At this time Wagner’s success, in its turn, began to make itself felt.  For this M. Lamoureux, whose concerts began in 1882, was chiefly responsible.  Wagner’s influence considerably helped forward the progress of French art, and aroused a love for music in people other than musicians; and, by his all-embracing personality and the vast domain of his work in art, not only engaged the interest of the musical world, but that of the theatrical world, and the world of poetry and the plastic arts.  One may say that from 1885 Wagner’s work acted directly or indirectly on the whole of artistic thought, even on the religious and intellectual thought of the most distinguished people in Paris.  And a curious historical witness of its world-wide influence and momentary supremacy over all other arts was the founding of the Revue Wagnerienne, where, united by the same artistic devotion, were found writers and poets such as Verlaine, Mallarme, Swinburne, Villiers de l’Isle Adam, Huysmans, Richepin, Catulle Mendes, Edouard Rod, Stuart Merrill, Ephraim Mikhael, etc., and painters like Fantin-Latour, Jacques Blanche, Odilon Redon; and critics like Teodor de Wyzewa, H.S.  Chamberlain, Hennequin, Camille Benoit, A. Ernst, de Fourcaud, Wilder, E. Schure, Soubies, Malherbe, Gabriel Mourey, etc.  These writers not only discussed musical subjects, but judged painting, literature, and philosophy, from a Wagnerian point of view.  Hennequin compared the philosophic systems of Herbert Spencer and Wagner.  Teodor de Wyzewa made a study of Wagnerian literature—­not the literature that commentated and the paintings that illustrated Wagner’s works, but the literature and the painting that were inspired by Wagner’s principles—­from Egyptian statuary to Degas’s paintings, from Homer’s writings to those of Villiers de l’Isle Adam!  In a word, the whole universe was seen and judged by the thought of Bayreuth.  And though this folly scarcely lasted more than three or four years—­the length of the life of that little magazine—­Wagner’s genius dominated nearly the whole of French art for ten or twelve years.[209] An ardent musical propaganda by means of concerts was carried on among the public; and the young intellectuals of the day were won over.  But the finest service that Wagnerism rendered to French art was that it interested the general public in music; although the tyranny its influence exercised became, in time, very stifling.

[Footnote 209:  Its influence is shown, in varying degrees, in works such as M. Reyer’s Sigurd (1884), Chabrier’s Gwendoline (1886), and M. Vincent d’Indy’s Le Chant de la Cloche (1886).]