The period of Wagner's life which we have now reached was one of much complication and of important results. With the decision to abandon the subject of Barbarossa he made another, namely that the story of the Nibelungen Lied and its original material as found in the Volsunga Saga would provide excellent material for a music drama. His conception was first formulated in an article entitled "The Nibelung Myth as Sketch for a Drama" (Ellis's translation, Vol. VII.). This was followed by the first form of the text of the drama, "Siegfried's Tod," a translation of which will be found in Mr. Ellis's eighth volume. Wagner's first thought was to tell the entire story of the death of Siegfried and the causes leading to it in one opera, but he was not long in discovering that this was impossible. In June, 1849, he wrote to Franz Liszt, with whom he had begun a correspondence[19] in 1841 (though it did not become continuous till 1845) in these words: "Meanwhile I shall employ my time in setting to music my latest German drama, 'The Death of Siegfried.' Within half a year I shall send you the opera completed." In 1851 in a long letter to Liszt he explained how he had found it impossible to condense the whole story into one drama, and afterward even into two, and thus how the work had stretched itself into four separate dramas.

At the time of the writing of the original form of the book Wagner also conceived some of the germs of the music, and in this, too, lay the seed of a new and wonderful development of his genius. His "Lohengrin" marked a wide departure from the style of his "TannhÄuser," but in the dramas based on the Siegfried legend he went much further. He felt in the beginning that he would be forced to do so, and in the fall of 1850 he wrote to Liszt: "Between the musical execution of my 'Lohengrin' and that of my 'Siegfried' there lies for me a stormy, but I feel convinced, a fruitful world." The correspondence between Wagner and Liszt had grown into warmth when the latter undertook the preparation of "TannhÄuser" for production at Weimar, where he was the ruling power in music. No one who desires to be intimately acquainted with the life of Wagner should omit reading this correspondence, which throws more light on the artistic and personal character of the two men than anything else in existence. It is highly creditable to Liszt that he early recognised the full force of the genius of Wagner and bowed to him as a superior. On the other hand Wagner, who was hopelessly improvident and always in the depths of monetary difficulties, came to lean on Liszt as a friend in all needs.

It is possible that through the influence of Liszt Wagner might have gained wide recognition throughout Germany much sooner than he did, but his own sympathy with the revolutionary ideas of the time led him into direct conflict with authority in Saxony and drove him into exile. The story of Wagner's connection with the revolutionary movements of 1848 and 1849 has had several versions, and it has been the subject of acrid dispute between Wagner's devotees and those who are only candid friends. The story of the Saxon uprising need not be repeated here in detail. Suffice it to say that the impetus of the French revolution of 1848 moved the people of Saxony to demand of their king a constitution, a free press, trial by jury, national armies, and representation. The king refused to accede to the demands. A second time through a deputation Leipsic people demanded what they regarded as their rights and threatened to attack Dresden, if these were not conceded. The king adopted conciliatory measures, which served to allay the excitement for a time, but the people soon saw that under the surface oppression was gaining headway.

Wagner and his friend and assistant, August Roeckel, the latter an enthusiastic republican, became members of a society known as the "Fatherland Union," an organisation devoted to the furtherance of reform measures, but not in favour of direct disloyalty to the king. Before this society on June 16 Wagner read a paper entitled "What is the Relation of our Efforts to the Monarchy?" Wagner had previously drawn up for the government a plan for the reorganisation of the Dresden Theatre. In that paper he proposed that the changes in the existing arrangements be made so that the theatre would be brought into closer relations with the higher artistic life of the people. It was at this period, too, that he wrote "Art and Revolution," in which he still further demonstrated that he saw a connection between political and artistic reform, or rather that he believed the latter impossible under the restrictions of extant governmental control. He aimed at a sort of republican representation in art, a plan by which the literary and artistic elements of the community might have voices in the direction of the theatre. He saw no way of bringing this about except by a change in the nature of the government.

Therefore in this paper read before the Vaterlandsverein he demanded general suffrage, abolition of the standing army and the aristocracy, and the conversion of Saxony into a republic. His loyalty to the king was shown by his proposal that he should himself proclaim the republic and remain in office at its head. This speech was published and it caused a good deal of unfavourable comment. Yet it was not taken very seriously, for Wagner was warned that a Court Conductor should not indulge in such talk; he wrote a long letter of extenuation to LÜttichau, the Intendant; asked for a brief leave of absence, and obtained it. And that would have been the end of the matter in all probability, had not open insurrection broken out.

It was in regard to the acts of Wagner in the days of turmoil in May, 1849, that the acrid dispute before mentioned raged in 1892. This dispute was caused chiefly by the statements of Ferdinand Praeger in "Wagner as I Knew Him." Among other things Praeger said, "During the first few of his eleven years of exile his talk was incessantly about the outbreak, and the active aid he rendered at the time, and of his services to the cause by speech and by pen prior to the 1849 May days; and yet in after life, in his talk with me, who held documentary evidence, under his own hand, of his participation, he in petulant tones sought either to minimise the part he played or to explain it away altogether. This change of front I first noticed about 1864 at Munich." With this as his text Praeger set out to show that Wagner was a red-handed revolutionary, and that he fought on the barricades in the streets of Dresden.

It was my fortune to read these assertions of Praeger's before they were published. The manuscript of his book was placed in my hands by his publishers in 1892 to be prepared for the press. The author was dead and no changes could be made in his work. It seemed to me at the time that Praeger had written incautiously of this whole matter, and that at any rate he might fairly have represented Wagner as desirous in after years to bury the memories of an unwise exhibition of his republican tendencies. But of Praeger's honesty I never had a doubt, nor had I any reason to suppose that he was not well informed (through his intimate friendship with Roeckel) of Wagner's actions in the May days of 1849. Pohl, Glasenapp, and Tappert had said but little in regard to the matter, and, as I was not editing, but merely supervising the printing of the book, it would not have been open to me to write so much as a foot-note of warning to the reader to take Praeger's statements with a grain of salt, even if I had been fully informed of the real facts in the case.

But Wagner was not without a champion. Mr. W. Ashton Ellis, editor of "The Meister," and translator of the prose works, published in 1892 a complete answer to Praeger under the title of "1849: a Vindication." In this he showed that Praeger had formed a theory as to Wagner's part in the revolution and had wrested the facts to make them appear as evidence. He also proved that some of the acts attributed to Wagner were those of a young journeyman baker of the same name. The real facts of the case, as I have sifted them from the conflicting testimony, appear to be these:

Wagner's mind was filled with a conviction that freedom and the honesty of art went hand in hand. His reformatory ideas embraced not only the stage, but its relations to governmental control, through which its artistic character must be touched and guided. The stage could never be brought to represent the spirit of the people till the government was. All around him he saw the relics of feudalism, and the innate hostility of these to that freedom of art and public to which he looked forward made him a republican at heart. His paper read before the Fatherland Union was, as we have seen, a plea for free government and representation by the people, but it was filled with a spirit of loyalty to the reigning king.

When the revolutionary movement took shape Wagner, as Mr. Ellis notes, did not hesitate between the dictates of his conscience and the preservation of court favour. He became, as he afterward confessed in a letter to Liszt, openly active in the movement. But the stories of his firing a musket from the barricades and setting fire to public buildings are pure fabrications. Praeger's narrative of his revolutionary activity is misleading, and Mr. Ellis's pamphlet has quite demolished it. Wagner assisted in getting men and stores into Dresden, and he probably carried a musket while engaged in this work. At the Town Hall he publicly embraced one of the revolutionary leaders after the latter had made a speech. On May 1, 1849, the king dissolved the Saxon diet, and the people went to arms. The insurgents were victorious in the beginning, but Prussian troops arrived 36 hours later, and the revolutionaries were put to flight. Wagner escaped from Dresden and hurried to Weimar, where he took refuge under the wing of Liszt, then actively preparing "TannhÄuser" for performance.

Mr. Praeger says: "Future biographers can no longer ignobly treat the patriotism of Wagner by striving to whitewash or gloss over the part he played during these sad days." It is the hope of the present biographer that he will not be accused of any attempt to conceal the truth in regard to this matter, especially as he has not been able to discover in it anything discreditable to Wagner. His action was injudicious, it was impulsive, it was shortsighted; but it was honest. If in after years Wagner saw that the regeneration of the theatre might be accomplished without the overthrow of extant forms of government, and if at the same time he wished ardently to return to his native land, it was not at all surprising that he expressed sorrow for his actions. It was quite natural indeed that in April, 1856, he wrote to Liszt:

Disheartened as Wagner was at the inartistic conditions surrounding the theatre at Dresden, it was not astonishing that he rejoiced in the excuse for flight, and that he hastened to Weimar with a jubilant spirit. That Liszt was glad to receive him thus unexpectedly goes without saying. It was this meeting which perfected the understanding between these two remarkable men, and which cemented indissolubly the friendship hitherto dependent on their letters for its support. They came to know one another intimately, and from that time onward Liszt was the main prop of Wagner. As Mr. Finck well summarises it in his life of Wagner: "A few letters had passed between the two, and they had met several times, but it was not until this occasion that their hearts were really opened towards each other, and the beginning was made of a friendship unequalled in cordiality and importance in the history of art, and without the existence of which the world would in all probability have never seen the better half of Wagner's music dramas. It was Liszt who helped him with funds when he would otherwise have been compelled to stop composing and earn his bread like the commonest day labourer; Liszt who sustained him with his approval when all the critical world was against him; Liszt who brought out his operas when all other conductors ignored them; Liszt who wrote letters, private and journalistic, about his friend's works and aims, besides three long and enthusiastic essays on 'TannhÄuser,' 'Lohengrin,' and the 'Dutchman,' which were printed in German and French, and with the Weimar performances of these operas, gave the first impulse to 'the Wagner movement.'"

Of the greatest importance to Wagner was Liszt's understanding of his artistic aims. Wagner said that when he saw Liszt conduct a rehearsal of "TannhÄuser," he recognised a second self in the achievement. Discouraged as he had been on leaving Dresden, his spirits now rose again, and he would undoubtedly have settled down in Weimar to pursue his artistic labours under the protection of Liszt, had not news come that he was wanted by the police. A warrant was issued for him as a politically dangerous person and his description was published. As soon as this news was received, Wagner, acting on Liszt's advice, fled.

So hasty was his departure that, as we learn from a letter of Liszt to Carl Reinecke, he left Weimar on the very day of a performance of "TannhÄuser," which he, therefore, did not witness. This was in the latter part of May. He went directly to Zurich, where he remained a few days and obtained a passport for France. He wrote from Zurich to a Weimar friend, O.L.B. Wolff, that Liszt would soon receive a bundle of scores from Minna, his wife.

From this same letter we learn that Minna had been left in the city from which Wagner had fled. He says:

It is necessary only to say that while Liszt at first had doubts of the public success of "Lohengrin," owing to what he called its "superideal character," he immediately recognised its artistic greatness, and was the first to bring it before the public.

In Zurich Wagner contemplated the stern necessity of doing something toward the support of himself and wife, and he saw in the production of an opera in Paris his only hope. Accordingly he set out for the French capital. Liszt had already written to Belloni, an influential person in the musical circles of Paris:

Wagner had a consultation with Belloni in Paris, and was convinced that nothing could be done with his extant works. He decided that he must spend a year and a half in the preparation of a new work, and for that purpose he must live in seclusion with his wife. He tells Liszt in a long letter that he has decided on Zurich, and begs Liszt to make arrangements for an income for him from his works so that he can live to write more. He says that he is fit for nothing but to write operas; he must create some genuine art work or perish. He has arranged to send from Zurich to Belloni a sketch of a work for Paris, and Belloni is to get a French version made. Meanwhile Wagner will be working on the "Death of Siegfried." And so, after this brief and futile visit to Paris in June, 1849, we find him back at Zurich early in July. And now it became his fixed idea to get his wife out of Dresden and settled down in some sort of a home in Zurich. But he had no means. Once more, then, he appealed to the unfailing friend Liszt. He tells the great pianist that he has no further resources, and says:

These words go far toward revealing the true nature of the relations of Wagner and Minna. They also do credit to his justice, but at the same time show how completely unsettled he was at this period. Liszt hastened to reply in a letter beginning: "In answer to your letter I have remitted one hundred thalers to your wife at Dresden. This sum has been handed to me by an admirer of 'TannhÄuser,' whom you do not know and who has especially asked me not to name him to you."[20]

In due time Minna arrived in Zurich only to begin to combat her husband's artistic inclinations. He was eager to write "The Death of Siegfried." She urged him to abandon his unprofitable ideals, and to write for Paris the sort of opera that Paris would like. For Minna was ashamed of living on the charity of friends, and for that we cannot blame her. Nor can we even yet bring ourselves quite into agreement with Wagner in the belief that the world ought to take care of him while he was creating his immortal works. Yet there was something large and genial in the conception. The man felt the power that was in him, and he refused to stifle it in order that he might discharge the simple duties of a plain citizen and support himself and his family at the sacrifice of his future, and the future of his art.

It was to this struggle between himself and his own desires on the one hand and his wife and Liszt on the other that his inactivity in musical production for a long period was due. His whole mind was in a state of unrest. Yet the period of his exile proved in the end to be the most fruitful of his life, and in Zurich the name of Wagner was made immortal.