of music, real
or imaginary, met his ear and charmed him to a forgetfulness of misery,
bereavement, all the evils that environed him. It was the first
awakening of his artist soul, and to this day Delsarte believes that it
was no earthly music that he heard.

Rousing himself from a sort of stupor into which he had fallen, he saw a
_chiffonnier_ bending over him. The man had for a moment mistaken the
prostrate form for a bundle of rags; but taking pity on the half-frozen
lad, he placed him in his basket and carried him to his miserable home.
And so the future artist commenced his professional career as a Parisian
rag-picker.

While wandering about the great city in the interest of his employer,
his only solace was to listen to the songs of itinerant vocalists and
the occasional music of a military band. Music became his passion. From
some of the gamins he learned the seven notes of the scale, and, to
preserve the melodies that delighted him, he invented a system of
musical notation. On a certain holiday, when he was twelve years old,
while listening to the delightful music in the garden of the Tuileries,
the little _chiffonnier_ busied himself with drawing figures in the
dust. An old man of eccentric appearance, noticing his earnest
diligence, accosted him.

"What are you doing there, boy?" he asked.

Terrified at first, but reassured by the kind manner of the stranger,
Delsarte replied: "Writing down the music, sir."

"Do you mean to say those marks have any significance? That you can read
them?"

"Certainly, sir."

"Let me hear you."

Encouraged by the interest manifested in him, the lad sang in a sweet
and pure but sad voice the strains just played by the military band. The
old man was amazed.

"Who taught you this process?"

"Nobody, sir; found it out myself."

Bambini--for it was the then distinguished, but now almost forgotten,
professor--offered to take the boy home with him; and he who had entered
the garden of the Tuileries a rag-picker, left it a recognized musician.
In the dust of Paris were first written the elements of a system
destined to regenerate art. Bambini taught his protege all he knew, but
the pupil soon surpassed the master and became his instructor in turn;
for if the one had talent, the other possessed genius.

Bambini predicted the future of Delsarte. One day when they were walking
arm-in-arm in the Avenue des Champs-Elysees, the former said: "Do you
see all those people in car