To make up for my disappointment, my mother took me for a month's tour in Switzerland. She was as bright and active then, at eight-and-fifty, as any other woman of thirty. As I had never been outside Paris, except to Versailles, Rouen, and Havre, this tour was a dream of delight to me. Geneva, Chamounix, the Oberland, the Righi, the Lakes, the journey home by Bâle, successively claimed my admiration. We went through the whole of Switzerland on mule-back, rising early, going late to rest; and my mother was always up and ready dressed before she roused me.
I returned to Paris full of fresh zeal for my work, and quite determined this time to carry off the Grand Prix de Rome.
At last the period of competition came round. I entered, and I won the prize.
My poor mother wept for joy, first of all, but afterwards at the thought that the first result of my triumph would be to separate us for three weary years, two of which I should have to spend in Rome and one in Germany. We had never been parted before, and now her daily life was going to be like the story of the "Two Pigeons."
The winners of the other Grand Prizes of my year were Hébert for painting, Gruyère for sculpture, Lefuel for architecture, and Vauthier (grandson of Galle) for medal engraving.
Towards the end of October the different prizes were publicly awarded with becoming solemnity. This ceremony was an annual function, one of its features being the performance of the cantata which had won the music prize. My brother, who was an architect, had highly distinguished himself at the École des Beaux Arts under the teaching of Huyot. Whether it was that he foresaw his younger brother would one day win a Grand Prix, and consequently have to go abroad to study, I know not, but Urbain utterly refused to compete for a similar honour himself. He did not choose to leave a mother he adored, and of whom he was the prop and support for five long years. But he did carry off a prize known as the Departmental Prize, conferred on the student who has won the greatest number of medals during his attendance at the École des Beaux Arts.
The winner of this prize was publicly named at a general sitting of the Institute, and my proud mother had the satisfaction of seeing both her sons honoured in the same day.
I have already mentioned that my brother was educated at the Versailles Lycée. There he became acquainted with Lefuel, whose father was architect at the Palace, and who was to live to add lustre to the name he bore. They met again as fellow-pupils in the office of Huyot, one of the architects of the Arc de Triomphe, and there became, and always continued, the firmest of friends. Lefuel was nearly nine years older than I. My mother, who loved him like her own son, urgently begged him to look after me; and, in duty to the memory of my good old friend, I chronicle the faithful care and watchfulness with which he performed his trust.
Before I started abroad I was offered a piece of work, considerable enough at any age, but doubly so at mine. Dietsch, the chapel-master of St. Eustache, who at that time was chorus-master at the Opera, said to me one day—
"Why don't you write a mass before going to Rome? If you will compose one, I will have it sung at St. Eustache."