Now referred to nostalgically as the Belle Époque, late-nineteenth-century Paris was a paradise for all those who loved a night out on the town. As contemporary tourist guidebooks promised, one could enjoy the city’s bustling street life and lively cafés, revel in its raucous balls and unruly dance halls, be dazzled by the latest music-hall acts and dreamy romantic comedies, and delight in any number of spectacular theatrical extravaganzas. Debussy was a night owl, well acquainted with Parisian nightlife. His favourite haunts included café-concerts and cabarets, operetta theatres and music halls, band concerts and the circus. Like many of his contemporaries, he not only sought amusing diversions in these eclectic and adrenaline-charged establishments but was also inspired by the whimsical fantasies and sensual delights they offered. This chapter offers a glimpse into the popular venues and novelties that Debussy discovered on his nighttime perambulations through Paris, providing a window into the world of popular entertainment that coloured many of his works.

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in France a multiplatformed staging ground took shape for a wide variety of undertakings in music composed prior to 1750. Churches, schools, universities, private salons, select societies, major concert halls, and even opera houses became sites for performances of music dating from the Middle Ages to the Baroque. Sometimes, the repertoire of centuries past served as a point of focus for discussions about religion; at other times, it provided a vehicle for unabashedly secular, virtuosic performances. Choral performances in particular could as easily allow talented socialites to exert cultural influence as facilitate bonding among male workers. Through it all, the revival of early music provided the nation with a sense of artistic ancestry that could be summoned to shape notions of a collective musical identity, or even difference. This chapter shows how Debussy intersected with these powerful currents in his music, including his relationship to the music of the Ancien Régime in the form of Rameau.

When I was appointed organ professor at the Conservatory, I had to leave my residence at [8] rue Garancière and move to the ground floor of [3] rue de l’Abbaye, where I enjoyed a vast living room that was quite suitable to the installation of a grand orgue. Later, the parish priest of Saint-Germaindes-Prés bought the palace and set up an asylum for old women. At his insistence, Eugène Guillaume and I had to give up the place. But we still deeply regret that this historic building had this fate because its architecture has suffered from it, and, since then, even a dispensary was set up there, whereas it would have been interesting to make it a museum.

The Hôtel de Chimay where the Comtesse Elisabeth de Greffuhle was born is inhabited by Mlle de Caraman-Chimay, daughter of the Duke of Caraman-Chimay. Joseph Fouché lived in a house, now demolished, that was part of the group of buildings of the … and the offices of the police headquarters located on the ground floor with a small garden at 7 rue des Saints-Peres where I lived. This garden was connected to the offices. As for the executive at the time, he was in the house of the publisher Garnier. My former house, 7 rue des Saints-Pères, is set back from the street, with a courtyard in front. Under this courtyard is the beginning of an underground passage that connects the two houses, where orders were transmitted under ground.

The beautiful actress Cécile Sorel lived on the quai in the building next to the Hôtel de Bugeaud. It can be said that Sorel has become an important personality. She already had many admirers at that time, including one of our colleagues, the great American architect Whitney Warren, and this is perhaps the reason for many of his stays in Paris. François-Léopold Flameng, Théodore Reinach, Whitney Warren, Gabriele d’Annunzio, etc. were often invited to the beautiful second-floor residence where she lived. Sorel often came to my house with her friends during the war, and she never failed to bring Robert de Ségur, whom she has since married. A curious detail, Sorel was born in the impasse du Maine where Cavaillé-Coll had long had his private villa, as did Antoine Bourdelle.

On the first Sunday of the 1914 war, M. and Mme Pichon came to lunch at Foyot's where I was having lunch in the next room with a very beautiful woman from Rome, the Comtesse de Cossato, of remarkable intelligence and who was returning to Italy the next day. Everyone was very stirred up. Countess Cossato was asking if the English would come to our aid: “But what is the English fleet doing?” —“Yes, yes,” said Pichon, deeply emotional. Countess Cossato remarked to me at one point: “Look at the wife of your minister of foreign affairs; she's crying into her eggs!”

I heard the French mobilization proclaimed by the rural constable in front of the church of Ville d’Avray. I was coming back from Versailles where I had gone to pick up some friends by car.

On September 2, [1914], Étienne Lamy, permanent secretary of the Académie Française came to see me and said, “Raymond Poincaré is asking the permanent secretaries to pack their bags so as not to be taken hostage. I’m leaving tonight,” he added. We deliberated all day. At six o’clock in the evening we held a meeting at Albert Sarraut's place, at the Ministry of Public Education. “I have no orders to give you,” he said, “but the effect of your leaving would be disastrous.” While we were talking with him, there was a sudden burst of heavy platoon fire under our windows; it was one of the first German planes to drop its bombs on the capital, to which the battalion of Zouaves responded from the barracks on rue de Bellechasse. We drew the curtains so that we could hear each other, and in the end we decided not to leave. “As for me,” said the minister, “I am leaving for Bordeaux this evening!”

On the other hand, the minister of the interior gave us seventeen laissezpasser, allowing us to leave Paris. I remember Bonnat's indignation when I brought him one of those passes: “Do you think I’m going to abandon my house, the Beaux-Arts, for which I am responsible, my students, and my collections? Who do you take me for? Get out! Go away!” So we stayed in Paris, which became ominous as soon as night fell; everyone remembers that the shops and restaurants closed early. Maxim's was our refuge.

By March 28, 1918, Big Bertha had been thundering for five days. The Duke of Alba was supposed to come and talk to me about the exhibition. I rushed to his house to tell him that it was dangerous to go out. It was Easter Sunday. From fear of the danger threatening the crowd, the services of Saint-Sulpice had been reduced to a minimum. The very simple evening service lasted only fifteen minutes. For their relative safety, the clergy had set up a dormitory in the vaulted room of the façade—located between the two towers—in which was located the Dauphin's organ that I have talked about elsewhere because of incidents surrounding its history. When the dormitory was removed from this room, which was poorly protected by the windows and not heated, I went to find the parish priest to obtain permission to have the organ moved to prevent it from getting moldy. I had it placed in the Chapelle du Péristyle, which is heated like all the rest of the church. This was done within six months.

The Dauphin's organ is an interesting document because of the limited range of its keyboards, its particular sonorities, and the style of the time. Once a week, Marie Josèphe of Saxony had her musical evening with organ, the Dauphin and their daughters as an audience, and sometimes a singer and a guest, never more than two. Jean-François Marmontel tells in his Mémoires of an invitation to dine at the Dauphin's in strict privacy. The Dauphin and his wife did not say a word, and Marmontel was forced into a monologue during the whole dinner. But the next day he received a visit from an aide-de-camp of the Dauphin who came to apologize for the silence of his masters. He related, “Marmontel's conversation had interested them so much that they had not dared say a word.” He had noticed some unusual movement of the table, wondering what it meant. It was apparently the Dauphin who expressed his delight at hearing Marmontel by giving a kick to the table, as if to say: “Isn't this all charming?”

Cavaillé-Coll modified the organ that had been commissioned for the Église d’Auteuil to install it in the Trocadéro, given the limited time before the 1878 Exposition. I was living on rue Garancière at the time when one fine morning at seven o’clock père Cavaillé came to ring at my door and said: “Get up quickly. Liszt expects us at nine o’clock at the Trocadéro, where I have just finished the organ. He is asking to hear it.” Naturally, I hurried and the two of us arrived at the Trocadéro, where we found Liszt chatting as simply as possible with the voicers inside the instrument, and where he was looking at all the details with the greatest care. Our friendship was to commence there and continue at Madame de Blocqueville’s, where we met frequently.

Liszt was extremely pleasant and had absolutely no kind of arrogance; he always even seemed to be thanking you for anything you could ask of him. He spoke and wrote admirable French, and read everything that was published in our language, all the philosophers and poets. A close friend of Victor Hugo, he used to go donkey riding on country outings with him and his entourage. He was greatly admired in all the salons—political or philosophical— where the Parisian clique reigned. I played the Bach pieces that he asked for, and, having been kind enough to ask me to play my latest work for him, I performed my Symphony no. 3.

He was still keenly interested in the mechanics of the organ, the studies of the wind pressure, and the harmonic schemes of père Cavaillé. Toward noon he invited us both to lunch in one of the Exposition restaurants that was already open. He asked me, “How can I thank you for the time that I have made you waste this morning?” At the word “waste,” I blushed and replied, “I have the honor of living in the century of Liszt and I have never heard Liszt!” —“Well fine, I have a little free time right now. Madame Érard has given to me her place at rue du Mail, and I have taken up residence there. Would you like to come tomorrow at two o’clock? I’ll play whatever you want.” Nearly all week, he played for me all the works of the time, as well as his own.

This study has been one of Debussy's changing styles from his first book of preludes from 1907–10 to the composition of the second book of preludes along with Jeux in 1912–13. In chapter 6 we explored the last change in style, as the most advanced style Debussy used gradually evaporated. The catalyst behind these changes was seen to be Debussy's relationship with Stravinsky. While The Firebird in 1910 did not immediately win over Debussy, Petrushka in 1911 did. From this point Debussy began his octatonic exploration, having heard what magnificent use could be made of it in Stravinsky's ballets.

In 1910, completely independent of his relationship with Stravinsky, Debussy composed “Ce qu’a vu le vent d’ouest,” which contained a consistent opposition between diatonic (asymmetrical) scales and chromatic (symmetrical) scales. The form of this work was created from the intertwining of the various lines of the composition, each line devoted to a distinct scale. This was the first of Debussy's works in stratified form, and it was with the invention of this formal organization that the French composer was able to influence the young Russian, for Stravinsky used sections of stratified form in Petrushka and The Rite, and eventually made the leap from stage to concert work with the Symphonies of Wind Instruments in 1920 and other works throughout his long career.

Debussy's stratified works share many of the following characteristics: a continuous opposition between diatonic and chromatic scales, an introduction that hints at scales without overtly stating them, the body of a work made up of strands of the various lines used that determine the form, one scale per line, and synthesis between the various lines at the end of the work and often briefly throughout. The work that best exemplifies this is “Ondine,” which exhibits such craft in its construction that it is hypothesized to be among the last of the preludes to be composed. “Ondine” exhibited discontinuity with each juxtaposition of lines, but this is actually rare in Debussy's stratified works. Most are continuous, with the job of separating the various lines falling to the distinct harmony assigned to each one. Other preludes written with a stratified form include “Les tierces alternées,” “Feuilles mortes,” “Les fées sont d’exquises danseuses,” “‘Général Lavine’—eccentric,” “La terrace des audiences du clair de lune,” “Brouillards,” and “Feux d’artifice.”

The American Conservatory of Fontainebleau lasted successfully until the American crisis. As most of the boarders were supported by scholarships, the school was in jeopardy when these scholarships were stopped.

In the aftermath of the Armistice, the American government thought: “We cannot repatriate all our nationals. What do we do with these young people, many of whom were destined for an artistic career?” We had started to found a school of painting and sculpture in Meudon that operated for a season, and we realized that there were also other artists: musicians. It was then, with Saint-Saëns and Walter Damrosch, that we founded the Fontainebleau School [in 1921]. Why Fontainebleau? Because the premises, which had served as a hospital during the war, had been cleaned, refurbished, and were vacant. They could therefore accommodate a conservatory.

An organ was built for the former room of the Jeu de Paume. Most of the study rooms were the former apartments of court guests; the parquet floor is magnificent. This school was a delight for a few years until, alas, the crisis occurred. It currently remains in a reduced state, but we hope that a day will come in better times when it will regain its former vitality. The Conservatory was doubled by an American art school of which Jacques Carlu was the director; it included a painting section and a sculpture section.

I resigned two years ago [1934] when the number of students became completely insufficient. Most of the local citizens of Fontainebleau were quite interested in the Conservatory. They were very high-class, which could be judged by the elegant audiences that flocked to the Thursday concerts in the hall of the Jeu de Paume. I personally went every week to listen to the organists, and to give them a general course in composition and on Bach's works and the appropriate style to maintain for him. We had some very beautiful concerts. Of course, the admission to these concerts was free and always by invitation, since it's never allowed to charge entrance fees to national palaces. We had asked in vain for permission to take up a collection in favor of the Sisters of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul and the poor, but it was impossible. The administration refused.

Pendant le bombardement, avec le bon Waltner, nous nous promenions bravement sur le Pont des Arts, au clair de lune, admirable, à minuit. Le sifflement d’une bombe frôle nos oreilles et je dis à Waltner, “Eh, mais, c’est pour nous!”

During the bombing, the good Waltner and I were walking bravely on the Pont des Arts, in the wonderful moonlight at midnight. The whistle of a bomb grazed our ears and I said to Waltner, “Hey, that was meant for us!”

—Ch.-M. Widor

[see Fig. 37]

ACADÉMIE ROYALE

des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique.

La Classe des Beaux-Arts de l’Académie Royale, dans sa séance du 9 Janvier 1908 a nommé Associé Monsieur Charles-Marie Widor, compositeur à Paris.

La Classe a décidé en même temps qu’on délivrerait à Monsieur Widor, le présent diplôme revétu de son seau et signé par son Directeur et par le Secrétaire perpétuel.

Fait à Bruxelles, le 6 février 1908.

[Signé:] Le Secrétaire perpétuel, Le Chevalier Edmond Marchal Le Directeur, Edgar Tinel

ROYAL ACADEMY of Sciences, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium.

The Fine Arts Division of the Royal Academy, at its meeting of January 9, 1908, named Associate Monsieur Charles-Marie Widor, composer in Paris.

The Division decided at the same time that we would deliver to Monsieur Widor the present diploma bearing its seal and signed by its Director and Permanent Secretary.

Done in Brussels, February 6, 1908.

[Signed:] The Permanent Secretary, Chevalier Edmond Marchal The Director, Edgar Tinel

There is hardly an organist who is not familiar with the name of Charles- Marie Widor, if only from having heard or played his famous Toccata. But, in fact, Widor was more than a composer of organ music. He was certainly one of the more prolific composers of the second half of the nineteenth century and the first part of the twentieth, and his output is astounding, even in comparison with his contemporaries. Dozens of collections of piano music, chamber works, sacred music—both choral and solo voice, songs and vocal duets, five orchestral suites, five orchestral symphonies—including two with organ, four concertos, a ballet, lyric dramas, operas, a symphonic poem, and other sundry pieces, all added to the ten symphonies for organ, make an astonishing list of works. Then there were his literary works, which in John Near's biography cover four and one-half pages.

Perhaps more than anything these Autobiographical Recollections demonstrate Widor's broad interests, catholicity of taste, and the international social milieu in which he moved. It is remarkable how little these valedictory recollections mention the organ. Rather, they are memories of his life beyond the organ loft.

What began as a hodge-podge of reminiscences by a ninety-two-year-old narrator, taken down by dictation on several occasions, has been assembled by John Near into a seamless autobiography. But appreciating that readers, particularly English-speaking readers, would be unfamiliar with the people and events scattered throughout the text, he has researched and identified hundreds of names, as well as provided the historical background of the world in which Widor lived. Realizing the likely historic importance of his narrative, Widor frequently advised his amanuensis to look up a date or fact, and this Dr. Near has done almost a century later.

Widor was indeed the last of the Romantics. Many remembered and had known Franck, Saint-Saëns, and Fauré, but almost none had met or known Liszt, Rubinstein, and Wagner, much less fought in the Franco-Prussian War. His influence at the Conservatory and at the Académie des Beaux-Arts was far-reaching in France's musical culture.

John Near's lifelong research has produced the award-winning biography, Widor: A Life beyond the Toccata, the definitive edition of Widor's ten organ symphonies, the first edition of his Symphonie, op. 42[bis], and a critical edition of Bach's Memento. This previously unpublished autobiography gives us Widor the man in his own words.

C’est lorsque je sentis vibrer sous mes mains et mes pieds les 6,000 tuyaux de l’orgue de Saint-Sulpice que je me mis à écrire mes quatre premières symphonies d’orgue.

It was when I felt the six thousand pipes of the Saint-Sulpice organ vibrating under my hands and feet that I began to write my first four Organ Symphonies.

—Ch.-M. Widor

In 1910, I went to Berlin. Our ambassador, Jules Cambon, had organized an exhibition of eighteenth-century French art. Kaiser Wilhelm II had taken a keen interest in it, for he had canvases in Potsdam [at Sans Souci] by Watteau, Fragonard, etc., the authenticity of which he questioned. We initiated a project of exchange between a work of art belonging to him and the restoration of the château sculptures through our colleague Maurice Fenaille. This exhibition was of great interest to the Germans and several exchange agreements with the sovereign to complete his collections or ours were drawn up at that time.

We spent ten days in Berlin and remained in constant contact with the Emperor, who had given his Grand Cordon of the Black Eagle to Léon Bonnat. I was then a member of the Berlin Academy, but not yet that of France. The Emperor came every day, and all day long he hosted us throughout the capital. This is how, with [Louis Bernier]—architect of the Opéra-Comique—he took us to the theater and showed us the old machinery, saying: “We have to rebuild it, but we can't do it without breaking a leg. I’m looking for my minister of finance, but he is never there!”

On Sundays at that time, during the season, people met in Potsdam at the home of [Sophie,] the Princess of Wied. She presided over the most artistic gatherings there, from which protocol was banished. Thus, one day the Empress of Germany was silenced while Lili Lehmann was singing: “Be quiet, she's singing!” they shouted at her. After Lehmann's song, I was quite dazzled by the entrance of a very beautiful young woman with golden hair. I asked who she was, and was told: “She is the niece of Edward VII.” She [Sophie] had married a German staff officer, [Wilhelm,] the Prince of Wied, who had a small German principality [Albania] and was the nephew of Carmen Sylva [Elisabeth of Wied], the Queen of Romania. It was she who was named “queen with an unhappy reign.” I’m referring to [Princess] Maria.

For the first time since 1870, and in fact the only time, an official dinner for one hundred guests at intimate tables was given at the French Embassy in honor of the Berlin court. We had brought in some famous characters from the Comédie-Française.

When the bombardment of Paris came, père Cavaillé padded the exterior of his home, covering the walls with planks. The American flag flew over his door, since Gabriel Reinburg who lived there was Alsatian; like all Alsatians who had not opted for the French regime, he was still under American protection.

During the Commune, I often went in the evening to check on them. From the top of the roof we had a view that stretched over all of Paris. At the time, the Commune newspapers were talking about the demolition of the Vendôme column. We watched it for a number of evenings from the top of our observatory, but suddenly one evening we could no longer see it—it had fallen [May 16, 1871].

Towards the end of the Commune, when Paris was taken by the Versailles Army, I was living in the old Hôtel de Sourdéac, 8 rue Garancière. Every Monday, early in the morning, the cook of a friend from Lyon came to my door and asked me for her week's wages. One Monday morning, she rang my doorbell loudly and exclaimed: “The Versailles troops are in Paris!” From my window, I saw the Trocadéro, black with troops. She continued, “Don't go out, they say we’re going to fight in Paris! I won't be back for about a week.” A quarter of an hour later, I heard a bell-ringing such as I have never heard since: all the bells of the capital were sounding the alarm. As we know, the battle raged for eight days. At night, from the top of my roof, I could see only fires. One evening, I was filled with amazement; I saw the spire of Sainte-Chapelle surrounded by wreaths of flames and I thought I would not see it again the next day. Fortunately, it was only an optical illusion, and Sainte-Chapelle escaped destruction.

Some time later, all the windows in the neighborhood were broken by the explosion of a powder magazine that had been set up in the Luxembourg Garden. General Ernest Courtot de Cissey came with his army corps to occupy the Luxembourg on Thursday. It was only on that day that I was able to leave my house.

This study, as mentioned in chapter 1, has used the traditional method of identifying influence, the twin concepts of access and similarity. This method is related to the “influence as generosity” theory, one that in literary criticism descends most clearly from T. S. Eliot. This is not the only theory to use for the study of influence; I chose to rely on it because the “anxiety of influence” theory, one originated by Harold Bloom and applied to music most notably by Joseph Straus, can sometimes lead to misleading results. There is, however, one element of this latter theory that is especially appropriate for the investigation into Stravinsky's influence on Debussy: the element of competition and Debussy's reaction to it.

Debussy was enthusiastic about The Rite between his sight-reading of the score in June 1912 and its premiere a year later. His opinion of the work changed, however, for he described the ballet on the day of its first performance as “primitive music with all modern conveniences.” His criticism quickly became more cutting, for on the day after the premiere he remarked, “C’est tout de même pas comme ça qu’on fera de la musique française.” Finally, after the outbreak of war in 1914, Debussy told Ernest Ansermet:

Debussy's attitude toward The Rite was no doubt affected by the contrast between the riotous premiere of Stravinsky's ballet and the cool reception given to Jeux just two weeks previously. Stravinsky seems to confirm as much when he writes that “Debussy, who might well have been upset by The Rite was, in fact, much more upset by the success of it a year later.” Whatever the reason, the result was that Debussy's competitive spirit seems to have been broken. Faced with a score as revolutionary as The Rite, which Stravinsky said owed more to Debussy than to anyone else but which obviously carried his ideas to new extremes, Debussy must have realized that he had been eclipsed as the leading music figure in Paris. This change in status is reflected in the letter with which Debussy thanked Stravinsky for the score to this ballet.

César Franck had requested Théodore Dubois on his return from Rome [to be choirmaster at Sainte-Clotilde in 1863]; he then gave up his choirmaster's baton to Dubois and became the organist of Sainte-Clotilde. It was thus at the request of Théodore Dubois that Franck was appointed organ professor at the Conservatory on the [retirement] of François Benoist. Franck had never specially studied the organ, and his real objective was to become a composition professor rather than the organ professor. He was a very good musician, but not a specialist, and he was not especially gifted with the true classicism of an organist. However, when he became organ professor at the Conservatory, père Ambroise Thomas, who was kindness personified, was a bit shocked to see that Franck was soliciting a little in various classes, trying to attract composition students to him.

Franck had aroused the animosity of some of his colleagues at the Conservatory by fishing for students in the classes of his colleagues. Poor Franck was the sole support of his family; he had a son, and he was trying to earn as much money as possible. He worked very hard, but without an organ, which did not prevent him from composing masterpieces. He had no organ at home, and he had never studied organ. Although d’Indy claims the opposite, it is absolutely false that he had ever been an organ student or had ever won any organ prize.

He was a very good man, very noble of heart. He played almost all of his organ compositions at Cavaillé-Coll's one evening after a dinner attended by Saint-Saëns. Among others, I remember the Pièce héroïque that he played with difficulty, as he had had no time to practice because he was giving a lot of lessons. He had a very long hand, hence the difficulty for others of performing his pieces. He was not so much making pure organ music as a musical thought expressed by means of the organ. It was this Pièce héroïque that he played one day for Liszt at Sainte-Clotilde.

Mass at Sainte-Clotilde was at nine o’clock on Sundays, and Mass at Saint-Sulpice was at ten-thirty. Franck was known throughout the neighborhood, from the Institute to Boulevard St. Michel, as the man who ran to save time. He crossed through Saint-Sulpice to shorten his route at the time of the services.

Ambroise Thomas, composer of Hamlet and Mignon, was an excellent musician and a delightful man, modesty personified, and he knew the orchestra thoroughly. A school of amateurs was founded with the aim of taking his place and of dishonoring him, primarily as a musician. Thomas was incapable of defending himself, he was so plain and modest. This school was called the Schola Cantorum, and it only ceased attacking the Conservatory on the day when its head was appointed a professor there.

D’Indy's persecution of Ambroise Thomas and the Conservatory never stopped until the day when the composer of Fervaal was appointed professor of the [orchestra] class.

In his book on Franck, Vincent d’Indy relates that he didn't know to what Franck's appointment as organ professor at the Conservatory was attributable, even though this story is not in doubt to anyone, starting with himself. Franck was [organ] accompanist at Sainte-Clotilde when Cavaillé-Coll built the organ that we hear there every Sunday. Théodore Dubois returned from Rome and was appointed choirmaster, and Franck moved on to the grand orgue that had just been built. On the [retirement] of père François Benoist, organ teacher at the Conservatory, Thomas asked Dubois whom to appoint in Benoist's place. Thus, Franck's appointment was indeed due to Ambroise Thomas [with Dubois's recommendation], despite Vincent d’Indy's assertions.

Furthermore, on the day when d’Indy was finally appointed professor of the orchestra class at the Conservatory, his attacks suddenly ceased. Incidentally, he could not project sufficient authority, and the greatest unruliness reigned in his orchestra class.

Speaking of César Franck's funeral, d’Indy wrote: “The whole Conservatory was present at Franck's funeral except Ambroise Thomas.” He was suffering from an eczema attack, and had sent as his representative Léo Delibes, professor at the Conservatory and member of the Institute. I can still see Delibes and Franck's son shaking hands by the sacristy door. D’Indy's assertions should not be taken seriously.

It is true that during Franck's funeral ceremony two blunders were committed. I will say, however, that the funeral oration of Curé Gardey was very moving:

• 1. The grand orgue, over which a large velum had been stretched, was supposed to be silent, but was heard to everyone's surprise under the fingers of Eugène Gigout, whom no one had asked to play.