[...] Here is the promised account for Fritz. I have finished it amidst a thousand interruptions. Quite likely the style may not be very fine. [...]
I do not think I have anything essential to add to that article, except perhaps a stronger emphasis upon the weaknesses of the performance which were my sole real grief throughout the affair. After all, I had to leave the conducting to a "musical subaltern" (as Herwegh describes him in a Zurich report)! My sufferings before the performance, which I unfortunately could no longer cancel, were far greater than after it. The truth is that I am glad to have been prevented by the Jockey Club from getting my work actually heard. I myself could not have listened to it any more!
It really grieves me that I should have allowed myself to be involved again in such an event after long years of abnegation, and I can only comfort myself with the resolve that nothing of the kind shall occur again.
For the rest, I am not in the least angry with the Parisians. They are frivolous and will repeat any nonsense that is palmed off on them. When the thing is actually presented to them, they are still capable of seeing what is good, and will then warmly stand up for what pleases them.—The only thing that surprises me is the denseness of my exalted patrons in Germany, to whom it has never occurred that it is unworthy that a serious artist like myself should be exposed to all the chances of the life of an adventurer. Who will offer me a safe haven, a suitable studio for my art in my own country?—Do not let us get too puffed up on the score of German sincerity and profundity! In the meantime I do not feel that I shall give up Paris yet. [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 485