Liszt was unanimously adopted as speaker. When the first toast was called, he rose and in the name of the whole company addressed me for a full quarter of an hour with a warmth of feeling, a wealth of ideas and a turn of phrase that many orators would envy. I was deeply touched. Unhappily, if he spoke well, he drank likewise. The fatal cup set such tides of champagne flowing that all Liszt's eloquence was shipwrecked in it. Belloni and I were still reasoning with him in the street at two in the morning, and urging on him the advisability of waiting until daylight before engaging in single combat with pistols at two yards' range with a Bohemian who had drunk even better than he. When daylight came we felt somewhat anxious for Liszt, who was giving a concert at noon. At half-past eleven he was still asleep. They finally woke him; he climbed into a carriage, arrived at the hall, entered to a triple-barreled broadside of applause, sat down, and played as I do not believe he has ever played in his life. Verily, there is a God . . . for pianists.

—Hector Berlioz, Memoirs