leave her father to his fate. The miller determines to
sacrifice himself for his daughter's lover, and by pretending that his
sentence has been revoked induces Dominique to depart. The old man is
shot by the Germans just as the French rush in triumphant with Dominique
at their head.

'L'Attaque du Moulin' was received with more general favour than 'Le
Reve.' In it Bruneau shows an inclination to relax the stern principles
of his former creed. The action is often interrupted by solos and duets
of a type which approaches the conventional, though for the most part
the opera follows the Wagnerian system. The result of this mixture of
styles is unsatisfactory. 'L'Attaque du Moulin' has not the austere
sincerity of 'Le Reve,' and the attempts to bid for popular favour are
not nearly popular enough to catch the general ear. Bruneau has little
melodic inspiration, and when he tries to be tuneful he generally ends
in being merely commonplace. The orchestral part of the opera, too, is
far less satisfactory than in 'Le Reve.' There, as has already been
pointed out, the monotony and lack of colour were to a certain extent in
keeping with the character of the work, but in 'L'Attaque du Moulin,'
where all should be colour and variety, the dull and featureless
orchestration is a serious blot. 'Messidor' (1897) and 'L'Ouragan'
(1901) had very much the same reception as the composer's earlier
operas. The compact little phalanx of his admirers greeted them with
enthusiasm, but the general public remained cold. 'Messidor,' written
to a prose libretto by Zola, is a curious mixture of socialism and
symbolism. The foundation of the plot is a legend of the gold-bearing
river Ariege, which is said to spring from a vast subterranean
cathedral, where the infant Christ sits on his mother's lap playing with
the sand which falls from his hands in streams of gold. Intertwined with
this strange story is a tale of the conflict between a capitalist and
the villagers whom his gold-sifting machinery has ruined. There are some
fine moments in the drama, but the allegorical element which plays so
large a part in it makes neither for perspicacity nor for popularity.
'L'Ouragan' is a gloomy story of love, jealousy, and revenge. The scene
is laid among the fisher-folk of a wild coast--presumably
Brittany--where the passions of the inhabitants seem to rival the
tempests of their storm-beaten shores in power and intensity. It
contains music finely imagined and