Part 1 (1/2)
My Recollections.
by Jules Ma.s.senet.
FOREWORD
I have been often asked whether I put together the recollections of my life from notes jotted down from day to day. To tell the truth I did, and this is how I began the habit of doing so regularly.
My mother--a model wife and mother, who taught me the difference between right and wrong--said to me on my tenth birthday:
”Here is a diary.” (It was one of those long-shaped diaries which one found in those days at the _little_ Bon Marche, not the immense enterprise we know now.) ”And,” she added, ”every night before you go to bed, you must write down on the pages of this memento what you have seen, said, or done during the day. If you have said or done anything which you realize is wrong, you must confess it in writing in these pages. Perhaps it will make you hesitate to do wrong during the day.”
How characteristic of an unusual woman, a woman of upright mind and honest heart this idea was! By placing the matter of conscience among the first of her son's duties, she made Conscience the very basis of her methods of teaching.
Once when I was alone, in search of some distraction I amused myself by foraging in the cupboards where I found some squares of chocolate. I broke off a square and munched it. I have said somewhere that I am greedy. I don't deny it. Here's another proof.
When evening came and I had to write the account of my day, I admit that I hesitated a moment about mentioning that delicious square of chocolate. But my conscience put to the test in this way conquered, and I bravely recorded my dereliction in the diary.
The thought that my mother would read about my misdeed made me rather shamefaced. She came in at that very moment and saw my confusion; but directly she knew the cause she clasped me in her arms and said:
”You have acted like an honest man and I forgive you. All the same that is no reason why you should ever again eat chocolate on the sly!”
Later on, when I munched other and better chocolate, I always obtained permission.
Thus it came about that from day to day I have always made notes of my recollections be they good or bad, gay or sad, happy or not, and kept them so that I might have them constantly in mind.
MY RECOLLECTIONS
CHAPTER I
MY ADMISSION TO THE CONSERVATOIRE
Were I to live a thousand years--which is hardly likely--I should never forget that fateful day, February 24, 1848, when I was just six years old. Not so much because it coincided with the fall of the Monarchy of July, as that it marked the first steps of my musical career--a career which, even yet, I am not sure was my real destiny, so great is my love for the exact sciences!
At that time I lived with my parents in the Rue de Beaune in an apartment overlooking the great gardens. The day promised to be fine, but it was very cold.
We were at luncheon when the waitress rushed into the room like a maniac. ”_Aux armes, citoyens!_” she yelled, throwing rather than placing the plates on the table.
I was too young to understand what was going on in the streets. All I can remember is that riots broke out and that the Revolution smashed the throne of the most debonair of kings. The feelings which stirred my father were entirely different from those which disturbed my mother's already distracted soul. My father had been an officer under Napoleon Bonaparte and a friend of Marshal Soult, Duke of Dalmatia. He was all for the Emperor, and the atmosphere of battles suited his temperament.
My mother, on the other hand, had experienced the sorrows of the first great revolution, which dragged Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette from their throne, and thrilled with wors.h.i.+p for the Bourbons.
The memory of that exciting meal remained the more deeply fixed in my mind because on the morning of that historic day, by the light of tallow candles (wax candles were only for the rich) my mother for the first time placed my fingers on the piano.
In order best to introduce me to the knowledge of this instrument, my mother--she was my music teacher--stretched along the keyboard a strip of paper upon which she wrote the notes corresponding to each of the black and white keys, with their position on the five lines. It was most ingenious; no mistake was possible.
My progress on the piano was so p.r.o.nounced that three years later, in October, 1851, my parents thought I ought to apply at the Conservatoire for the entrance examination to the piano cla.s.ses.