That accent touched all hearts.  What visible grief and what a sense of suppressed tears when in her grave, slow tones she uttered the phrase: 

“You leave me, Rinaldo!  Oh, mortal pain!”

The master soon obtained from this marvellous aptness, what is rarely acquired, even after long years of study:  dramatic effects free from all hint of charlatanism.  The distinguishing point between Madame Pasca and Madame Barbot is, that the latter, while observing all the rules of the method avoided servile imitation.

Delsarte was all the more delighted at his success, because he had revealed to his scholar her true calling.  Madame Pasca came to him for singing-lessons, but her large, strongly-marked voice had little range.  She was directed toward the art which she afterward practiced, and began her studies with tragedy.  Some idea of what she did in this field may be formed from the effect which she produced in pathetic scenes, where the comedy allowed her serious voice to show its power and penetrating tone.

I need not speak of Madame Pasca’s success at the Gymnase and abroad.  It is known and undoubted.  Still she lacks the consecration of the stage where Mars and Rachel shone.  When this artist left the school to enter upon her career, Delsarte said to her: 

“My dear child, you will spend your life in atoning for the crime of being my pupil.”

He was right, for Madame Pasca has no place at the Francais yet.

I can speak from hearsay merely, of the lessons in elocution and declamation intended for preachers—­particularly for the fathers of the Oratory,—­never having been present at them.  I only know that Father Monsabre and other famous ecclesiastics took lessons from Francois Delsarte.

Chapter XV.

Delsarte’s Musical Compositions.

Delsarte paid but little attention to musical composition; still his musical works prove that he would have succeeded here as elsewhere, had he devoted himself particularly to the task.

To say nothing of six fine vocal exercises and a number of songs which had their day, his “Stanzas to Eternity” were highly popular.  A mass by him was performed in several churches; but his “Last Judgment,” especially, ranks him among serious composers.

This setting of the Dies Irae is touching and severe; the melody is broad, sombre, threatening; the accompaniment reminds one of the dull rattling of the skeletons reassuming their original shape.  One seems to hear the uneasy hum of voices roused from long sleep.

One incident showed the importance of this work.  Various pieces of concerted music were being rehearsed one night at the church of St. Sulpice, for performance during the solemnity of “the work of St. Francis de Xavier.”  A close circle formed around the musicians; private conversation added a discordant note to the harmony; the church echoed back the footsteps of people walking to and fro.