The following pages contain the story of the most important events of my artistic life, of the mark left by them on my personal existence, of their influence on my career, and of the thoughts they have suggested to my mind. I do not desire to make any capital out of whatever public interest may attach to my own person. But I believe the clear and simple narrative of an artist's life may often convey useful information, hidden under a word or fact of no apparent importance, but which tallies exac

My mother, whose maiden name was Victoire Lemachois, was born at Rouen on the 4th of June 1780. Her father was a member of the French magistracy. Her mother, a Mdlle. Heuzey, was a lady of remarkable intelligence and marvellous artistic aptitude. She was a musician, and a poetess as well. She composed, sang, and played on the harp; and, as I have often heard my mother say, she could act tragedy like Mdlle. Duchesnois, or comedy like Mdlle. Mars. Attracted by such an uncommon combination of excep

W E left Paris, Lefuel and Vauthier and I, on December 5th, 1839, by the mail-coach which started from the Rue Jean Jacques Rousseau. My brother was the only person there to bid us farewell. Our first stage took us to Lyons. Thence we followed the course of the Rhône, by Avignon, Arles, &c., till we reached Marseilles. At Marseilles we took a "vetturino." "Vetturino!" What memories the word recalls! Alas for the poor old travelling carriage long since shouldered out of existence, crushed

My natural road from Rome to Germany lay by Florence into Northern Italy, and so eastwards viâ Ferrara, Padua, Venice, and Trieste. Although I did make a halt in Florence, I cannot undertake to give a full description of that city. Like Rome, it possesses an inexhaustible store of art treasures. The Uffizi Gallery with its wonderful Tribune (a very shrine of exquisite relics), the Palazzo Pitti, the Academy, Churches and Convents, all teem with masterpieces. But even here, in lovely Florence, Mi

W HETHER my three and a half years of absence had wrought a mighty change in my appearance, or my last illness (still very recent) and the stains of travel had played havoc with my looks, I know not, but anyhow my mother did not recognise me when I arrived. True, I had a budding beard, but such a slight one, that any one might have counted every hair. During my absence my mother had left the Rue de l'Éperon, and settled down in the Rue Vaneau, in the parish known as "Les Missions Etrangères," th

Varangeville , Sunday, September 4 . My Dears ,—As you may well imagine, our dear grandmother is very uncertain as to what she should do. You know kind Louisa Brown has written pressingly and repeatedly to offer grandmamma a home at Blackheath until she can settle down, and the invitation is specifically extended to you as well as to ourselves . My own responsibility weighs heavy on me at this juncture. Persuasion or dissuasion strike me as being equally serious in their results. I should like t

I N the ranks of human nature certain peculiarly sensitive beings are to be found, whom circumstances affect after a fashion utterly distinct, both in nature and degree, from the results they produce on other men. These individuals form the inevitable exception to an otherwise invariable rule. Their natural idiosyncrasies explain the peculiar features of their various lives, and to these lives again their ultimate fate may fairly be ascribed. Now the exceptional men and women lead the world. Thi

W HEN , after years of perseverance and struggle, a highly gifted artist gains the exalted place in public opinion to which he is justly entitled, everybody, even his most obstinate opponent, exclaims, "Didn't I always say people would end by coming round?" Five and twenty years ago, or more (for he came out as an infant prodigy), M. Saint-Saëns made his first appearance in the musical world. How many times since then have I been told: "Saint-Saëns? Eh? Now really? Oh, as a pianist or an organis

Paper read by M. CHARLES GOUNOD , Member of the Académie des Beaux Arts, at the Annual Public Meeting of the Five Académies, October 23, 1886. G ENTLEMEN ,—The successive transformations of which this earth has been the scene, and which form its history—I had almost said its education—since it dropped from its place amongst the solar nebulæ to take up a more distinct position in space, are so many chapters, as it were, in that great law of progress, that perpetual tending , which seems to draw a

A T a juncture like the present, when, under the mask of so-called naturalism in Art, an effort is being made to cast disfavour upon that noble and beneficent institution, the Academy of France in Rome, it appears to me a duty to enter a protest against the destructive tendencies, which, could they aspire to the dignity of being called doctrines, would end in nothing short of the utter obliteration of the Fine Arts, in their highest sense, and which, moreover, have no foundation save in the very

T HE immense extension of social relations in modern times has had considerable influence on artistic life and work; an influence which, if I mistake not, has done more harm than good. Formerly, and not so very long ago either, an artist, like a man of learning, was held, and justly so, to be a member of one of the great corporations of intellectual workers. He was looked on as a sort of recluse, whose retreat was sacred from disturbance. Men would have hesitated to tear him from the silence and