, and
gave me the money. May God bless him for it, for ever and ever!

[Footnote 29: Alexis Azevedo, one of the best musical critics
of the time, as enthusiastic in his likes as unreasoning in his
dislikes. He became a fervent admirer of Felicien
David.--EDITOR.]

"Now would you like to hear what happened after the performance?" he
continued. "The place was full and the applause tremendous. Next morning
the papers were full of my name; I was, according to most of them, 'a
revelation in music.' But for all that I was living in an attic on a
fifth floor, and had not sufficient money to pay my orchestra, let alone
to arrange for another concert. As for the score of 'Le Desert,' it went
the round of every publisher but one, and was declined by all these. At
last the firm of Escudier offered me twelve hundred francs for it,
which, of course, I was glad to take. They behaved handsomely after all,
because they arranged for a series of performances of it, which I was to
direct at a fee of a thousand francs per performance. Those good
Saint-Simoniens, the Pereiras, Enfantin, Michel Chevalier, had not
lifted a finger to help me in my need; nevertheless, I was not going to
condemn good principles on account of the men who represented them not
very worthily. Do you know what was the result of this determination not
to be unjust if others were? I embarked my little savings in a concern
presided over by one of them. I lost every penny of it; since then I
have never been able to save a penny."

Felicien David was right--he never made money; first of all, "because,"
as Auber said, "he was too great an artist to be popular;" secondly,
because the era of cantatas and oratorios had not set in in France;
thirdly, because he composed very slowly; and fourthly, "because he had
no luck." The performances of his principal theatrical work were
interrupted by the Coup-d'Etat. I am alluding to "La Perle du Bresil,"
which, though represented at the Opera-Comique in 1850, only ran for a
few nights there, divergencies of opinion having arisen between the
composer and M. Emile Perrin, who was afterwards director of the Grand
Opera, and finally of the Comedie-Francaise. When it was revived, on
November 22, 1851, the great event which was to transform the second
republic into the second empire was looming on the horizon. In 1862,
Napoleon III. made Felicien David an officer of the Legion d'Honneur;
Louis-Philippe