"How is dear mamma?" was his first question.
"Dead, and carried away by ugly men."
The winter of 1821 was unusually severe for Paris. One night Delsarte and his brother fell asleep in each other's arms in the wretched loft they occupied; but when the former opened his eyes to the morning's light he was holding a corpse to his heart. The little boy had perished of cold and starvation. Almost mad with terror and grief, the survivor rushed into the streets to summon the neighbors.
The next day a little hatless boy, in rags and nearly barefooted, followed two men bearing a small pine coffin which they deposited in the fosse commune of Pére la Chaise.
After seeing the grave covered, Delsarte left the cemetery and wandered wearily through the snow, now utterly alone in the world, across the plain of St. Denis. Overcome by cold, hunger, and grief, he sank to the ground, and then, before he lost consciousness, a strain of music, real or imaginary, met his ear and charmed him to a forgetfulness of misery, bereavement, all the evils that environed him. It was the first awakening of his artist soul, and to this day Delsarte believes that it was no earthly music that he heard.
Rousing himself from a sort of stupor into which he had fallen, he saw a chiffonnier bending over him. The man had for a moment mistaken the prostrate form for a bundle of rags; but taking pity on the half-frozen lad, he placed him in his basket and carried him to his miserable home. And so the future artist commenced his professional career as a Parisian rag-picker.
While wandering about the great city in the interest of his employer, his only solace was to listen to the songs of itinerant vocalists and the occasional music of a military band. Music became his passion. From some of the gamins he learned the seven notes of the scale, and, to preserve the melodies that delighted him, he invented a system of musical notation. On a certain holiday, when he was twelve years old, while listening to the delightful music in the garden of the Tuileries, the little chiffonnier busied himself with drawing figures in the dust. An old man of eccentric appearance, noticing his earnest diligence, accosted him.
"What are you doing there, boy?" he asked.
Terrified at first, but reassured by the kind manner of the stranger, Delsarte replied: "Writing down the music, sir."
"Do you mean to say those marks have any significance? That you can read them?"