decin malgre lui." This became
very popular, and paved the way for his "Faust," which was
produced at the Opera Comique in 1859. In the opera comique,
as we know, the singing was always interspersed with spoken
dialogue. Thus, this opera, as we know it, dates from its
preparation for the Grand Opera ten years later, 1869. Ten
months after "Faust" was given he used a fable of Lafontaine
for a short light opera, "Philemon and Baucis."

In the meantime, "Faust" began to bring him encouragement,
and his next opera was on the subject of the "Queen of Sheba"
(1862). This being unsuccessful, he wrote two more light operas,
"Mireille" and "La colombe" (1866). The next was "Romeo et
Juliette" (1867). This was very successful, and marks the
culmination of Gounod's success as an opera composer. In
1870 he went to London, where he made his home for a number
of years. His later operas, "Cinq-Mars" (1877), "Polyeucte"
(1878), and "Le tribut de Zamora" (1881), met with small
success, and have rarely been given.

In his later years, as we know, he showed his early predilection
for religious music; and his oratorios "The Redemption,"
"Mors et Vita," and several masses have been given with
varying success. Perhaps one of the greatest points ever made
in Gounod's favour by a critic was that by Pougin, who asks what
other composer could have written two such operas as "Faust" and
"Romeo et Juliette" and still have them essentially different
musically. The "Garden Scene" in the one and the "Balcony Scene"
in the other are identical, so far as the feeling of the play
is concerned; also the duel of Faust and Valentine and Romeo
and Tybalt.

Ambroise Thomas's better works, "Mignon" and "Hamlet," may
be said to be more or less echoes of Gounod; and while his
"Francesca da Rimini," which was brought out in 1882, was by
far his most ambitious work, it never became known outside of
Paris. Ambroise Thomas was born in 1811, and died within a year
of Gounod. His chief merit was in his successful direction
of the Conservatoire, to which he succeeded Auber in 1871.

Georges Bizet (his name was Alexander Cesar Leopold) was born in
1838, in Paris. His father was a poor singing teacher, and his
mother a sister-in-law of Delsarte; she was a first-prize piano
pupil of the Conservatoire. As a boy, Bizet was very precocious,
and entered the Conservatoire as a pupil of Marmontel when he
was ten. He took successively the first prizes for solfege,
piano