s. Whether he attracts one or not, a
thimbleful of some of his work, a single part in one of his works, a
little bit of the _Fantastique_ or the overture of _Benvenuto_, reveal
more genius--I am not afraid to say it--than all the French music of his
century. I can understand people arguing about him in a country that
produced Beethoven and Bach; but with us in France, who can we set up
against him? Gluck and Cesar Franck were much greater men, but they were
never geniuses of his stature. If genius is a creative force, I cannot
find more than four or five geniuses in the world who rank above him.
When I have named Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Haendel, and Wagner, I do not
know who else is superior to Berlioz; I do not even know who is his
equal.

He is not only a musician, he is music itself. He does not command his
familiar spirit, he is its slave. Those who know his writings know how
he was simply possessed and exhausted by his musical emotions. They were
really fits of ecstasy or convulsions. At first "there was feverish
excitement; the veins beat violently and tears flowed freely. Then came
spasmodic contractions of the muscles, total numbness of the feet and
hands, and partial paralysis of the nerves of sight and hearing; he saw
nothing, heard nothing; he was giddy and half faint." And in the case of
music that displeased him, he suffered, on the contrary, from "a painful
sense of bodily disquiet and even from nausea."[54]

The possession that music held over his nature shows itself clearly in
the sudden outbreak of his genius.[55] His family opposed the idea of
his becoming a musician; and until he was twenty-two or twenty-three
years old his weak will sulkily gave way to their wishes. In obedience
to his father he began his studies in medicine at Paris. One evening he
heard _Les Danaides_ of Salieri. It came upon him like a thunderclap. He
ran to the Conservatoire library and read Gluck's scores.

[Footnote 54: _A travers chants_, pp. 8-9.]

[Footnote 55: In truth, this genius was smouldering since his childhood;
it was there from the beginning; and the proof of it lies in the fact
that he used for his _Ouverture des Francs-Juges_ and for the _Symphonie
fantastique_ airs and phrases of quintets which he had written when
twelve years old (see _Memoires_, I, 16-18).]

He forgot to eat and drink; he was like a man in a frenzy. A
performance of _Iphigenie en Tauride_ finished him. He studied under
Lesueur and then at