BOÏELDIEU AND AUBER.


I.

The French school of light opera, founded by Givtry, reached its
greatest perfection in the authors of "La Dame Blanche" and "Fra
Diavolo," though to the former of these composers must be accorded the
peculiar distinction of having given the most perfect example of this
style of composition. François Adrien Boïeldieu, the scion of a Norman
family, was born at Rouen, December 16, 1775. He received his early
musical training at the hands of Broche, a great musician and the
cathedral organist, but a drunkard and brutal taskmaster. At the age of
sixteen he had become a good pianist and knew something of composition.
At all events his passionate love of the theatre prompted him to try his
hand at an opera, which was actually performed at Rouen. The revolution
which made such havoc with the clergy and their dependents ruined
the Boïeldieu family (the elder Boïeldieu had been secretary of the
archiépiscopal diocese), and young François, at the age of nineteen, was
set adrift on the world, his heart full of hope and his ambition bent
on Paris, whither he set his feet. Paris, however, proved a stern
stepmother at the outset, as she always has been to the struggling and
unsuccessful. He was obliged to tune pianos for his living, and was glad
to sell his brilliant _chansons_, which afterward made a fortune for his
publisher, for a few francs apiece.

Several years of hard work and bitter privation finally culminated in