[...] Please do not be surprised to get a letter from me, and a letter of such purport. [...] Early to-day Richard had to leave me to go to prison for debt. I am still so terribly agitated that all my senses are confused. The one thing which has just enabled me to collect my thoughts a little more calmly is a letter from Herr Laube which has just arrived and which I have opened in Richard's absence. On the one hand it robs me of all hope of seeing our misfortunes alleviated, while on the other it gives me courage to dare this last—I admit it—venture of despair.—In this letter Herr Laube writes that you had expressed friendship and sympathy. If you knew [...] how used we are to unfriendliness and lack of sympathy in those whom we are obliged to ask to help us, you would see why this news has raised my hopes again a little. [...] My poor husband, who as a foreigner has not even the advantages belonging to a native in such a situation, is in the hands of a German domiciled here who is proceeding against him so ruthlessly that he cannot count on his ever relaxing his severity. [...] Even if I had the means of leaving Paris myself, I would not for the world leave Richard in such a situation, for I know that it is not frivolity which is responsible but that the noblest and most natural efforts of an artist have brought a fate upon him which unhappily must have overtaken anyone who had no special source of aid. It was only after doing my best to dissuade him that I agreed to his plan of going to Paris, but the better I have become acquainted with his projects here the more I perceive that it will only be for lack of sufficient support if he is ruined here and fails to attain his goal. [...] He had got work and was already making almost as much as I need to run a small home for him with economy, but to-day's occurrence has brought it all to nothing. [...] In a fortnight his overture to his Rienzi, which he has just finished and which promised great success, should have been performed, but unless he is present at the rehearsal this cannot be. Is that not enough to drive one to despair? [...] Can you, who have so long kept a place in your heart for my Richard, let him be lost to us because of a remarkable opera? [...] Some time ago I discovered to my horror how much Richard already owes you. Your credit supplied him with money then, and yet what was his situation at that time compared with our present one? Should not such an opera meet with a far better fate—because now there is a prospect that we might be able to repay the debt within a couple of years at most? Believe me, I do not usually share Richard's exalted hopes, but now I know from his own lips that he has but one step more to reach his goal! [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 1, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927)