One winter Sunday early in 1870, the twenty-four-year-old organist of the Basilica of Saint-Sauveur in Rennes arrived for morning service in white tie and tails. He had come directly to church from his previous engagement: a ball given at the local Préfecture the night before. The curé had already had cause to speak with the young organist about his habit of slipping out to smoke in the porch during the sermon. The tails were the last straw. Gabriel Fauré was discreetly dismissed, and departed for the capital.

Fauré had been offered the post in Rennes as he was completing his studies at the École Niedermeyer in 1865. Now he was returning to Paris not as a schoolboy or student, but an independent professional. After four years’ exile in the provinces, he threw himself wholeheartedly into the musical life of the city. As well as attending operas and concerts, he soon became a regular participant in the musical soirées of his former piano teacher, Saint-Saëns: on Monday evenings, at 168 rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, he came to know Emmanuel Chabrier, Henri Duparc, Édouard Lalo, César Franck, and Alexis de Castillon. Through the good offices of Saint-Saëns, Fauré quickly found a new job as organist at Notre-Dame de Clignancourt. This post too was to be short-lived, his commitment being half-hearted at best. As he recalled half a century later: ‘I didn't get along with those upon whom my job depended, and my departure was prompted by an escapade [une fugue] I’d long planned: I left Clignancourt because I’d been to hear Les Huguenots!’ The loss of a second job does not appear to have troubled Fauré unduly: he was young, he had just seen his music in print for the first time (two songs, Le papillon et la fleur and Dans les ruines d’une abbaye, were published by Choudens in 1869), and he was rapidly developing the social and professional connections he needed to make his way in the city.

On 30 March 1870 the twenty-two-year-old Henri Duparc failed his licence examination for the law. University records show no subsequent attempt to retake the examination. It seems that with this failure, Duparc—who had by then been studying harmony and counterpoint with Franck for almost three years—decided to commit himself to a career in music.