1832 and 1842, when he was working with Jean Baptiste. He made cheap violins only, and took a bronze medal at the Paris Exhibition of 1855 for a pattern which he called the 'Stentor.' The next brother,
Nicolas François, born at Mirecourt May 13, 1812, apprenticed to his father, and afterwards a pupil of Jean Baptiste, settled at Brussels in 1828. The instruments he sent to the Exhibitions at Brussels in 1835 and 1841 received silver medals. Having been appointed maker to the Conservatoire, and become intimate with Fétis, he exhibited at London, Paris, and Dublin, and was awarded medals of the first class. Maintaining a constant intercourse with his brother, the writer met him frequently, and found him to have a special knowledge of the old Italian instruments, which he repaired with great skill. In 1873 he showed at the Vienna Exhibition a double quartet which gained a medal of the first class, a success rewarded by the King of the Belgians with the Order of Leopold. He died at Brussels of apoplexy Jan. 14, 1876. Another brother,
Claude François, born 1807, and also apprenticed to his father, took to organ-building, and ended a chequered existence as a maker of violin cases. His son,
Sebastian, born 1835, died 1875, a pupil of his uncle Jean Baptiste, turned out some good work, and took a bronze medal at Paris in 1867, and a silver one at the Havre Exhibition of 1868. He is however best known as a maker of bows.
Thus the family of Vuillaume is now extinct. Its principal member too died without having carried into effect his favourite project of founding with his brothers a museum at Mirecourt, wherein should be deposited the best types produced by all native artificers of this cradle of French musical instrument makers.
VIARD-LOUIS, Jenny, née Martin, born September 29, 1831, at Carcassonne. She learned the piano first at the Conservatoire, Paris, where she obtained the first prize, and afterwards from Madame Pleyel. In 1853 she married Nicolas Louis, composer, and after his death in 1857 devoted herself to a complete study of the great masters. In 1859 she married M. Viard, a merchant of Paris, and in 1864–65 undertook a tour through Austria and Germany, where her performance of Beethoven's works obtained the approval of various good judges, contemporaries of the great composer. On returning to Paris she gave concerts, at which the chamber music of Brahms and Raff was first introduced to French audiences. In 1874 a reverse of fortune obliged her to come to London for the purpose of teaching, and on March 4, 1876, she made her first appearance, at the Alexandra Palace, in Beethoven's Choral Fantasia. In the spring of 1878 she gave orchestral concerts at St. James's Hall, in which she played various pieces, classical and modern, including for the first time in public a MS. Fantasia of Cherubim's. She was compelled to abandon this enterprise, and devote herself solely to teaching; but since 1883 she has given various concerts devoted to the chamber music of Beethoven for piano solo, or piano and other instruments. These are still in progress. Mme. Viard-Louis has recently published a work entitled 'Music and the Piano' (London, Griflfith and Farran, 1884).
W.
WACHT AM RHEIN, DIE (The guard of the Rhine.) A modern German Volkslied, which during the Franco-Prussian war of 1870–71 was so popular as to become a national song.
The poem is by Max Schneckenburger, a manufacturer, born Feb. 17, 1819, at Thalheim in Würtemberg, and died May 3, 1849, at Burgdorf near Berne. It had its birth in 1840, when
