It would certainly never be paid off out of my monthly allowance of a hundred and twenty francs. I therefore got some pupils for singing, flute and guitar, and, by dint of strict economy, in a few months I scraped together six hundred francs, with which I hurried off to my kind creditor.
How could I save out of such a sum? Well, I had a tiny fifth-floor room at the corner of the Rue de Harley and the Quai des Orfèvres, I gave up restaurant dinners and contented myself with a meal of dry bread with prunes, raisins or dates, which cost about fourpence.
As it was summer time I took my dainties, bought at the nearest grocer’s, and ate them on that little terrace on the Pont Neuf at the foot of Henry IV.’s statue; watching the while the sun set behind Mont Valerien, with its exquisite reflections in the murmuring river below, and pondering over Thomas Moore’s poems, of which I had lately found a translation.
But de Pons, troubled at my privations—which, since we often met, I could not hide from him—brought fresh disaster upon me by a piece of well-meant but fatal interference. He wrote to my father, telling him everything, and asking for the balance of his debt. Now my father already repented bitterly his leniency towards me; here had I been five months in Paris without in the least bettering my position. No doubt he thought that I had nothing to do but present myself at the Institute to carry all before me: win the Prix de Rome, write a successful opera, get the Legion of Honour, and a Government pension, etc., etc.
Instead of this came news of an unpaid debt. It was a blow and naturally reacted on me.
He sent de Pons his six hundred francs, and told me that, if I refused to give up my musical wild-goose chase, I must depend on myself alone, for he would help me no more.
As de Pons was paid, and I had my pupils, I decided to stay in Paris—my life would be no more frugal than heretofore. I was really working very steadily at music. Cherubini, of the orderly mind, knowing I had not gone through the regular Conservatoire mill to get into Lesueur’s class, said I must go into Reicha’s counterpoint class, since that should have preceded the former. This, of course, meant double work.
I had also, most happily, made friends some time before with a young man named Humbert Ferrand—still one of my closest friends—who had written the Francs-Juges libretto for me, and in hot haste I was writing the music.
Both poem and music were refused by the Opera committee and were shelved, with the exception of the overture; I, however, used up the best motifs in other ways. Ferrand also wrote a poem on the Greek Revolution, which at that time fired all our enthusiasm; this too I arranged. It was influenced entirely by Spontini, and was the means of giving my innocence its first shock at contact with the world, and of awakening me rudely to the egotism of even great artists.
Rudolph Kreutzer was then director of the Opera House, where, during Holy Week, some sacred concerts were to be given. Armed with a letter of introduction from Monsieur de Larochefoucauld, Minister of Fine Arts, and with Lesueur’s warm commendations, I hoped to induce Kreutzer to give my scena.