colossal scheme at Bayreuth, but ill
luck followed a man no less great through life. His grand "Trojans"
was mutilated, tinkered, patched, and belittled, to suit the Theatre
Lyrique. It was a butchery of the work, but still it yielded the
composer enough to justify his retirement from the "Journal des Debats,"
after thirty years of slavery.

Berlioz was now sixty years old, a lonely man, frail in body, embittered
in soul by the terrible sense of failure. His wife, with whom he had
lived on terms of alienation, was dead; his only son far away, cruising
on a man-of-war. His courage and ambition were gone. To one who remarked
that his music belonged to the future, he replied that he doubted if it
ever belonged to the past. His life seemed to have been a mistake, so
utterly had he failed to impress himself on the public. Yet there were
times when audiences felt themselves moved by the power of his music
out of the ruts of preconceived opinion into a prophecy of his coming
greatness. There is an interesting anecdote told by a French writer:

"Some years ago M. Pasdeloup gave the _septuor_ from the 'Trojans' at
a benefit concert. The best places were occupied by the people of the
world, but the _elite intelligente_ were ranged upon the highest seats
of the Cirque. The programme was superb, and those who were there
neither for Fashion's nor Charity's sake, but for love of what was
best in art, were enthusiastic in view of all those masterpieces. The
worthless overture of the 'Prophete,' disfiguring this fine _ensemble_,
had been hissed by some students of the Conservatoire, and, accustomed
as I was to the blindness of the general public, knowing its implacable
prejudices, I trembled for the fate of the magnificent _septuor_ about
to follow. My fears were strangely ill-founded, no sooner had ceased
this hymn of infinite love and peace, than these same students, and the
whole assemblage with them, burst into such a tempest of applause as I
never heard before. Berlioz was hidden in the further ranks, and, the
instant he was discovered, the work was forgotten for the man; his
name flew from mouth to mouth, and four thousand people were standing
upright, with their arms stretched toward him. Chance had placed me near
him, and never shall I forget the scene. That name, apparently ignored
by the crowd, it had learned all at once, and was repeating as that of
one of its heroes. Overcome as by the strongest emotion of his life,
his h