f ideas. If he saw, in the
course of his lecture, a man whom he took for a philosopher or anything
like it, he never failed to direct some piquant phrase, some aggressive
sentence or some irritating thought that way--it was the gauntlet which
he flung for the final combat.

Nor were women exempt from these humorous sallies.

Although the master loved all grandeur--the artistic sense with which he
was so largely endowed inclining him that way--he had democratic, I
might almost say plebeian, instincts. The poetry of simple, humble,
small existences sometimes swayed him.

Thus, if among his hearers, a bright violet or an audacious scarlet gown
annoyed his taste; if the reflection of a ruby or a diamond vexed his
eye, he would choose that instant to improvise a rustic idyl or to
intone a hymn to poverty.

But everything ended well; neither the philosopher whom he had provoked,
nor the fine lady whom he had reproved, left him as an enemy. His
nature with its varied riches had quite enough feminine coquetry to
regain betimes the sympathy which he was on the eve of losing. A
gracious word, an affectionate clasp of the hand, and all was pardoned.

The opposition manifested outside the lecture-room to his ideas and mode
of instruction, was less courteous. There rival schools and jealousies,
ill-disguised under an affectation of disdain, contended against him. He
was accused of the maddest eccentricities; barbarous processes were
imputed to him, such as squeezing the chest of singers, his pupils,
between two boards--the _reason_ was hard to understand. Others claimed
that before Delsarte accepted a scholar, he required a profession of the
Catholic faith and an examination in the catechism.

Those were the days when the author of "Les Orientales," in his legend
of the "Two Archers," spoke of

"That holy hermit who moved stones
By the sign of the cross."

But if, as an artist, Delsarte loved legends and was inspired by faith,
as a professor he could cut short this poetic part of his art, at the
point where science and the practical side of his teaching began.

The reproach, therefore, carried no weight.

Delsarte was amused by these exaggerated accusations; in another order
of criticisms, it was agreeable to him to hear "that he sang without a
voice, as Ingres painted without colors." The comparison pleased him,
although inexact.

Yes, I say _inexact_, Delsarte was not without a voice; he had one, on
the contr