My earliest childhood memories take me back to Lyon, to the house at 17 rue de Bourbon. I was born there, on the first floor, and I can still remember perfectly the garden onto which our windows opened and through which I could see Monsieur Boniface de Castellane walking every day after dinner in the full uniform of a Marshal of France, an outfit he always wore even in the least solemn circumstances. The sight of this pageantry excited my childish imagination to the highest degree, and I would shout to him, brandishing my wooden sword: “Marshal, Marshal, I have a sword as beautiful as yours.” The great man smiled and sent his secretary a few moments later to bring me a barley candy. Every morning, de Castellane went to the nine o’clock Mass at the nearby church of Saint-François. When he came out, his uniform attracted the neighborhood kids. With a broad gesture, the Marshal freed himself from their tumultuous admiration by throwing handfuls of pennies to them.

This neighborhood and this illustrious example might have awakened in me a military vocation. But atavism and paternal authority, as much as my own personal tastes, were to decide otherwise. My father was in fact organist of the grand orgue of the church of Saint-François in Lyon. Born in Rouffach, Alsace, during part of his life he associated his artistic gifts with the work of the organbuilder Joseph Callinet—whose reputation had conquered the entire eastern region—and he played the instruments of the famous craftsman on the occasion of their inauguration. Thus, he inaugurated the grand orgue of Saint-François, of which he was to become the organist.

I was barely four years old when my father put my hands on the organ keyboards for the first time, beginning my musical education. Later, I went every evening to practice on the instrument of Saint-François, tackling with ardor the difficult technique of the organ and filling myself with the incomparable grandeur of my art under the vaults of the church.

When I was eleven, my parents enrolled me in secondary school [the Lysée Ampère de Lyon]. At that time the State, which had not yet separated from the Church, granted two free scholarships: one was awarded to the drummer, the other to the organist of the institution. I easily got the second one.