I. Louis, A French Author

A French Author Louis, born in Dijon, July 31, 1800. He studied law in Paris, and wrote for the newspapers. In 1838 he joined Robert in managing the Italian opera, became sole director in 1839, and brought out Mario and Pauline Garcia, whom he married in 1840. In 1841 he joined George Sand and Pierre Leroux in founding the Revue independante, and he afterward accompanied his wife in her artistic journeys. His works include Essai sur l'histoire des Arabes et des Maures d'Espagne (2 vols., 1832); Etudes sur Vhistoire des institutions et de la littérature en Espagne (1835), translated into Spanish; Souvenirs de chasse (1849; 6th ed., 1854); Histoire des Arabes et des Maures d'Espagne (2 vols., 1851); Les merveilles de la peinture (1868 et seq.); and various works on Spanish and Italian art and on European art collections. He made many translations, comprising Don Quixote and novels by Cervantes, Toreno's history of the rising in Spain (5 vols., 1838), and select Russian works by Gogol, Pushkin, and Turgeneff (1853-'60). An English edition of his works on Italian art appeared in 1870, entitled "Wonders of Italian Art".

II. Michelle Pauline Garcia

Michelle Pauline Garcia, a French vocalist, wife of the preceding, born in Paris, July 18, 1821. She studied vocal music under her father, Manuel Garcia, and at a later period Liszt perfected her on the piano. In 1825 she was taken with the Garcia troupe to America, and after their return in 1828 she sang in the concerts of her sister Mme. Malibran. She first appeared in opera at London in May, 1839, as Desdemona in Rossini's Otello, and in La Generentola. She married M. Viardot in 1840, and with him made tours to the principal European capitals. In Paris she created in May, 1848, the character of Fides in Le prophiie, one of her masterpieces, in which she appeared at Berlin, St. Petersburg, and London. In 1860 she had a brilliant success at the Théâtre Lyrique, Paris, in Gluck's Orfeo. She possesses a mezzo-soprano voice of remarkable compass and elasticity, and is able to sing with almost equal facility in French, Italian, German, Spanish, and English; and her dramatic genius is remarkable. She has composed a short opera, L'ogre, for which Turgeneff wrote the text, performed in 1868 during her residence in Baden-Baden, and another in two acts, Le dernier magicien, performed in 1869 at the court of the grand duchess of Saxe-Weimar. Mme. Viardot has been for some years a professor of music at the conservatory of Paris.