Cosima's Diaries

Diary Entry of September 3, 1870

Overview

A day of disagreeable letters brings Kietz's displacement, a dubious victory poem offered for Wagner to set, and Schure's exposed French partisanship. Congratulatory messages from Herrig and Pusinelli partly offset the unpleasantness, while rumors that Wagner would never marry Cosima show how widely their union had been doubted. In the evening, Am Rhyn brings the astonishing news that MacMahon is wounded, the French army has capitulated, and Napoleon has surrendered, turning the victory into a christening gift for Fidi.

Content

Saturday, September 3:

Day of unsavory letters; our friend Kietz is in Zurich and does not know what to do with himself; he has been expelled. Herr Müller von der Werra sends a victory poem, which he wants R. to set to music, and he promises to take care of the distribution of the work through correspondence in the American newspapers! Schuré turns out to be a fanatic Frenchman, and that in the truest high-school manner. (From Hans Herrig and Dr. Pusinelli, however, very nice messages of congratulation; to judge from the former, it seems to have been maintained all over Germany that R. would not marry me.)

To compensate for these unpleasantnesses we receive from Colonel Am Rhyn in the evening the news that MacMahon has been wounded, the entire army under Wimpffen has capitulated, Napoleon III has surrendered to the King!!! What a christening present for Fidi! 9 battles within a month, all victorious, and now this conclusion!