[Footnote 216:  It must be remembered that the prices of the seats were much cheaper than they are to-day; the best were only three francs.]

[Footnote 217:  There were about 340 performances of Saint-Saens’ works, 380 of Wagner’s, 390 of Beethoven’s, and 470 of Berlioz’s.  I owe these details to the kind information of M. Charles Malherbe and M. Leon Petitjean, the secretary of the Colonne concerts.]

Berlioz is almost the exclusive property of the Chatelet.  Not only have they performed his works there more frequently than anywhere else,[218] but they are better understood there than in other places.  The Colonne orchestra and its conductor, gifted with great warmth of spirit,—­though it is sometimes a little intemperate—­are rather bothered by works of a classic nature and by those that show contemplative feeling; but they give wonderful expression to Berlioz’s tumultuous romanticism, his poetic enthusiasm, and the bright and delicate colouring of his paintings and his musical landscapes.  Although Berlioz has his place at the Chevillard and Conservatoire concerts, it is to the Chatelet that his followers flock; and their enthusiasm has not been affected by the campaign that for several years has been directed against Berlioz by some French critics under the influence of the younger musical party—­the followers of d’Indy and Debussy.

[Footnote 218:  The Damnation de Faust alone was given in its entirety a hundred and fifty times in thirty years.]

It is also at the Chatelet that the keenest musical passion has been preserved in the public, even to this day.  Thanks to the size of the theatre, which is one of the largest in Paris, and to the great number of cheap seats, you may always find there a number of young students who make the most interested kind of public possible.  And the music is something more than a pleasure to them—­it is a necessity.  There are some that make great sacrifices in order to have a seat at the Sunday concerts.  And many of these young men and women live all the week on the thought of forgetting the world for a few hours in musical enjoyment.  Such a public did not exist in France before 1870.  It is to the honour of the Chatelet and the Pasdeloup concerts to have created it.

Edouard Colonne has done more than educate musical taste in France; for no one has worked harder than he to break down the barriers that separated the French public from the art of other lands; and, at the same time, he has himself helped to make French art known to foreigners.  When he himself was conducting concerts all over Europe he entrusted the conductorship at the Chatelet to the great German Kapellmeister and to foreign composers—­to Richard Strauss, Grieg, Tschaikowsky, Hans Richter, Hermann Levi, Mottl, Nikisch, Mengelberg, Siegfried Wagner, and many others.  No other conductor has done so much for Parisian music during the last thirty years; and we must not forget it.[219]