To my great surprise I have been elected a member of the Academy and my relations with my colleagues are, throughout, pleasant and friendly.
In 1855 Prince Napoleon desired me to arrange a great concert in the Exhibition building for the day upon which the Emperor was to distribute the prizes.
I accepted on condition that I had no pecuniary responsibility, and M. Ber, a generous and brave impresario, came forward and treated me most liberally.
These concerts (for there were several besides the official one) brought me in eight thousand francs.
In a raised gallery behind the throne I had placed twelve hundred musicians, who were barely heard. Not that that mattered much on the day of the ceremony, for I was stopped at the most interesting point of the very first piece (the Imperial Cantata which I had written for the occasion) because the Prince had to make his speech and the music was lasting too long!!
However the next day the paying public was admitted and we took seventy-five thousand francs. This time I brought the orchestra down into the body of the hall, with fine effect.
I sent to Brussels for an electrician I knew, who made me a five-wired metronome so that by the single movement of my left hand, I could mark time for the five deputy conductors placed at different points of the enormous space.
The ensemble was marvellous.
Since then most of the theatres have adopted electric metronomes for the guidance of chorus-masters behind the scenes. The Opera alone refused; but, when I undertook the supervision of Alcestis, I introduced it.
In these Palais de l’Industrie concerts the finest effects were obtained from broad, grand, simple and somewhat slow movements, such as the chorus from Armida, the Tibi omnes of my Te Deum and the Apotheosis of my Funeral Symphony.