with surprising skill. Now that this text has been set to music, it
shows its full beauty.

Louis Gallet devoted a large part of his time to administrative duties,
for he was successively treasurer and manager of hospitals. Nevertheless
he produced works in abundance. He left a record of no less than forty
operatic librettos, plays, romances, memoirs, pamphlets, and innumerable
articles. I wish I knew what to say about the man himself, his
unwearying goodness, his loyalty, his scrupulousness, his good humor,
his originality, his continual common sense, and his intellect, alert to
everything unusual and interesting.

What good talks we used to have as we dined under an arbor in the large
garden which was his delight at Lariboisière! I used to take him seeds,
and he made amusing botanical experiments with them.

He was seriously ill at one period of his life. He was wonderfully
nursed by his wife--who was a saint--and he endured prolonged and
atrocious sufferings with the patience of a saint. He watched the growth
of his fatal disease with a stoicism worthy of the sages of antiquity
and he had no illusion about the implacable illness which slowly but
surely would result in his premature death. A constantly increasing
deafness was his greatest trouble. This cruel infirmity had made
frightful progress when, in 1899, the Arènes de Béziers opened its doors
for the second time to _Déjanire_. In spite of everything, including his
ill health which made the trip very painful, he wanted to see his work
once more. He heard nothing, however--neither the artists, the choruses,
nor even the applause of the several thousand spectators who encored it
enthusiastically. A little later he passed on, leaving in his friends'
hearts and at the work-tables of his collaborators a void which it is