At table, Wagner told us about a very interesting French leaflet which
he had once read in Paris, and which he had never been able to find
again. It was a history of Bluebeard, with the traditional slaying
of his wives and the forbidden chamber; but in this account the
last-threatened victim was not saved in the usual way, by her brothers.
No less a person than Jeanne d'Arc came to deliver her and punish the
criminal.
"I remember," said the Master, "that there were illustrations. As a
matter of fact, it was a cheap edition, printed in two columns. I have
no idea how this pamphlet came into my hands, nor how it was lost, but
I have never forgotten it. That bringing together of Jeanne d'Arc and
Bluebeard impressed me very much. The monstrous Gilles de Retz, who
may have served as a model for the legendary type of Bluebeard, was
a contemporary of _La Pucelle_, and the hypothesis of that heroine's
coming to the aid of innocence and chastising the guilty is very
curious. I should be glad if I could find that funny little leaflet
again."
(Alas! it was not to be found, in spite of all researches.)
Toward the middle of the dinner, Wagner, who had been silent for a
little time, asked our permission to go and note down an idea which had
crossed his mind, and which he feared he might forget, _à propos_ of
the study of Beethoven upon which he was then at work.
He went up to his bedroom to write these few sentences, and I concluded
from that fact that the Master did not write his volumes of prose in
the same holy place where he composed his music.