life. And all their multifarious efforts were confusedly directed, and were
lost on the road. It was only rarely that these artists became conscious of
the nature of their efforts, and could join forces to a common and a given
end. It was the usual result of French anarchy, which wastes the enormous
wealth of talent and good intentions through the paralyzing influence of
its uncertainty and contradictions. With hardly an exception, all the great
French musicians, like Berlioz and Saint-Saens--to mention only the most
recent--have been hopelessly muddled, self-destructive, and forsworn, for
want of energy, want of faith, and, above all, for want of an inward guide.

Christophe, with the insolence and disdain of the latter-day German,
thought:

"The French do no more than fritter away their energy in inventing things
which they are incapable of using. They need a master of another race, a
Gluck or a Napoleon, to turn their Revolutions to any account."

And he smiled at the notion of an Eighteenth of Brumaire.

* * * * *

And yet, in the midst of all this anarchy, there was a group striving to
restore order and discipline to the minds of artists and public. By way
of a beginning, they had taken a Latin name reminiscent of a clerical
institution which had flourished thirteen or fourteen centuries ago at the
time of the great Invasion of the Goths and Vandals. Christophe was rather
surprised at their going back so far. It was a good thing, certainly, to
dominate one's generation. But it looked as though a watch-tower fourteen
centuries high might be, a little inconvenient, and more suitable perhaps
for observing the movements of the stars than those of the men of the