“Quel jour prosp’..er’ plus de myste..er,” instead of:  “Quel jour prospere plus de mystere.” And, in one of the choruses of the opera “La Reine de Chypre”: 

    “Jamais, jamais en Fran ... anc’
    Jamais l’Anglais ne regnera!”

Instead of: 

    “Jamais, jamais en France,
    Jamais l’Anglais ne regnera!”

This anomaly is most offensive in the final syllable of a verse, because there the measure is more impaired than ever, and in this way that alternation of male and female rhymes is suppressed, which produces so flowing and graceful a cadence in French verse.

E mute before a Vowel.

The encounter of E mute in a final syllable, with the initial vowel of the word which follows it, makes the defect more apparent and accordingly easier to fight against.

Delsarte’s process was as follows:  When a silent syllable is immediately followed by a word beginning with another vowel, the E mute (by a prolongation of the sound of the penultimate) is suppressed with the next letter.  Thus in the aria of Joseph (opera by Mehu): 

“Loin de vous a langui ma jeune.. sexilee;” and in Count Ory:  “Salut, o venera ... blermite.”

In these cases, by an unfortunate spirit of compensation, the abettors of the innovation, suppressing the grammatical elision, sing thus: 

    “Loin de vous a langui ma jeune ... ess’exilee.” 
    “Salut, o venrera ... abl’erm ... it!”

Littre’s Dictionary gives us the same pronunciation as Delsarte; and his written demonstration is even more positive.  We find favorables auspices, arbres abattus, written in this way:  “fa-vo-ra-ble-z-auspices, arbre-z-abattus.”

It is, however, very difficult to express these differences exactly, in type:  what Littre expresses radically by typographic characters, is blended with most natural delicacy by the voice of a singer.

Thus, according to Delsarte, the E mute of a final syllable should be suppressed before a vowel, on condition of a prolongation of the sound, in harmony with the penultimate syllable.

According to Delsarte again, according to Voltaire, according to Littre, the E mute is weakened, more or less, but never completely suppressed, before a consonant.

Finally Legouve, whose voice is preponderant in these matters, whose books are in the hands of the whole world, has never entered into this lettricidal conspiracy.

I hope to be pardoned this long digression, thinking it my duty to protest against such a ludicrous method of treating French prosody; I do so both in the name of aesthetics and as a part of my task as biographer of Delsarte.[6]

Chapter III.

Was Delsarte a Philosopher?

If we consider philosophy in the light of all the questions upon which it touches, the subjects which it embraces, we must answer “No;” but if we concentrate the word within the limits of aesthetics, we may reply in the affirmative.  Did not Delsarte point out the origin of art, its object and its aim?