Chapter 46

Delsarte's Family.

Delsarte married, in 1833, Miss Rosina Andrien. The young husband felt a high esteem for his father-in-law (primo basso cantante at the Opera); but we must not suppose that this consideration influenced his choice. He made a love marriage such as one makes at the age of twenty-two, with such a nature as his. Moreover, reason was never in closer accord with love.

Miss Andrien was remarkably beautiful. She was fifteen; her talent as a pianist had already won her a first prize at the Conservatory. She was just the companion, wise and devoted, to counterbalance the flights of imagination and the momentary transports inherent in the temperament of many artists.

I pause, fearing to wound a modesty which I know to be very sensitive: the living cannot bear praise with the indifference of the dead; but I must be allowed to insist upon the valuable assistance which the young wife lent her husband in his professional duties; this is a special part of my subject.

Mme. Delsarte started with a genuine talent. The situation in which she was placed, soon made her a perfect accompanist. Never was there more perfect harmony between singer and player. Amid the incessant interruptions necessary to a lesson, the piano never lagged a second either in stopping or in going on again. The note fell promptly, identical with the first note of the piece under study. To attain to this obedient precision, one must possess indomitable patience, must be willing to be utterly effaced. Delsarte appreciated this self-denial in proportion to the merit of her who practiced it.

In everything that concerned him, he relied especially upon the opinion of his accompanist; he felt her to be an abler and more serious judge than the most of those around him. But--with the shy reserve of merit unacknowledged even to itself,--the young woman shrank from expressing her impressions. If I may judge by the anecdote which follows, the artist was at times distressed by this.

One day Delsarte, granting one of those favors of which he was never lavish, consented to sing a composition of which he was particularly fond, to a few friends. It was the air from Méhul's "Joseph:" "Vainly doth Pharaoh ..."

Mme. Delsarte, always ready at the first call, took her seat at the piano.

The master was in the mood--that is, in full possession of all his powers. His pathos was heartrending.

"You won a great triumph," I said to him; "I saw tears in Mme. Delsarte's eyes."

"My wife's eyes," he cried as if struck by surprise, "are you quite sure?"

"Perfectly," I replied.

He seemed greatly pleased. Putting aside all other feeling, it was no slight triumph to move to such a point one who assisted at and sat through his daily lessons for hours at a time.

A few years sufficed to form a family around this very young couple. It was soon a charming accessory to see children fluttering about the house; slipping in among the scholars; showing a furtive head--dark or light--at one of the doors of the lecture-room. Let me recall their names: The eldest were Henri, Gustave, Adrien, Xavier, Marie; then came after a long interval, André and Madeleine.

Delsarte loved them madly; for their future he dreamed all the dreams of the Arabian Nights. Meantime, he played with them so happily that he seemed to take a personal delight in it.

He gave them all the joys of this life that were within his reach, and it was well that he did so! Alas! of the dreams of glory cherished for these beloved beings, some few were realized, but many faded promptly with the existence of those who called them forth.

But we must not anticipate. At the time of which I speak the children were growing and developing, each according to its nature, in full freedom. Those who felt a vocation seized on the wing--rather than they received from irregular lessons--some fragments of that great art which was taught in the school.

Marie learned while very young to reproduce with marvelous skill what were called _the attitudes_ and the physiognomic changes. Madeleine delighted in making caricatures which showed great talent. The features of certain pupils and frequenters of the lectures were plainly recognizable in these sketches made by a childish hand.

Gustave was a child of an open face and broad shoulders. One incident will show his originality.

A strange lady came to the master's house one day either to ask a hearing or offer a pupil. She met this charming boy.

"M. Delsarte?" she asked.

"I am he, madam!" replied Gustave without flinching.

"Very good," said his questioner, laughing, "but I wish to speak to your father."

This same Gustave who, to a certain degree, followed in his father's footsteps, was struck down a few years after him, at the age of forty-two.

What a striking application of Victor Hugo's lines:

"And both are dead.... Oh Lord, all powerful is thy right hand!"

Gustave's career seemed to open readily and smoothly. Not that he could approach his father from a dramatic point of view; he had not his absolute synthesis of talents, and his figure was not suited to the theatre; as a singer, his voice was weak, but what a charm and what a style he had! Although his voice was not adapted to every part, although he had not that range of the vocal scale which permits one to attack any and every composition, still, its sympathetic, tender and penetrating quality did ample justice to all that is most exquisite in romance. When you had once heard that voice, guided by the force of his father's grand method, you never forgot its sincerity and melancholy; it haunted you and left you impatient to hear it again.

As a concert-singer and teacher, Gustave Delsarte might have won high rank. An ill-assorted marriage and his misanthropic character prevented. As a composer, he left some few songs, masses and religious fragments which are not without merit. When he was to produce any of his sacred works, the composer-singer never took a part; but he would lead the orchestra. If he came to a rehearsal and the performers appeared weak, a holy wrath would seize upon Gustave. Then he flung a firm, incisive, accentuated note into the midst of the choir, vivid as a spark bursting from a fire covered with ashes. He would accompany it with a glance which seemed to flash from his father's eye; at such moments, he resembled him; but this transformation never lasted more than a second; the fictitious power disappeared as all which was Gustave Delsarte was doomed to disappear.

At least, his father did not live to mourn his loss. And yet he knew that worst of heart-suffering: the loss of a beloved child. Alas! In that radiant family, whose mirth, fresh faces and luxuriant health seemed to defy death, the implacable foe had already twice swept his scythe.

The first to go was André, one of the latest born. He was at the age when the child leaves no lasting memories behind; but we know the grace of innocence, the privilege of impeccability by which infancy atones for the lack of acquirements. Then these little creatures have the mysterious entrancing smiles, which mothers understand and adore--and Delsarte loved his children with a mother's heart.

Time lessens such pangs; but when a fresh sorrow re-opened the era of calamity, it seems as if the sad events trod upon each other's heels and the interval between seems to have been but one unmitigated agony.

The loss undergone in 1863 was even greater. Xavier Delsarte was a tall, handsome young man. The master was content with the profit which his son had derived from his tuition. He was successful as a singer and elocutionist. He was attacked by cholera during an epidemic. The night before he had taken several glasses of iced orgeat in the open air.

Xavier lived in the Rue des Batailles with his family, but not in the same apartment. This fact was fatal. Instead of calling help in the first stages--unwilling to disturb his relatives--the invalid wandered down stairs during the night, and into the court-yard. There he drank water from the pump. I can still recall the unhappy father's story of that cruel moment.

"It was scarcely day. I was waked by that unexpected, fatal ringing of the bell, which, at such an hour, always bodes misfortune. The maid heard it also, and opened the door. She uttered a cry of alarm. Almost instantly, my poor boy stood at my chamber door. He leaned against the frame of the door, his strength not allowing him to advance. From the change in his features, I understood all--he was hopelessly lost!"

Delsarte was sensitive and of a very loving nature; but he was endowed with great strength. Much absorbed, moreover, in his profession, his studies, his innovations, he often found in them a counterpoise to these rude blows of fate. So when the thoughts of his friends recur to these disasters, they feel that their greatest sympathy and commiseration are due to the mother who three times underwent this supreme martyrdom.

Two names remain to be mentioned in this family where artistic callings seemed a matter of course. The concerts of Madame Thérèsa Wartel--sister of Madame Delsarte--brought together the _élite_ of Parisian virtuosi, and the brilliant pianist took her part in the quatuors in which Sauzay, Allard, Franchomme and other celebrities of the period figured.

George Bizet--author of the opera of "Carmen"--prematurely snatched from the arts, was the nephew of François Delsarte. This young man taught himself Sanscrit unaided; he inspired the greatest hopes.

Wartel, who gave Christine Nilsson her musical education, was not of the same blood, but we find certain points in his method which recall the processes of Delsarte's school.