Aghast at the explosion we had provoked, our little band stood silent as birds after a thunder clap.
I, literally not metaphorically, sank on the floor.
Some time before this I had arranged the Marseillaise for full orchestra and double chorus and had dedicated it to Rouget de Lisle, who wrote inviting me to go and see him at Choisy, as he had several proposals to make to me.
Unfortunately I could not go then, as I was on the point of starting for Italy, and he died before I returned. I only heard much later that he had written many fine songs besides the Marseillaise and had also a libretto for Othello put aside; it is probably this that he wished to discuss with me.
As soon as peace was patched up and Louis Philippe introduced by Lafayette as “the best of republics” the Academy started work once more.
And as the judges, thanks to a piece which I have since burnt, believed me reclaimed from my heresies, they gave me the first prize. Although, in former years, I had been greatly disappointed at not getting it I was not in the least pleased when I did.
Of course I appreciated its advantages; my parents’ pride, the kudos, the freedom for five years from money troubles—yet, knowing the system on which prizes were awarded, could I feel any proper pride in my success?
Two months after came the distribution of prizes and the performance of the successful work. It was all very hackneyed.
Every year the same musicians perform pieces turned out on the same pattern; the same prizes, awarded with the same discrimination, are handed over with the same ceremony. Every year on the same day, at the same time, standing on the same step of the same staircase, the same Academician repeats the same words to the winner.
Day, first Saturday in October; time, four in the afternoon; step, the third; the Academician—we all know who.