Delsarte's process was as follows: When a silent syllable is immediately followed by a word beginning with another vowel, the E mute (by a prolongation of the sound of the penultimate) is suppressed with the next letter. Thus in the aria of Joseph (opera by Méhu):
"Loin de vous a langui ma jeune.. sexilée;" and in Count Ory: "Salut, ô vénéra ... blermite."
In these cases, by an unfortunate spirit of compensation, the abettors of the innovation, suppressing the grammatical elision, sing thus:
"Loin de vous a langui ma jeune ... ess'exilée."
"Salut, ô vénréra ... abl'erm ... it!"
Littré's Dictionary gives us the same pronunciation as Delsarte; and his written demonstration is even more positive. We find favorables auspices, arbres abattus, written in this way: "fa-vo-ra-ble-z-auspices, arbre-z-abattus."
It is, however, very difficult to express these differences exactly, in type: what Littré expresses radically by typographic characters, is blended with most natural delicacy by the voice of a singer.
Thus, according to Delsarte, the E mute of a final syllable should be suppressed before a vowel, on condition of a prolongation of the sound, in harmony with the penultimate syllable.
According to Delsarte again, according to Voltaire, according to Littré, the E mute is weakened, more or less, but never completely suppressed, before a consonant.
Finally Legouvé, whose voice is preponderant in these matters, whose books are in the hands of the whole world, has never entered into this lettricidal conspiracy.
I hope to be pardoned this long digression, thinking it my duty to protest against such a ludicrous method of treating French prosody; I do so both in the name of æsthetics and as a part of my task as biographer of Delsarte.[6]