[...] My concerts here have put me into touch with some very devoted and sensible men.
Gaspérini, a gentle, highly cultured and talented physician (who, however, will probably soon devote himself entirely to literary and poetic work), distinguished and handsome in appearance and very warm-hearted, though lacking, perhaps, in natural vigour, was my man even before my arrival, and is now my most zealous and persistent champion. He writes for me in the Courrier du Dimanche.
In Villot, I have won a person of great intellectual power, a mind uncommonly well-stored, free from all prejudice, serene and perceptive. This man, whose son has recently married, is Conservateur du Musée du Louvre, and as such has full charge of all the treasures of art. In an immense work which has cost him fifteen years of unremitting industry, he has written a history of the Louvre collection. And, now, consider that this man—long before I came to know him—possessed all my scores, had studied them exhaustively, and was rejoiced to get an early copy of the score of Tristan through my interest with Härtel's! He has surprised me greatly by the acuteness of his judgment, particularly in the matter of the capacities of his own nation, being externally a thorough Frenchman, while his mind towers above that of his race. He has a beautiful and distinguished face. I have not yet availed myself of his offer to study the treasures of the Louvre under his guidance, and it will probably be a long time before I am able to do so.
I may mention, among many others, the novelist Champfleury, whose pamphlet, on his first impressions, I sent you. He has a very thoughtful, kindly, melancholy expression. His friend, the poet Baudelaire, has written me a couple of marvellous letters, but does not wish to be presented to me until he has completed some poems in which he intends to pay me homage.
I told you about Franck-Marie; his writings about me are important, but he is still a stranger to me personally. Then there is a young painter, Gustave Doré, who has a great name here already; he has done a drawing, designed for an illustration, in which I am represented conducting an orchestra of spirits among mountains. Besides these, numbers of musicians and composers have proclaimed their enthusiasm for me, among them Gounod (a gentle, good, pure-hearted, but not profoundly talented man), Louis Lacombe, Léon Kreutzer, Stephen Heller. Saint-Saëns stands out as a very profound musician and is to play my scores to me in future.
One Herr Perrin, a painter of mark, at one time director of the Opera Comique and probably the future director of the Grand Opera, is very devoted to me and has already written very finely about me in the Revue Européenne.
Berlioz has fallen a victim to envy. All my efforts to keep him my friend have been unsuccessful in face of the—to him unbearable—brilliant reception of my music. The truth is, he feels thwarted and injured by my appearance in Paris on the eve of a performance of his Trojan Women. In addition, his unlucky star has given him a bad wife, who allows herself to be bribed to influence her sick and suffering husband. His behaviour to me was an incessant alternation between friendly affection and recoil from the subject of his envy. Very late in the day, so that he should not have to take account of a second hearing of my music, he published his article, which you will probably have read. I thought it well to reply to his ambiguous, and indeed malicious, reference to the question of "the music of the future." You will find my answer in the Journal des Débats, February 22nd.
Rossini has behaved better. A witticism on my lack of melody, assiduously reported even in the German papers, has been attributed to him, but he has now issued a denial on his own initiative, declaring that he knows nothing of mine but the Tannhäuser March, which gave him the greatest pleasure, and that all he has heard of me has won his deep respect for me. This earnestness on the part of the old epicure has surprised me.
Lastly, let me relate a conquest I have made of a field-marshal, namely Magnan, who came to all my concerts and evinced the greatest interest. As, unfortunately, it matters to me to know that a man of this kind gives a good account of me in certain circles, I went to see him and was really surprised by his expressions. He had to take up the cudgels for me with all kinds of people and could not see how anyone could hear in my music anything but simply music—such as Gluck and Beethoven wrote, only with the special stamp of the genius of "a Wagner." [...]
I am soon to lose the homely presence of Bülow. The poor lad wears himself out terribly running to and fro here, and I see little of him. He cannot come to see me very often, but it is a pleasure to me simply to know he is here. Ah! God, it does me good to be able to talk naturally, and only with him can I do so now. He is, and remains, wholly devoted to me, and I am often touched to discover how much trouble he takes for me in secret. He is unhappy when I tell him, "All that is no use!" But before he goes I will make him happy by saying you have sent him greetings through me. I must now see if I can strike some sort of bargain with someone to help me to repair a little the frightful devastation which the expenses of my concerts have left behind. It has been suggested that I should repeat the same concert three times in Brussels on condition that a small profit is guaranteed me. I shall probably be obliged to go. [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 458