Note 5 — INTRODUCTION

It would be unwise, for example, to believe without further evidence his story (Mein Leben, p. 743) that the Paris press during the Tannhäuser events of 1861 "was entirely in Meyerbeer's hands"; that (p. 723) Meyerbeer had some years before bribed Fétis père to write articles against Wagner; or (p. 708) that Berlioz was influenced against Wagner by his wife, who had received a present of a valuable bracelet from Meyerbeer. Everyone who has mixed much with musicians knows how prone many of them are to believe that their colleagues—and still more their critics—are always "intriguing against them."