And yet he knew all about the man whom he seemed anxious to extinguish, for it was he who, in a musical criticism, wrote, among other praises:  “It is impossible to imagine superior execution;” and elsewhere:  “He renders the thoughts of the great masters with such brilliancy and strength, that their masterpieces are made accessible to the most stubborn intellect and the most hardened sensibilities are roused by his tones.”

What had happened to make the author of the “Pilgrims’ March” so oblivious of his own admiration?  I have heard that the two musicians quarreled as to the interpretation of a passage by Gluck, and that a correspondence much resembling a literary warfare, followed.  Could this justify defection?  Perhaps a desire to stifle this glory, thereby to lend more lustre to some meteor or star, had some share in this supposed motive.

At any rate, the affair is not to the honor of Berlioz.  We should never deny, whatever may happen, the just judgment which we have uttered.  Direct or indirect, the rivalries of artists are to be regretted for the sake of art itself, which lives on noble sentiments and high thoughts.  Although we may laugh at the inconsequence of a critic who extinguishes with one hand that which the other hand brought to light, we cannot repress a deep feeling of sadness when we see upon what reputation too often depends, and when we ask ourselves how much we are to believe of the opinions of certain chroniclers.

The fact which I have just quoted is the more surprising, inasmuch as Berlioz often drew his inspiration from the method of, and from certain modes of expression peculiar to Delsarte.

Chapter XVIII.

Delsarte before the Philotechnic Association.[8]

It was in 1865 that Delsarte was heard in public for the last time.  The meeting took place at the Sorbonne where the lectures of the Philotechnic Society were then given.

I see him before me now with his strong personality, his captivating and persuasive speech, his mind with its incisive flashes; but a visible melancholy swayed him and was to follow him through the variety and contrasts of the subjects on his program.

And first, he takes pleasure in proclaiming to all the tale of his mistakes.  Still young in heart and in mind, it seems as if in giving up hope on earth, he tolled the knell of all the enchantments that were passed and gone; that creative head fermenting with the ardor of discovery seems to doubt the future and bow beneath the burden of a sombre submission.

And yet he is surrounded by picked men who admire him, by women, young, beautiful, brilliant, eager to hear him, as of old; but he is not deceived by all this.  A magic spell has vanished; sympathy is not denied him, but perhaps he feels it to be less tender, less affectionate than in the radiant days of his youth.

This explains how, in the course of that evening, a recrudescence of Christian feeling more than once tore him away from the undeniable assertions of science, not to drag him down to the puerilities of the letter, but to draw him up into the clouds of theology, whence hope of a future life, the consolation of farewell hours, smiled upon him.