And that is why one should applaud the enterprise of Victor Charpentier, who, in March, 1905, founded a Symphonic Society of amateurs called L’Orchestre, to give free hearings for the benefit of the people.  And in that Paris, where forty years ago one would have had a good deal of trouble to get together two or three amateur quartettes, Victor Charpentier has been able to count on one hundred and fifty good performers,[240] who under his direction, or that of Saint-Saens or Gabriel Faure, have already given seventeen free concerts, of which ten were given at the Trocadero.[241] It is to be hoped that the State will help forward such a generous work for the people in a rather more practical way than it has done up till now.[242]

[Footnote 240:  There are ninety violins, fifteen violas, and fifteen violoncellos.  Unfortunately it is much more difficult to get recruits for the wood wind and brass.]

[Footnote 241:  They have performed classical music of composers like Bach, Haendel, Gluck, Rameau, and Beethoven; and modern music of composers like Berlioz, Saint-Saens, Dukas, etc.  This Society has just installed itself in the ancient chapel of the Dominicans of the Faubourg-Saint-Honore, who have given them the use of it.]

[Footnote 242:  Of late years there has been a veritable outburst of concerts at popular prices—­some of them in imitation of the German Restaurationskonzerte, such as the Concerts-Rouge, the Concerts-Touche, etc., where classical and modern symphony music may be heard.  These concerts are increasing fast, and have great success among a public that is almost exclusively bourgeois, but they are yet a long way behind the popular performances of Haendel in London, where places may be had for sixpence and threepence.

I do not attach very much importance to the courageous, though not always very intelligent movement of the Universites Populaires, where since 1886 a collection of amateurs, of fashionable people and artists, meet to make themselves heard, and pretend to initiate the people into what are sometimes the most complicated and aristocratic works of a classic or decadent art.  While honouring this propaganda—­whose ardour has now abated somewhat—­one must say that it has shown more good-will than common-sense.  The people do not need amusing, still less should they be bored; what they need is to learn something about music.  This is not always easy; for it is not noisy deeds we want, but patience and self-sacrifice.  Good intentions are not enough.  One knows the final failure of the Conservatoire populaire de Mimi Pinson, started by Gustave Charpentier, for giving musical education to the work-girls of Paris.]