I had the honor of meeting them at
the palace of his Serene Highness the Prince of Monaco, and of having
charming and interesting personal conversation with them, for the king
is a savant and the queen an artist.

CHAPTER XXIII

MUSICAL PAINTERS

Ingres was famous for his violin. A single wall separated the apartment
where I lived during my childhood and youth from the one where the
painter Granger, one of Ingres's pupils, with his wife and daughter,
lived. Granger painted the _Adoration of the Wise Men_ in the church of
Notre Dame de Lorette. I have played with the gilt paper crown which his
model wore when posing as one of the three kings. My mother and Mlle.
Granger (who later became Madame Paul Meurice) both loved painting and
became great friends. They copied together Paul Delaroche's _Enfants
d'Edouard_ at the Louvre, a picture which was the rage at that time. My
mother's paintings, in an admirable state of preservation, may be seen
at the museum at Dieppe.

I was introduced to Ingres when I was five years old through the
Granger family. The distance from the Rue du Jardinet, where we lived,
to the Quai Voltaire was not far, and we often went like a
procession--the Grangers, my great-aunt Masson, my mother and I--to call
upon Ingres and his wife, a delightfully simple woman whom everyone
loved.

Ingres often talked to me about Mozart, Gluck, and all the other great
masters of music. When I was six years old, I composed an Adagio which I
dedicated to him in all seriousness. Fortunately this masterpiece has
been lost. As I already played, and rather nicely for my years, some of
Mozart's sonatas, Ingres, in return for my dedication, presented me with
a small medallion with the portrait of the author of Don Juan on one
side, and this inscription on the other: "To M. Saint-Saens, the
charming interpreter of the divine artist."

He carelessly omitted to add the date of this dedication, which would
have increased its interest, for the idea of calling a knee-high
youngster of six "M. Saint-Saens" was certainly unusual.

[Illustration: Ingres, the painter famous for his violin]

In addition to the calls I paid him, when I was older I often met the
great painter at the house of Frederic Reiset, one of his most ardent
admirers. They made much of music in that household and we often heard
there Delsarte, the singer without a voice, whom Ingres admired very
much. Delsarte and Henri Reber were, in fact, his mu