In Paris, at this period, there lived a Monsieur de Caraman, Prince of Chimay, a great lover of music and very friendly to Cherubini, whom he invited to spend the summer of 1808 on his estate in Belgium, hoping that the quiet of rural life might restore the musician's failing strength. Cherubini accepted the invitation, and Auber, at that time his pupil, accompanied him to Chimay. The inhabitants of the place, having heard of the celebrated composer's arrival at the castle, sent a deputation to entreat him to compose them an ode to be sung on St. Cecilia's day. Cherubini, with harsh abruptness, refused to comply with the request. But soon afterwards the occupants of the castle saw him going about in a meditative mood, and then to set himself quietly and industriously to work. After another brief interval he called Auber to the piano, and showed him a recently completed _Kyrie_. When this had been sung through in the presence of his astonished and delighted friends, Cherubini wrote the _Gloria_, and presented both compositions to the highly elated townspeople, who gave them as satisfactory a public performance as possible, considering the very limited amount of talent at their command. This was the beginning of the celebrated F major mass for three-part chorus and orchestra. On his return to Paris, Cherubini completed the work, and in March, 1809, it was performed for the first time in the Prince's _salon_ by a select chorus and orchestra, before an audience of invited guests. In thus returning, a mature artist, to the field of his youthful endeavors, the composer was destined to exhibit his genius in its finest and most permanent qualities. The F major mass inaugurated a new order of church music, just as a new operatic style was created by "Lodoiska"; and if other opera composers came after him who followed different ideals and obscured his fame, it is an undeniable fact that the Catholic Church music of the nineteenth century can show us nothing worthy to stand by the side of Cherubini's works. He has here remained the unequalled master.