nds of the illustrious
stranger to meet at St. Philippe-du-Roule, to witness his funeral rites.
Delsarte was present; the church was so hung with black that the
choristers were alarmed for the effect of their motets.

The artist recalled the request made him the previous week by the
Spanish ambassador. He felt as if that same voice came from the bier and
begged him for one more hymn to the dead. In spite of his emotion, he
offered to sing the _Dies Irae_.

To obviate the lack of resonance, Delsarte sang--according to his theory
in regard to the laws of acoustics,--without expenditure of sound,
almost _mezza voce_.

No one was prepared. The listeners were all the more overcome by those
tones in which the friend's regrets pervaded, with their sweet unction,
the masterly diction of the singer.

When his oldest daughter grew up, Delsarte seemed to take a fancy to a
different style of composition. He would not give that young soul the
regular repertory of his pupils, all passion and profane love. He wrote
for Marie words and music--couplets which were neither romance nor song;
nor were they quite canticles, although religion always lay at the base
of them.

I know none but Madame Sand who can be compared to Delsarte in variety
of feeling and simplicity even unto grandeur. I have often observed a
likeness and, as it were, a kinship between these great minds. And yet
these two great souls, these two great spirits, never exchanged ideas.
The artist never received the plaudits of the distinguished writer. Both
regretted it.

Delsarte said: "I lack that sanction," and Madame Sand wrote, when he
had ceased to live: "I knew Delsarte's worth; I often intended to go
and hear him, and some circumstance, beyond my control, always
prevented."

The world owes a debt to Delsarte for collecting under the title
"Archives of Song," the lyric gems of the XVI, XVII, and XVIII
centuries. And also the songs of the Middle Ages, the prose hymns and
anthems of the church, arranged conformably to the harmonic type
consecrated by the oldest traditions.

"All these works," he wrote in his announcement of the work, "faithfully
copied, arranged for the piano and transposed for concert performance,
will finally be arranged and classified in separate volumes, to suit
various voices, ages, styles, schools, etc., thus affording subject
matter for a complete course of vocal studies."

I do not think that death allowed Delsarte to complete this va