"I saw a man enter unexpectedly. He was miserably clad, but his
face shone with a strange rapture. When he saw me, he threw himself
upon me and embraced me with fervour; his eyes filled with tears,
and he was hardly able to get out the words, 'Ah, monsieur,
monsieur! moi Hongrois ... pauvre diable ... pas parler Français
... un poco Italiano. Pardonnez mon extase.... Ah! ai compris votre
canon.... Oui, oui, la grande-bataille.... Allemands chiens!' And
then striking his breast violently: 'Dans le coeur, moi ... je vous
porte.... _Ah! Français ... révolutionnaire ... savoir faire la
musique des révolutions_!'"]

[Footnote 104: Written 5 May, 1841.]

How do such works come to be neglected by our Republic? How is it they
have not a place in our public life? Why are they not part of our great
ceremonies? That is what one would wonderingly ask oneself if one had
not seen, for the last century, the indifference of the State to Art.
What might not Berlioz have done if the means had been given him, or if
his works had found a place in the fêtes of the Revolution? Unhappily,
one must add that here again his character was the enemy of his genius.
As this apostle of musical freedom, in the second part of his life,
became afraid of himself and recoiled before the results of his own
principles, and returned to classicism, so this revolutionary fell to
sullenly disparaging the people and revolutions; and he talks about "the
republican cholera," "the dirty and stupid republic," "the republic of
street-porters and rag-gatherers," "the filthy rabble of humanity a
hundred times more stupid and animal in its twitchings and revolutionary
grimacings than the baboons and orang-outangs of Borneo."[105]