In 1866 “Mignon” was heard, and Thomas at once leaped to world-wide fame. The work had an overwhelming success, and has been given in every opera house in the world. Two years later this masterpiece was followed by “Hamlet,” which was equally successful in France, though it has not, elsewhere, proved as popular as “Mignon.” On the strength of these two fine operas he was appointed, in 1871, to fill the position of Director of the Conservatoire, left vacant by the death of Auber. His other compositions, not yet mentioned, are a cantata composed for the inauguration of a statue to Lesueur (1852); a “Messe Solennelle” (1857); a “Marche Réligieuse” (1865); “Hommage à Boïeldieu,” composed for the centenary of Boïeldieu (1875), and many part songs, among them “La Vapeur,” “Le Chant des Amis,” “Le Tyrol,” “France,” “L’Atlantique,” “Le Carnaval de Rome,” “Le Traineaux,” “Le Temple de la Paix,” “La Nuit du Sabbat,” some of which are works of the highest merit, in their order. In 1874 was produced “Gille et Gilleton,” a one-act comic opera, written, however, in 1861. “Psyché” was revived in 1878 with additions, but though the music is full of graceful beauty, and was warmly praised, it made no marked impression on the general public. After “Hamlet,” Thomas did not bring forward another opera for fourteen years, and then he made another brilliant success with “Françoise di Rimini” (1882), in which was some of the finest music he had ever written, especially in the prologue and in the fourth act. He was now seventy-one years of age, and could well rest on the laurels he had won. From that date until the present (1893), he has produced no new lyric work, his only contribution to the stage of the opera being a ballet founded on “The Tempest,” by Shakespeare (1889), which, though remarkable as the effort of a man seventy-eight years old, was not destined to be numbered among his successes. In fact, with this work his career as a composer appears to have ended. He received the grand Cross of the Legion of Honor in 1880. At the age of eighty-two, he is still fulfilling his duties at the Conservatoire, in which institution he has worked many important and useful reforms. He has improved the method of instruction, has instituted lectures on the general history of music; has founded an orchestral class and compulsory vocal classes for reading at sight, and has raised the standard of solfeggio teaching. Not only this, but he has been largely instrumental in increasing the salaries of the professors, and has enlarged the prosperity of the institution until it has reached a point that makes it almost self-paying. Thomas has lived a wholly artistic life and has, fortunately, escaped most of the severer trials experienced by the majority of those who have devoted themselves to that branch of his art which has brought him fame and competence. He is given to physical exercise, is fond of country life, has a villa at Argenteuil and an island home at Zillieo, in Brittany.