The Countess Rossi is as clearly fitted to be the heroine of a memoir of
real life, as she is of being the heroine of a lyrical drama on the
fictive scene. Those who will read this sketch will, we think, behold in
her all the characteristics of a special and elevated nature--one marked
amongst mankind, framed for its admiration and for its model. We have
the striking attributes of a special nature manifest and effulgent even
in infancy; we see them defying the obstacles of fortune, and constantly
rising in power. We behold them in their utmost effulgence--first on the
stage, and next in the highest regions of society, and, ultimately,
tried by adversity. From beginning to end, the power and the effulgence
remain ever the same, fitted for all positions: wherever it is placed,
it continues unsullied and undiminished.

Having set forth our claims to the attention of those to whom we address
ourselves, we shall now rapidly trace the outline of the singularly
eventful career of Countess Rossi. The interest its moving incidents, so
singularly varied, have always inspired, are now increased tenfold by new
features, totally unparalleled in the history of the lyrical stage. To
behold this distinguished lady return to the stage, after enjoying
undisturbed for many years, and in the most exalted rank, the love and
esteem of the greatest personages of Europe, is a truly singular and
affecting event; but to behold her return, after this lapse of time,
with all her powers not only unimpaired, but improved by taste, study,
and observation, is an event without an example. If, to take the exact
measure of this phenomenon by comparison, we turn to the very few who
were her contemporaries on the stage, what do we behold? If asked how so
extraordinary a fact happens to exist, those who have had the good
fortune to know the Countess Rossi will readily explain it. The first
reason and first cause are, that this lady possesses a remarkably well
regulated mind--gentle in all things, ever resigned, and possessed of
unruffled patience; and her feelings, controlled by the most virtuous
sense of right, have never been agitated by those passions which most of
all beset stages and courts, and are the most insidious and dangerous
assailants of those who are the constant objects of adoration.

To these might be added other aiding causes, but of no little potency.
For the sake of brevity, we shall only mention two: the first is, that
the Countess Rossi's voice is a pure and perfect soprano, of the highest
register, from the first settlement of her voices--it is "to the manner
born." Thus she has never been compelled to superadd to her studies of
vocal science those efforts by which most of the greatest vocalists have
been obliged to transmute their contralto or mezzo soprano tones, to
polish their guttural or husky tones, and--almost all of them--extend
artificially their register. On the other hand, during her long
secession from the stage, the love of musical art has always remained
predominant, and its science been constantly cultivated, without the
necessity of taxing her powers, without the exhausting exertions of
other singers; whilst her style of singing is that of the high classical
Italian school, the only one that nurses the voice, whilst it displays
all its melodic power. Had not the Countess Rossi yielded up the German
school--had she not resorted to the Italian school to modify her
singing--as her great countryman Mozart did, to modify the form his
inspirations assumed--her voice would no doubt have been injured, and
she would have lost that marvellous power of overflowing richness of
embellishment, requiring purity of tone, agility, and elegance, in which
she is unquestionably unrivalled.

HENRIETTE SONTAG was born of a respectable family of artists, of limited
means, at Coblentz, Kingdom of Prussia. The old saying of the poet,
"_nascitur, non fit_," is singularly