Part 3

That year was, indeed, particularly propitious to the development of my musical taste. After hearing "Don Giovanni," I went in Holy Week to two sacred concerts given by the Conservatoire Concert Society, which Habeneck then directed. At the first, Beethoven's "Pastoral Symphony" was played; at the other, the "Choral Symphony" by the same master. This added fresh impulse to my musical ardour. I remember clearly how these two performances, besides giving me an inkling of the proud and fearless personality of that mighty and unrivalled genius, left an instinctive feeling with me that the composer's language, if I may call it so, was closely akin, in many ways at least, to that I had first listened to in "Don Giovanni."

Something told me that these two great talents, each so peerless in its way, came of a common stock, and professed the same musical dogma.

* * * * *

Meanwhile my school life was slipping away. My mother had not yet given up the hope that I might change my mind. She had reckoned on the lengthening of my school hours to have that effect; but failing this, she counted on finally dissuading me by telling me that if I drew an unfavourable number at the conscription I should have to serve, as she was too poor to pay a substitute.

This was a transparent subterfuge. The poor dear woman, who had often enough eaten a crust herself so that her children might be filled, would sooner have sold the very bed she lay on than part with one of us. So, being old enough to understand and appreciate the gratitude and love I owed her for such a life of devoted labour and self-sacrifice, I answered, when she mentioned the conscription to me--

"All right, mother dear; don't let us talk about it. I will see to it myself. I will win the Grand Prix de Rome, and buy _myself_ off."

I was at that time in the third class at the Lycee. A little incident which had just occurred in school had gained me a certain amount of respect amongst my comrades.

Our form master was a Monsieur Roberge, who was desperately fond of Latin verses. To write good ones was a certain means of getting into his good books. Some schoolboy trick had been played on him one day, and as the delinquent would not confess, nor any other boy tell of him, Monsieur Roberge stopped the whole class's leave. As the Easter vacation, which meant four or five days' holiday, was at hand, this was a terrible punishment indeed. Nevertheless, schoolboy honour stood firm, and the name of the culprit was not divulged.

The idea struck me that if I were to attack Monsieur Roberge on his weak point, he might relent.

Without a word to my comrades, I wrote a copy of Latin verses, taking for my theme the sufferings of the caged bird, far from the country and the woods, cut off from the bright sun and the free air, and plaintively crying out for liberty. Good luck attended me--I suppose because my object was so meritorious!

When we got back into school, I seized an opportunity, when Monsieur Roberge's back was turned, to lay my little effusion on his desk. On taking his seat he saw the paper, opened it, and began to read.

"Gentlemen," he said, "who wrote these lines?"

I held up my hand.

"They are extremely good," said he. Then, after a moment, "I cancel the punishment inflicted on this class; you can thank your comrade Gounod for earning your liberty by his good work."

Unnecessary to describe the civic honours showered on me in return.

At length I got into the second class, and found myself once again under my beloved former master, Adolphe Regnier, who had taught me while I was in the sixth.

Among my new comrades were Eugene Despois, afterwards a brilliant pupil at the Ecole Normale, and a well-known classic, Octave Ducros de Sixt, and Albert Delacourtie, the high-minded and clever lawyer, still one of my closest and most faithful friends. We four practically monopolised the top places, the "Banc d'Honneur."

At Easter I was considered sufficiently advanced to warrant my being transferred to the Rhetoric class;[2] but I only remained in it three months, as my studies had been sufficiently satisfactory for my mother finally to abandon her idea of extra classes.

I left the Lycee at the summer vacation, being then a little over seventeen.

Still I had not passed through the Philosophy class, and my mother had no intention of allowing me to leave my education incomplete. It was therefore agreed and arranged that I was to go on working at home, and, without interrupting my musical studies, to read for my Bachelor of Arts degree, which I succeeded in taking within the year.

I have often regretted that I did not take a science degree as well. I should thus have made acquaintance at an early age with many ideas whose importance I only realised later in life, and my ignorance of which I much regret. But time was running short. I had to set to work if I was to win the Grand Prix de Rome, as I had promised; it was a matter of life or death for my career. So there was not a moment to be lost.

Reicha being just dead, I was bereft of my instructor. The idea of taking me to Cherubini, and asking him to put me into one of the composition classes at the Conservatoire, struck my mother. I took some of my exercise books under my arm, to give Cherubini some notion of what Reicha had taught me. But he did not think fit to look at them. He questioned me closely about my past, and as soon as he knew I had been a pupil of Reicha's (although the latter had been a colleague of his at the Conservatoire), he said to my mother--

"Very well; now he must begin all over again. I don't approve of Reicha's style. He was a German, and this boy ought to follow the Italian method. I shall put him under my pupil Halevy, to work at counterpoint and fugue."

Cherubini's view was that the Italian school followed the only orthodox system of music, as laid down by Palestrina, whereas the Germans look upon Sebastian Bach as the high priest of harmony.

Far from being discouraged by this decision, I was only too delighted.

"All the better," said I to myself; and to my mother, later on, "It will be great advantage to me. I can choose the best points of both the great schools. It is all for the best."

I joined Halevy's class, and at the same time Cherubini put me into the hands of Berton, the author of "Montano and Stephanie," and a varied collection of other works of high value, who was to instruct me in lyrical composition.

Berton was a man of quick wit, kindly and refined. He was a great admirer of Mozart, whose works he constantly recommended to the attention of his old pupils.

"Study Mozart," he was always saying; "study the 'Nozze de Figaro!'"

He was quite right. That work should be every musician's text-book. Mozart bears the same relation to Palestrina and Bach as the New Testament bears to the Old, in Holy Writ.

When Berton died, as he did a couple of months after I joined his class, Cherubini handed me over to Le Sueur, the composer of "Les Bardes," "La Caverne," and of many masses and oratorios.

He was a man of grave and reserved character, but fervent and almost biblical in inspiration, and devoted to sacred subjects. He looked like an old patriarch, with his tall figure and waxen complexion.

Le Sueur received me with the greatest kindness, almost amounting to paternal tenderness; he was very affectionate and warm-hearted. I was only under him, I regret to say, for nine or ten months; but the period, short as it was, was of incalculable benefit to me. The wise and high-minded counsels he bestowed on me entitle him to an honoured place in my memory and my grateful affection.

Under Halevy's guidance I re-learned the whole theory and practice of counterpoint and fugue; but although I worked hard, and gained my master's approval, I never won a prize at the Conservatoire. My one and constant aim was that Grand Prix de Rome, which I had sworn to win at any cost.

I was nearly nineteen when I first competed for it. I got the second prize.

On the death of Le Sueur I continued to study under Paer, his successor as Professor of Composition.

I tried again the following year. My poor mother was torn between hope and fear. This time it must be either the Grand Prix or nothing! Alas! it was the latter; and I was just twenty, the age when my military service was due.

However, the fact of my having won the second prize the year before entitled me to twelve months' grace, and gave me the chance of making a third and last effort.

To make up for my disappointment, my mother took me for a month's tour in Switzerland. She was as bright and active then, at eight-and-fifty, as any other woman of thirty. As I had never been outside Paris, except to Versailles, Rouen, and Havre, this tour was a dream of delight to me. Geneva, Chamounix, the Oberland, the Righi, the Lakes, the journey home by Bale, successively claimed my admiration. We went through the whole of Switzerland on mule-back, rising early, going late to rest; and my mother was always up and ready dressed before she roused me.

I returned to Paris full of fresh zeal for my work, and quite determined this time to carry off the Grand Prix de Rome.

At last the period of competition came round. I entered, and I won the prize.

My poor mother wept for joy, first of all, but afterwards at the thought that the first result of my triumph would be to separate us for three weary years, two of which I should have to spend in Rome and one in Germany. We had never been parted before, and now her daily life was going to be like the story of the "Two Pigeons."

The winners of the other Grand Prizes of my year were Hebert for painting, Gruyere for sculpture, Lefuel for architecture, and Vauthier (grandson of Galle) for medal engraving.

Towards the end of October the different prizes were publicly awarded with becoming solemnity. This ceremony was an annual function, one of its features being the performance of the cantata which had won the music prize. My brother, who was an architect, had highly distinguished himself at the Ecole des Beaux Arts under the teaching of Huyot. Whether it was that he foresaw his younger brother would one day win a Grand Prix, and consequently have to go abroad to study, I know not, but Urbain utterly refused to compete for a similar honour himself. He did not choose to leave a mother he adored, and of whom he was the prop and support for five long years. But he did carry off a prize known as the Departmental Prize, conferred on the student who has won the greatest number of medals during his attendance at the Ecole des Beaux Arts.

The winner of this prize was publicly named at a general sitting of the Institute, and my proud mother had the satisfaction of seeing both her sons honoured in the same day.

I have already mentioned that my brother was educated at the Versailles Lycee. There he became acquainted with Lefuel, whose father was architect at the Palace, and who was to live to add lustre to the name he bore. They met again as fellow-pupils in the office of Huyot, one of the architects of the Arc de Triomphe, and there became, and always continued, the firmest of friends. Lefuel was nearly nine years older than I. My mother, who loved him like her own son, urgently begged him to look after me; and, in duty to the memory of my good old friend, I chronicle the faithful care and watchfulness with which he performed his trust.

* * * * *

Before I started abroad I was offered a piece of work, considerable enough at any age, but doubly so at mine. Dietsch, the chapel-master of St. Eustache, who at that time was chorus-master at the Opera, said to me one day--

"Why don't you write a mass before going to Rome? If you will compose one, I will have it sung at St. Eustache."

A mass! of my composition! and at St. Eustache! I thought I must be dreaming!

I had five months before me, so I set to work at once. Thanks to my mother's industrious help in copying the orchestral parts (we were too poor to afford a copyist), all was ready on the appointed day. A mass with full orchestra--think of that!

I dedicated this work--over-boldly perhaps, but certainly with deep gratitude--to the memory of my beloved and regretted master, Le Sueur, and I myself conducted the performance at St. Eustache.

My mass, I readily admit, was a work of no very remarkable value. The novice's inexperience in the art of handling an orchestra with all its varied tints of sound, which needs so long a practical experience, was all too apparent. As to the musical ideas my work contained, their value was confined to a fairly clear conception of the sense of its sacred subject, and a tolerably close harmony between that sense and the music intended to illustrate it. But vigour of design and general outline were sorely lacking.

However that may have been, this first attempt brought me much kind encouragement; the following, for instance, which touched me specially.

Returning home with my mother after the performance of the mass, I found a messenger with a note awaiting me at the door of our apartment (then at 8 Rue de l'Eperon, on the ground floor). I opened the letter, and read as follows:--

"Well done, young fellow, whom I remember as a child! All honour to your 'Gloria,' your 'Credo,' and, above all, your 'Sanctus.' It is fine, it is full of religious feeling! Well done, and many thanks! You have made me very happy!"

It was from good Monsieur Poirson, my former Principal at Saint Louis, then Principal of the Lycee Charlemagne. He had seen the announcement of my mass, and had come with all speed to witness the first public appearance of the young artist to whom he had said, seven years before, "Go on, my boy; you _shall_ be a musician!"

I was so touched by his kindly thought, that I did not even wait to go indoors. I rushed into the street, called a cab, and hurried to the Lycee Charlemagne, in the Rue St. Antoine, where I found my dear old Principal, who clasped me to his heart.

I had only four more days to spend with my mother before leaving her for three years. She, poor woman, through her constant tears, was getting everything ready against the day of my departure. Very soon it came.

II

_ITALY_

We left Paris, Lefuel and Vauthier and I, on December 5th, 1839, by the mail-coach which started from the Rue Jean Jacques Rousseau.

My brother was the only person there to bid us farewell. Our first stage took us to Lyons. Thence we followed the course of the Rhone, by Avignon, Arles, &c., till we reached Marseilles.

At Marseilles we took a "vetturino."

"Vetturino!" What memories the word recalls! Alas for the poor old travelling carriage long since shouldered out of existence, crushed and smothered under the hurrying feet of the iron horse!

The good-natured old conveyance which one stopped at will, whenever one wanted peacefully to admire those beautiful bits of scenery through or mayhap underneath which the snorting steam horse, devouring space like any meteor, now whisks you like a parcel! In those days men travelled gradually, insensibly from one impression to another; now this railway mortar fires us from Paris, in our sleep, to wake under some Eastern sky. No imperceptible mental transition or climatic change! We are shot out roughly, treated as a British merchant treats his merchandise. Close packed like bales down in a hold, and delivered with all speed, like fish sent on by express train to make sure of its arriving fresh! If only progress, that remorseless conqueror, would even spare its victims' lives! But no, the vetturino has departed utterly. Yet I bless his memory. But for his aid, I should have never had the joy of seeing that wonderful Corniche, the ideal introduction to the delicious climate and the picturesque charms of Italy--Monaco, Mentone, Sestri, Genoa, Spezzia, Trasimeno, Tuscany, Pisa, Lucca, Sienna, Perugia, Florence. A progressive and many-sided education, Nature's explanation of the existence of the great masters, while they in turn teach man to look at Nature. For close on two happy months we dallied over all this loveliness, leisurely tasting and enjoying it, till finally, on January 27th, 1840, we entered the great city which was to be our home, our teacher, our initiator into the noblest and severest beauties of nature and of art.

The Director of the French Academy at that time was Monsieur Ingres. He had been one of my father's early friends. On our arrival, we called, as in duty bound, to pay him our respects. As soon as he saw me he cried--

"You are Gounod, I am sure! Goodness! how like your father you are!"

He spoke of my father's talent as a draughtsman, of his kind disposition, of his brilliant wit and conversational powers, with an admiration which, coming as it did from the lips of so distinguished an artist, constituted the most delightful welcome I could have had. Soon we were established in our different quarters, consisting in each case of a single large apartment, called a _Loggia_, which served alike as bedroom and as studio.

My first thought was of the length of time which must elapse before I saw my mother again. I wondered whether my work as an art student would suffice to enable me to bear with any sort of patience a separation which, between Rome and Germany, must cover quite three years.

Gazing from my window on the dome of St. Peter's in the distance, I readily yielded to the melancholy aroused by my first taste of solitude--though solitude is hardly a word applicable to this palace, where twenty-two of us dwelt, and where we all met at least twice daily at the common board, in that splendid dining-hall, the walls of which are covered with the portraits of every student since the foundation of the Academy. Besides, it was my nature to make friends quickly, and live on excellent terms with those about me.

I must admit, too, that my low spirits were in great part due to my first impressions of Rome itself. I was utterly disappointed. Instead of the city of my dreams, majestic and imposing, full of ancient temples, antique monuments, and picturesque ruins, I saw a mere provincial town, vulgar, characterless, and, in most places, very dirty.

My disenchantment was complete, and it would have required but little persuasion to make me throw up the sponge, pack my traps, and hurry back to Paris and all I cared for as quickly as wheels could take me there. As a matter of fact, Rome does possess all the beauties I had dreamt of, but the eye of a new-comer cannot at first perceive them. They must be sought out, felt for, here and there, until by slow degrees the sleeping glories of the splendid past awake, and the dumb ruins and dry bones arise once more to life before their patient student's eyes.

I was still too young, not only in years, but also and especially in character, to grasp or understand at the first glance the deep significance of the solemn, austere city, whose whisper is so low that only ears accustomed to deep silence and sharpened by seclusion can catch its tones. Rome is the echo of the Scriptural words of the Maker of the human soul to His own handiwork: "I will bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably to her." So various is she in herself, and in such deep calm is everything about her lapped, that no conception of her immense _ensemble_ and prodigious wealth of treasures is possible at first. The Past, the Present, and the Future alike crown her the capital not of Italy only, but of the human race in general. This fact is recognised by all who have lived there long; for whatever the country whence the wanderer comes, whatever tongue he speaks, Rome has a universal language understood by all, so that the thoughtful traveller, leaving her, feels he leaves home behind him.

Little by little I felt my low spirits evaporate and a new feeling take their place. I began to know Rome better, and cast aside the winding-sheet which had enwrapped me, as it were. But even up to this I had not been living in downright idleness.

My favourite amusement was reading Goethe's "Faust," in French of course, as I knew no German. I read too, with great interest, "Lamartine's Poems." Before I began to think about sending home my first batch of work, for which I still had plenty of time before me, I busied myself in composing a number of melodies, among others "Le Vallon" and also "Le Soir," the music of which I incorporated ten years afterwards into a scene in the first act of my opera "Sappho," to the beautiful lines written by my dear friend and famous colleague, Emile Augier, "Hero sur la tour solitaire."

I wrote both these songs at a few days' interval, almost as soon as I arrived at the Villa Medecis.

Six weeks or so slipped away. My eyes had grown accustomed to the silent city, which at first had seemed so like a desert to me. The very silence ended by having its own charm, by becoming an actual pleasure to me; and I took particular delight in roaming about the Forum, the ruins of the Palatine Hill, and the Coliseum, those glorious relics of a power and splendour departed, which have rested now for centuries under the august and peaceful rule of the universal Shepherd, and the Empress city of the world.

A very worthy and pleasant family of the name of Desgoffe was at that time staying with Monsieur and Madame Ingres. I had made their acquaintance, and gradually became very intimate with them. Alexandre Desgoffe was not an Academy student like myself, but a private pupil of Monsieur Ingres, and a very fine landscape painter. Yet he lived in the Academy buildings with his wife and daughter, a charming child of nine, who afterwards became Madame Paul Flandrin, and retained as a wife and mother the sweetness which characterised her girlhood. Desgoffe himself was a man in ten thousand; downright and honest, modest and unselfish, simple and pure-minded as a child, the kindest and most faithful soul on earth. It may easily be guessed that my mother was very glad to learn that I had such good people near me to show me true affection, and not only comfort my loneliness, but, if necessary, give me kind and devoted care.

We students always spent our Sunday evenings in the Director's drawing-room, to which we had the right of _entree_ on that day. Generally there was music. Monsieur Ingres had taken a fancy to me, and he was music mad. He particularly affected Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and above all Gluck, whose noble style, with its touch of pathos, stamped him in his mind as something of the ancient Greek, a worthy scion of AEschylus, of Sophocles, or Euripides.

Monsieur Ingres played the violin. He was no finished performer, still less was he an artist; but in his youth he had played in the orchestra of his native town, Montauban, and taken part in the performance of Gluck's operas.

I had read and studied the German composer's works. As to Mozart's "Don Giovanni," I knew it all by heart; so, although not a very good pianist, I was quite up to treating Monsieur Ingres to recollections of his favourite score.

Beethoven's symphonies I knew by heart, too, and these he passionately admired; we often spent the greater part of the night deep in talk over the great master's works, and before long I stood high in his good graces.

Nobody who was not intimately acquainted with Monsieur Ingres can have any correct idea of what he really was. I lived in close familiarity with him for some considerable time, and I can testify to the simplicity, uprightness, and frankness of his nature. He was full of candour and of noble impulse, enthusiastic, even eloquent at times. He could be as tender and gentle as a child, and then again he would pour out a torrent of apostolic wrath. His unaffectedness and sensitive delicacy were touching, and there was a freshness of feeling about the man which has never yet been found in any _poseur_, as some people have elected to call him.