h respect to the present moment, absorbed in my new system of music,
I obstinately adhered to my intention of effecting a revolution in the
art, and by that means of acquiring a celebrity which, in the fine arts,
is in Paris mostly accompanied by fortune. I shut myself in my chamber
and labored three or four months with inexpressible ardor, in forming
into a work for the public eye, the memoir I had read before the academy.
The difficulty was to find a bookseller to take my manuscript; and this
on account of the necessary expenses for new characters, and because
booksellers give not their money by handfuls to young authors; although
to me it seemed but just my work should render me the bread I had eaten
while employed in its composition.

Bonnefond introduced me to Quillau the father, with whom I agreed to
divide the profits, without reckoning the privilege, of which I paid the
whole expense. Such were the future proceedings of this Quillau that I
lost the expenses of my privilege, never having received a farthing from
that edition; which, probably, had but very middling success, although
the Abbe des Fontaines promised to give it celebrity, and,
notwithstanding the other journalists, had spoken of it very favorably.

The greatest obstacle to making the experiment of my system was the fear,
in case of its not being received, of losing the time necessary to learn
it. To this I answered, that my notes rendered the ideas so clear, that
to learn music by means of the ordinary characters, time would be gained
by beginning with mine. To prove this by experience, I taught music
gratis to a young American lady, Mademoiselle des Roulins, with whom M.
Roguin had brought me acquainted. In three months she read every kind of
music, by means of my notation, and sung at sight better than I did
myself, any piece that was not too difficult. This success was
convincing, but not known; any other person would have filled the
journals with the detail, but with some talents for discovering useful
things, I never have possessed that of setting them off to advantage.

Thus was my airy castle again overthrown; but this time I was thirty
years of age, and in Paris, where it is impossible to live for a trifle.
The resolution I took upon this occasion will astonish none but those by
whom the first part of these memoirs has not been read with attention.
I had just made great and fruitless efforts, and was in need of
relaxation. Instead of