Berlioz’s militant career may be divided into two distinct periods; that in which he struggles for position, and which lasts from his arrival in Paris until after _Romeo and Juliet_ and the _Funeral and Triumphal Symphony_, in 1842; that in which, tired of struggling without profit though not without glory, he starts off to establish his reputation outside the frontier, and to return afterwards to Paris, victorious and triumphant; this lasts until his death. So soon as he achieved a success abroad, great or small, “Be sure that Paris knows it!” was the cry to his friends. And Paris, being informed of it, had forgotten it instantly. It was during the intervals between these tours, when he came back to France to see if his foreign successes had given him a better standing in the eyes of his countrymen, that his last principal works were produced: _The Damnation of Faust_, _The Childhood of Christ_, _The Te Deum_ and _Beatrice and Benedict_, finally _The Trojans_. It was towards the end of 1821 that Berlioz came to Paris, ostensibly to study medicine, but with a secret longing to devote himself to music. He was then nearly eighteen years of age, being born at La Côte Saint-André (Isère), Dec. 11, 1803, and had already received some lessons in music from the poor stranded artists at La Côte. We are indebted to Berlioz himself for the names of these artists, which were Imbert and Dorant. On arriving at Paris, where his father, a simple health officer, but a devotee to the sciences and to medicine, had allowed him to come on the express condition that he should follow exactly the course of the Faculty, he set to work as best he could to carry out this program. But one evening he goes to the Opera to hear Salieri’s _Danaïdes_: immediately music regains possession of his soul, and he spends all his spare time in the library of the _Conservatoire_, studying the scores of Gluck’s operas; there he meets a pupil of Lesueur who introduces him to that master, and he attaches himself with much affection to the author of the _Bardes_, who admits him to his class. At length he informs his family of his settled determination to devote himself to music, and he has performed at Saint-Roch a mass which he burns almost immediately after, saving only the _Resurrexit_ which obtains grace in his sight, at least for a time. He then took part in the preparatory concours for the prize of Rome, and was not even judged worthy to be a competitor. Immediately summoned home by his parents, who had no faith in his “pretended irresistible vocation,” he arrived there so sad, so crushed, so misanthropic, that his father, uneasy about him, permitted him to return to try once more his fortune in Paris. He came back for the winter of 1826, having nothing to live on but a small allowance from his family, on which he was obliged to economize in order to pay back, little by little, a loan which a friend had made him for the execution of his mass.