f the composer of _Louise_ Miss Garden had many interesting things to
say in after years: "The opera is an expression of Charpentier's own
life," she told me one day. "It is the opera of Montmartre, and he was
the King of Montmartre, a real bohemian, to whom money and fame meant
nothing. He was satisfied if he had enough to pay _consommations_ for
himself and his friends at the Rat Mort. He had won the _Prix de Rome_
before _Louise_ was produced, but he remained poor. He lived in a dirty
little garret up on the _butte_, and while he was writing this realistic
picture of his own life he was slowly starving to death. Andre Messager
knew him and tried to give him money, but he wouldn't accept it. He was
very proud. Messager was obliged to carry up milk in bottles, with a
loaf of bread, and say that he wanted to lunch with him, in order to get
Charpentier to take nourishment.

"Meanwhile, little by little, _Louise_ was being slowly written.... Part
of it he wrote in the Rat Mort, part in his own little room, and part of
it in the Moulin de la Galette, one of the gayest of the Montmartre
dance halls. High up on the _butte_ the gaunt windmill sign waves its
arms; from the garden you can see all Paris. It is the view that you get
in the third act of _Louise_.... The production of his opera brought
Charpentier nearly half a million francs, but he spent it all on the
working-girls of Montmartre. He even established a conservatory, so that
those with talent might study without paying. And his mother, whom he
adored, had everything she wanted until she died.... He always wore the
artist costume, corduroy trousers, blouse, and flowing tie, even when he
came to the Opera-Comique in the evening. Money did not change his
habits. His kingdom extended over all Paris after the production of
_Louise_, but he still preferred his old friends in Montmartre to the
new ones his success had made for him, and he dissipated his strength
and talent. He was an adorable man; he would give his last sou to any
one who asked for it!

"To celebrate the fiftieth performance of _Louise_, M. Carre gave a
dinner in July, 1900. Most appropriately he did not choose the Cafe
Anglais or the Cafe de Paris for this occasion, but Charpentier's own
beloved Moulin de la Galette. It was at this dinner that the composer
gave the first sign of his physical decline. He had scarcely seated
himself at the table, surrounded by the great men and women of Paris,
before he f