Part 1 (1/2)
Autobiographical Reminiscences with Family Letters and Notes on Music.
by Charles Gounod.
INTRODUCTION
_The following pages contain the story of the most important events of my artistic life, of the mark left by them on my personal existence, of their influence on my career, and of the thoughts they have suggested to my mind.
I do not desire to make any capital out of whatever public interest may attach to my own person. But I believe the clear and simple narrative of an artist's life may often convey useful information, hidden under a word or fact of no apparent importance, but which tallies exactly with the humour or the need of some particular moment.
An everyday occurrence, a hastily spoken word, often holds its own opportunity.
Experience teaches; and that which has been useful and salutary to me may perchance serve others too.
The Author of his own Memoirs must perforce speak frequently, nay constantly, about himself. It has been my endeavour in this book to do so with absolute impartiality. I can lay claim to scrupulous exactness both in detailing facts and in reporting the remarks of others. I have given my candid opinion of my own work, but the fable tells us the owl misjudged her own offspring, and I may well be mistaken in mine.
Should Posterity deem me worth remembering at all, it will judge whether my estimate of myself is a correct one. I can trust Time to allot me, like every other man, my proper place, or to cast me down if I have been unduly exalted heretofore.
My story bears witness to my love and veneration for the being who bestows more love than any other earthly creature--my mother! Maternity is the most perfect reflection of the great Providence; the purest, warmest ray He casts on earthly life; its inexhaustible solicitude is the direct effluence of G.o.d's eternal care for His own creatures.
If I have worked any good, by word or deed, during my life, I owe it to my mother, and to her I give the praise. She nursed me, she brought me up, she formed me; not in her own image, alas!--that would have been too fair. But the fault of what is lacking lies with me, and not with her.
She sleeps beneath a stone as simple as her blameless life had been. May this tribute from the son she loved so tenderly form a more imperishable crown than the wreaths of fading immortelles he laid upon her grave, and clothe her memory with a halo of reverence and respect he fain would have endure long after he himself is dead and gone._
CHARLES GOUNOD
I
_CHILDHOOD_
My mother, whose maiden name was Victoire Lemachois, was born at Rouen on the 4th of June 1780. Her father was a member of the French magistracy. Her mother, a Mdlle. Heuzey, was a lady of remarkable intelligence and marvellous artistic apt.i.tude. She was a musician, and a poetess as well. She composed, sang, and played on the harp; and, as I have often heard my mother say, she could act tragedy like Mdlle.
d.u.c.h.esnois, or comedy like Mdlle. Mars.
Attracted by such an uncommon combination of exceptional natural talent, the best families in the neighbourhood--the D'Houdetots, the De Mortemarts, the Saint Lamberts, and the D'Herbouvilles--continually sought her, and literally made her their spoilt child.
But, alas! those talents which give life its greatest charm and seduction do not always ensure its happiness. Total disparity of tastes, of inclinations, and of instincts seldom conduce to domestic peace, and it is dangerous to dream of trying to govern real life by ideal rules of conduct. The Angel of Peace soon spread her wings and deserted the household where so many influences combined to make her stay impossible, and my mother's childhood suffered from the inevitable and painful consequences. Her life was saddened, perforce, at an age when she and sorrow should have been strangers.
But G.o.d had endowed her with a strong heart, a sound judgment, and indomitable courage. Bereft of a mother's watchful care, actually obliged to teach herself how to read and write, she also learnt, alone and una.s.sisted, the rudiments of music and drawing, arts by which she was ere long to earn her living.
During the turmoil of the Revolution my grandfather lost his judicial post at Rouen. My mother's one idea was to get work, so as to be useful to him. She looked out for piano pupils, found a few, and thus, at eleven years of age, she began that toilsome life which in after years, during her widowhood, was to enable her to bring up and educate her children.
Spurred by her constant desire to improve, and by a sense of duty which was the dominant feature of her whole life, she realised that a good teacher must acquire everything that is likely to add weight and authority to her instructions. She resolved, therefore, to place herself under the care of some well-known master, to learn all that was necessary to ensure her own credit and satisfy her conscience. To this end, little by little--penny by penny, even--she laid by part of the miserable income which her music lessons brought in, and when a sufficient sum had been acc.u.mulated she took the coach, which in those days did the journey from Rouen to Paris in three days. On her arrival in Paris she went straight to Adam, the professor of pianoforte-playing at the Conservatoire, father of Adolphe Adam, the author of ”Le Chalet”
and many other charming works.