Malibran Demands Every Guinea

Maria Garcia—better known as Madame Malibran—didn’t have an easy start. Her father, a fiery teacher, pushed her hard, and she spent years on stage with him as they toured America. When a man calling himself a wealthy banker, M. Malibran, offered marriage, she took it as a way out. It wasn’t: he had little money and soon became dependent on her earnings. Only after a French court annulled the marriage, and after she later married the great violinist Charles-Auguste de Bériot, did her life finally become calmer.

What people remembered most, though, was her instinct to do good. About a year before her death an Italian professor hired her for a concert at her usual fee: twenty guineas. The concert was a financial failure. The next day he came, embarrassed, to explain and to ask whether she would accept a smaller sum.

Malibran insisted on the full amount. He slowly counted out twenty pounds. “No,” she said, “my terms are twenty guineas, not pounds.” With a sigh he put down another sovereign, murmuring, “My poor wife and children.”

Malibran took the money and acted as if she were leaving—then turned around and placed it all back in his hands. “I insisted on having the full amount,” she said, “so the sum might be all the larger for your acceptance.”