The Sun.
London, England, 1849-03-29 00:00:00

GRETRY.

At this moment, when this French composer's opera,
Richard Cceur de Lion, is being performed with con-
siderable applause at the Opera Comique, St. James's
Theatre, the following particulars of a very extraordinary
occurrence will doubtless prove highly interesting:—
Gretry just before his death bequeathed his heart to his
native city, Liege. His nephew, M. Flamand Gretry,
however, never executed this will of his uncle, and after
an extraordinary exertion of patience, the good citizens
of Liege, from whose recollection this bequest had not
for au instant been erased, and who had long sighed,
but in vain, for the heart of their dear townsman,
actually brought their claim into a court of law. M.
Flamand Gretry pleaded that, on his uncle's demise, he
had desired the authorities of Liege to send for the
heart which he had carefully preserved, but that, as
they, devoid of that refinement of feeling which dis-
tinguishes true Frenchmen, had desired him to forward
to them the noble remains of his deceased relative by
stage coach, carriage paid, such reply naturally filled
him (M. Flamand) with inappeasable wrath, and, vowing
that the Liegois should never benefit by his illustrious
uncle's will, he had deposited the bequest in an urn in
the garden of the Hermitage de Jean Jacques Rousseau,
at Montmorenci, which had become the property of the
departed composer. The case was heard and decided in
one court, the decision appealed against in a higher, re-
ferred to a third, and so on, the lawyers profiting
amazingly (as they always take care to do, and nowhere,
perhaps, so much as in France) by the dispute ; while
numbers of the composer's admirers—nay, many of those
who had most esteemed and loved him—declared that
whatever it might have been when it inhabited its mortal
tenement and throbbed with the sorrows and anxieties,
or bounded beneath the exultation and joys of life, was
not then in its right place. At length, in 1823, ten
years after the commencement of this struggle, the Cour
Royale gave judgment in favour of Liege, and on the
19th July, 1828—five years more having elapsed, the
decree was carried into execution. M. le Maire of
Montmorenci, accompanied by MM. the Chevaliers Re-
gault de Rochefort and Auseau, Commissaires deputed
expressly on the occasion by the Corporation of Liege,
M. Guery, their Avocet, and Dr. Sauberville, who had
embalmed the heart, proceeded to the Hermitage of J. J.
Rousseau for the purpose of exhuming the precious relic.
The curb of Montmorenci was also present, and took part
in the ceremony by reciting a prayer and by afterwards
sprinkling the heart, or rather the box which contained
it, with holy water. This box, which was manufactured
from lead, and in the shape of a heart, with all its veins
and arteries exposed, was, after a careful examination by
Dr. Sauberville and by the workmen who had been em-
ployed to place it in the garden, in order to ascertain its
identity, and the fact of its never having been opened or
disturbed, bound round with a riband, the two ends of
which were sealed with the seals of the Maire of Mont-
morenci, of the Commissaires of Liege, and of the arms
of that city. surmounted by o _mural crown_ The box
and its valuable contents was then placed in a second
case, prepared for the purpose, and delivered to the
Commissaires of Liege who, on their departure, left with
the cure a sum of 100 f. to be distributed among the
poor of Montmorenci. The reception of the heart of
Gretry by the inhabitants of Liege was memorable,
and was accompanied by solemnities which were ter-
minated by a concert given in the theatre. A cantata,
written on the occasion by M. le Fontaine, and set to
music by M. Daussaigne together, with an overture by
a young composer, M. Jasper, were much admired. A
fortunate accident brought to this fete the then already
famous composer Meyerbeer. The moment he was
recognised every one wished to show him some token of
respect, and his lively, melodious overture to La Fausse
Agnes was immediately performed with as much spirit as
taste. He returned his thanks to the orchestra through
one of the Commissaires for the flattering tribute and
attention shown to him, and subscribed liberally towards
the erection of a monument to the memory of the com-
poser of Richard Cceur de Lion and the author of one of
the soundest and best essays on the theory and principles
of the Art extant.