Franz LEHÁR (1870-1948). L.A.S., Wien 12 February 1922, to Robert de Flers; 4 pages in-8 on his letterhead; in French. Protest against slander and attacks against him by Henri Christiné. [Robert de Flers, then President of the Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs dramatiques, had written the French adaptation of the libretti of two famous Lehar operettas, La Veuve Joyeuse and Le Comte de Luxembourg]. He learned "that various slanderous rumours were being spread against me in France and that certain newspapers had even echoed attacks on my person and my honour as an artist. It is not my place to defend the cause of the so-called Viennese operetta; I can only speak of my own, and if my music displeases the distinguished Phi-Phi [Christiné], I am sorry, but it is better for both of us if his and mine are different enough for the public to see that. As for his attitude during the war, he denies having given his signature "to any political manifesto directed against France", and he was not "mobilized" against France"; at the most he was, at the beginning of his career, "conductor of military music"... "As far as my nationality is concerned, I have never changed it and it was not I who divided up the former Austria-Hungary, which was my great country. My father was from Sternberg (Moravia, now Czechoslovakia) and I myself have always had my birthright there. I was born in Komárom, a town in the Kingdom of Hungary, now Czechoslovakia. ....