Spurred by her constant desire to improve, and by a sense of duty which was the dominant feature of her whole life, she realised that a good teacher must acquire everything that is likely to add weight and authority to her instructions. She resolved, therefore, to place herself under the care of some well-known master, to learn all that was necessary to ensure her own credit and satisfy her conscience. To this end, little by little—penny by penny, even—she laid by part of the miserable income which her music lessons brought in, and when a sufficient sum had been accumulated she took the coach, which in those days did the journey from Rouen to Paris in three days. On her arrival in Paris she went straight to Adam, the professor of pianoforte-playing at the Conservatoire, father of Adolphe Adam, the author of "Le Châlet" and many other charming works.
Adam received her kindly, and listened to her attentively. He at once recognised her possession of those qualities which were to foster and strengthen the interest primarily aroused by her happy facility for her art.
As my mother's youth forbade her residing permanently in Paris, to benefit by a regular and consecutive course of instruction, it was arranged she should travel up from Rouen once in every three months and take a lesson.
One lesson every three months! A short allowance indeed! and one which could hardly have seemed likely to repay the cost involved. But certain individuals are living proofs of the miracle of the loaves and fishes, and this narrative will show, by many another example, that my mother was one of them.
A person destined later on to enjoy such solid and well-earned renown as a teacher of music was not, could not be, in fact, a pupil capable of forgetting the smallest item of her master's rare and invaluable lessons. Adam was himself greatly struck by the improvement apparent between each séance and the next. As much to mark his appreciation of his young pupil's personal courage, as of her musical talent, he contrived to get a piano lent her gratis. This allowed of her studying assiduously without bearing the burden entailed on mind and purse of paying for her instrument, which, small as it was, had been a heavy tax upon her small resources.
Soon after this a circumstance occurred which had a decisive influence on my mother's whole future life.
The fashionable pianoforte composers at that time were Clementi, Steibelt, Dussek, and some others. I do not mention Mozart, who had already blazed out upon the musical world, following closely upon Haydn; nor do I refer to the great Sebastian Bach, whose immortal collection of preludes and fugues, "Das Wohltemporirte Clavier," published a century ago, has given the law to pianoforte study, and become the unquestioned text-book of musical composition. Beethoven, still a young man, had not yet reached the pinnacle of fame on which his mighty works have now placed him.
About this period a German musician, named Hullmandel, a violinist of great merit, and a contemporary and friend of Beethoven's, came and settled in France, with a view to making a connection as an accompanist. He stayed some time at Rouen, and while there expressed a wish to hear the performances of those local young ladies who were considered to have the greatest musical talent. A sort of competition was organised, in which my mother took part. She had the good fortune of being particularly noticed and complimented by Hullmandel, who at once fixed on her as a fit person to receive lessons from him, and to perform with him at certain houses in the town where music was carefully and even passionately cultivated.
Here ends all I have to tell about my mother's childhood and youth. I know no further details of her life until her marriage, which took place in 1806. She was then twenty-six years and a half old.
My father, François Louis Gounod, was born in 1758, and was therefore slightly over forty-seven years of age at the time of his marriage. He was a painter of distinguished merit, and my mother has often told me that great contemporary artists, such as Gérard, Girodet, Guérin, Joseph Vernet, and Gros, considered him the best draughtsman of his day.