the Italians, Lully and Cherubini, as Frenchmen.  M. Buchor has had to go to German classical musicians almost entirely, and, generally speaking, his choice has been a happy one.  With a sure instinct he has given the preference to popular geniuses like Haendel and Beethoven.  We may ask why he did not keep their words; but we must remember that at any rate they had to be translated; and though it may seem rash to change the subject of a musical masterpiece, it is certain that M. Buchor’s clever adaptations have resulted in driving the fine thoughts of Haendel and Schubert and Mozart and Beethoven into the memories of the French people, and making them part of their lives.  Had they heard the same music at a concert they would probably not have been very much moved.  And that makes M. Buchor in the right.  Let the French people enrich themselves with the musical treasures of Germany until the time comes when they are able to create a music of their own!  This is a kind of peaceful conquest to which our art is accustomed.  “Now then, Frenchmen,” as Du Bellay used to say, “walk boldly up to that fine old Roman city, and decorate (as you have done more than once) your temples and altars with its spoils.”  Besides, let us remember that the German masters of the eighteenth century, whose words M. Buchor has plagiarised, did not hesitate to plagiarise themselves; and in turning the Berceuse of the Oratorio de Noel into a Sainte famille humaine, M. Buchor has respected the musical ideas of Bach much more than Bach himself did when he turned it into a Dialogue between Hercules and Pleasure.]

And at last he composed and grouped together twenty-four poems in his Poeme de la Vie humaine[247]—­fine odes and songs, written for classic airs and choruses, a vast repertory of the people’s joys and sorrows, fitting the momentous hours of family or public life.  With a people that has ancient musical traditions, as Germany has, music is the vehicle for the words and impresses them in the heart; but in France’s case it is truer to say that the words have brought the music of Haendel and Beethoven into the hearts of French school-children.  The great thing is that the music has really got hold of them, and that now one may hear the provincial Ecoles Normales performing choruses from Fidelio, The Messiah, Schumann’s Faust, or Bach cantatas.[248] The honour of this remarkable achievement, which no one could have believed possible twenty years ago, belongs almost entirely to M. Maurice Buchor.[249]

[Footnote 247:  The Poeme has been published in four parts:—­I. De la naissance au mariage ("From Birth to Marriage"); II. La Cite ("The City"); III. De l’age viril jusqu’a la mort ("From Manhood to Death"); IV. L’Ideal ("Ideals"). 1900-1906.]

[Footnote 248:  The last chorus of Fidelio has been recently sung by one hundred and seventy school-children at Douai; a grand chorus from The Messiah by the Ecoles Normales of Angouleme and Valence; and the great choral scene and the last part of Schumann’s Faust by the two Ecoles Normales of Limoges.  At Valence, performances are given every year in the theatre there before an audience of between eight hundred and a thousand teachers.