Just a year later the conversion of the public to Berlioz music was accomplished by means of a grand festival at the _Opéra_ in honor of the master, organized by his disciple Ernest Reyer. Even up to this time it was possible to hear Berlioz’s music only at the Popular Concerts, and then often in the midst of confusion and protestations. The announcement of this concert gave rise to many pleasantries, and people agreed, with nods and chuckles, that the best way to pay honor to such a man was to play music as unlike his as possible. However, the festival took place on the day appointed, with a program made up entirely of the master’s works, and some of the pieces, such as the _Waltz of the Sylphs_, and the _Hungarian March_, caused the liveliest surprise. They had come to laugh and they listened; they even applauded, and better than with the tips of their fingers. This was the signal for a reaction, and from that day the sudden change of opinion was only intensified as the musical public, who had hitherto tolerated only a few selections, familiarized themselves with the superb creations of this master and insisted on hearing successively all his complete works. His wonderful _La Damnation de Faust_ in particular, so little appreciated at first, finally had an amazing success and an irresistible attraction for the crowd, perhaps because the result was assisted by two or three concert performances. But there is nothing half-way about a French audience, it has no lukewarm sentiments, and it praises as immoderately as it condemns. Having once taken the stand, it accepted and applauded everything from Berlioz’s pen, and when it had exhausted mere bravos, it easily persuaded itself to erect a monument to his memory. First it was a question of a simple bust to be placed upon his tomb in Montmartre Cemetery, then it was proposed to erect a statue to him in his native city; but Paris did not wish to do less than Côte-Saint-André, and so it happened that Alfred Lénoir’s statue of the composer was erected in Vintimille square near the rue de Calais, the quarter where he spent a long period of his life and where he died. An exact duplicate of the statue was erected at Côte-Saint-André in 1890, and surely two statues are not too many to honor the great artist of whom Auber said with a little spice of wickedness,—“Yes, this Berlioz is certainly worth something, but what a pity that his education began so late.”