These travels of the artistic forces must have been rich in tragic, comic, and tragi-comic incidents, and would furnish splendid material for the pen of a novelist.

But such a journey from the Saxon capital to Warsaw, which took about eight days, and cost on an average from 3,000 to 3,500 thalers (450 to 525 pounds), was a mere nothing compared with the migration of a Parisian operatic company in May, 1700.

The ninety-three members of which it was composed set out in carriages and drove by Strasburg to Ulm, there they embarked and sailed to Cracow, whence the journey was continued on rafts.

[FOOTNOTE: M.Furstenau, Zur Geschichte der Music und des Theaters am Hofe zu Dresden.] So much for artistic tours at the beginning of the eighteenth century.

Frederick Augustus (II of Saxony and III of Poland, 1733-1763) dissolved the Polish band, and organised a similar body which was destined solely for Poland, and was to be resident there.