A reaction was inevitable directly Paris was well
saturated with Wagner; and it came about in 1890, among a chosen few,
some of whom had been, and were even still, under Wagner's influence. It
was at first only a mild reaction, and showed itself in a return to the
classics of the past and to the great primitives in music.

There had been several attempts in this direction before, but none of
them had succeeded in making any impression on the mass of the public.
In 1843, Joseph Napoleon Ney, Prince of Moszkowa, founded in Paris a
society for the performance of religious and classical vocal music. This
society, which the Prince himself conducted in his own house, set itself
to perform the vocal works of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries.[221]

[Footnote 221: It published, in eleven volumes, the ancient works that
it performed. Before this experiment there had been the _Concerts
historiques de Fetis_, preceded by lectures, which were inaugurated in
1832, and failed; and these were followed by Amedee Mereaux's _Concerts
historiques_ in 1842-1844.]

In 1853, Louis Niedermeyer founded in Paris an _Ecole de musique
religieuse et classique_, which strove "to form singers, organists,
choir-masters, and composers of music, by the study of the classic works
of the great masters of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth
centuries." This school, subsidised by the State, was a nursery for
some real musicians. It reckoned among its pupils some noted composers,
conductors, organists, and historians; among others, M. Gabriel Faure,
M. Andre Messager, M. Eugene Gigout, and M. Henry Expert. M. Saint-Saens
was a professor there, and became its president. Nearly five hundred
organists, choir-masters, and professors of music of the Conservatoire
and other French colleges were trained there. But this school, serious
in intention, and a refuge for the classic spirit in the midst of the
prevailing bad taste, did not trouble itself about influencing the
public, and, in fact, almost ignored it.

Lamoureux attempted in 1873 to perform the great choral works of Bach
and Haendel; and in 1878 the celebrated French organist, M. Alexandre
Guilmant, ventured to give concerts at the Trocadero for the organ and
orchestra, which were devoted to religious music of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries. But the deplorable acoustics of the concert-room
had a prejudicial effect on the works that were performed there; and the
public did not resp