Quantum mutatus.... Like the poet I may say, "What changes since that time?" To-day even the young pupils have only to enter a competition to get their pictures in the papers and at the very outset of their careers they are anointed great men. All this is accompanied by Bacchanalian lines and they are fortunate if in their exalted triumph they do not add the word "colossal." That is glory; deification in all its modesty. In 1859 we were not glorified in any such way.
But Providence—some called it Destiny—watched over me.
A friend, who to my great joy is still living, got me better lessons. He was not like so many friends I met later, who are ever in need of one's assistance; those who slink away when you want to be comforted in poverty; the friends who are always pretending that they defended you last night against malevolent attacks in order to show you their fine opinions, but at the same time torturing you by repeating the wounding words directed at you. I must add, however, that I have had truly genuine friendships, as I have found in my hours of weariness and discouragement.
The Théâtre-Lyrique was then on the Boulevard du Temple and it gave me a place in its orchestra as kettle-drummer. Then, good Father Strauss, the orchestra leader at the Opéra balls, let me play the bass drum, the kettle-drums, the tam-tam, and all the rest of the resonant instruments. It was dreadfully tiring to sit up every Saturday from midnight until six in the morning, but all told I managed to make eighty francs a month. I felt as rich as a banker and as happy as a cobbler.
The Théâtre-Lyrique was founded by the elder Alexander Dumas as the Théâtre-Historique, and was established by Adolphe Adam.
I was living at the time at No. 5, Rue de Ménilmontant, in a huge building, almost a city in itself. My neighbors on the floor, separated only by a narrow partition, were the clowns—both men and women—of the Cirque Napoléon which was near our house.
From my attic window I was able to enjoy—for nothing of course—whiffs from the orchestra which escaped from the popular concerts that Pasdeloup conducted in the circus every Sunday. This happened whenever the audience packed in the overheated hall shouted loudly for air and they opened the casement windows on the third floor to satisfy them.
From my perch—that is the only thing to call it—I applauded with feverish joy the overture of Tannhauser, the Symphonie Fantastique, in short the music of my gods: Wagner and Berlioz.
Every evening at six o'clock—the theater began very early—I went by the way of the Rue des Fossés-du-Temple, near my house, to the stage door of the Théâtre-Lyrique. In those days the left side of the Boulevard du Temple was one unbroken line of theaters. Consequently I went along the back of the Funambules, the Petit-Lazari, the Délassements-Comiques, the Cirque Impérial and the Gaîté. Those who did not know that corner of Paris in 1859 can have no idea of it.
The Rue des Fossés-du-Temple, on which all the stage doors opened, was a sort of wonderland where all the supers, male and female, from all the theaters waited in great crowds on the dimly lighted pavements. The atmosphere was full of vermin and microbes. Even in our Théâtre-Lyrique the musicians' dressing room was only an old stable in which the horses used in historical plays were kept.