All composers know the bitter despair of losing beautiful ideas through want of time to jot them down.
In spite of the rapidity with which I wrote, I afterwards made but few corrections.
Is it not strange that, during that volcanic time, I should twice over have dreamed that I was sitting in the Meylan garden, under a beautiful weeping acacia, alone. Estelle was not there, and I kept asking:
“Where is she? Where is she?”
Who can explain it? Only those who recognise the affinity of the mysteries of the human heart with those of the magnet.
Here, briefly, is a list of the miseries I endured over that Requiem.
It was arranged that it should be performed at the memorial service held every July for the victims of the Revolution of 1830. I, consequently, had the parts copied, and was beginning rehearsals, when I was told to stop, as the service was to be held without music.
Of course the new Minister owed a certain amount to my copyists and chorus (without mentioning myself), yet will it be believed that for five months I had to besiege that department for those few hundred francs? At last, losing all patience, I had a pretty lively quarrel with M. X., and as I left his room the guns of the Invalides proclaimed the fall of Constantine.
Two hours later he sent for me in hot haste. A funeral service was to be held for General Damrémont and the soldiers who had fallen in the siege.
Now mark! This being a military affair, General Bernard had charge of it, and in this way M. X. hoped to get rid of me and also of the necessity of paying his just debts.