This first tormenting, far from having its intended effect, only inflamed my ardour, and made me resolve to ensure myself free indulgence of my taste by doing my school-work thoroughly and regularly.
Thus things stood when I took the step of drawing up a kind of "profession of faith," wherein I warned my mother of my fixed determination to embrace the artistic career. I had hesitated some time, so I declared, between music and painting; but I was now convinced that whatever talent I possessed would find its best outlet in the former art, and my decision, I added, was final.
My poor mother was distracted. She knew too well all an artist's life entails, and probably she shrank from the thought that her son's might be no better than a second edition of the bitter struggle she had shared with my poor father.
In her despair she sought our Principal, Monsieur Poirson, and consulted him about her trouble. He cheered her up.
"Do not be the least uneasy," so he spoke to her; "your son shall not be a musician. He is a good little boy, and does his lessons well. The masters are all pleased with him. I will take the matter into my own hands, and later on you will see him in the École Normale. Do not worry about him, Madame Gounod; as I said before, your son shall not be a musician."
My mother retired, greatly comforted, and the Principal sent for me to his study.
"Well, little man," said he, "what is this I hear? You want to be a musician?"
"Yes, sir."
"But what are you dreaming of? A musician has no real position at all!"
"What, sir! Is it not a position in itself to be able to call oneself Mozart or Rossini?" Fourteen-year-old boy as I was, I felt a glow of indignant pride.