Part 15 (1/1)

Henri Regnault was the most musical of all the painters whom I have known He did not need a violin--he was his own Nature had endowed hi in its timbre and irresistible in its attractiveness, just as he was himself He was no ”nearto sing as an amateur He took lessons fro to perfection the difficult arias of Mozart's _Don Juan_ He also liked to declaie in the third act of _Tannhauser_

As ere friendly and liked the saether was quite natural At the beginning of the war in 1870 I wrote _Les Melodies Persanes_ and Regnault was their first interpreter _Sabre en reat success was _Le Ci:

”To-day the roses, To-morrow the cypress!”

that the prophecy would be realized so soon?

Sonault was not to be regretted; that he had said all he had to say In reality he had given only the prologue of the great poe out in his brain He had already ordered canvasses for great colories of French art

I saw hi for drill with his rifle in his hand One of the four watercolors which were his last work, stood uncompleted on his easel There was a shapeless spot at the bottom He held a handkerchief in his free hand Heaway on the spot on the picture To hed out and finished the head of a lion

A few days afterwards came Buzenval!

When the question of publishi+ng Henri Regnault's letters ca me above ot into communication with me, read me the phrases, and announced that they were to be suppressed, because they ht displease the other musicians

I kneho the other musicians were, and whose puppet the editor was It would have been possible, it seeerated praise, which, coht, and which would have proved nothing except the great friendshi+p which inspired it I have always regretted that the public did not learn of the sentireat artist, whom I loved so much, honored me

THE END