Nowadays it is difficult to form any idea of Rossini's position in our beautiful city of Paris half a century ago. He had retired from active life a long time before, but he had a greater reputation in his idleness than many others in their activity. All Paris sought the honor of being admitted to his magnificent, high-windowed apartment. As the demigod never went out in the evening, his friends were always sure of finding him at home. At one time or another all sorts of social sets rubbed elbows at his great soirees. The most brilliant singers and the most famous virtuosi appeared at these "evenings." The master was surrounded by sycophants, but they did not influence him, for he knew their true worth. He ruled his regular following with the hauteur of a superior being who does not deign to reveal himself to the first comer. It is a question how he came to be held in such honor. His works, outside of the _Barbier_ and _Guillaume Tell_, and some performances of _Moise_, belonged to the past. They still went to see _Otello_ at the Theatre-Italien, but that was to hear Tamberlick's C diesis. Rossini was under so little illusion that he tried to oppose the effort to have _Semiramide_ put into the repertoire at the Opera. And, nevertheless, the Parisian public actually worshipped him. This public--I am speaking now of the musical public or what is called that--was divided into two hostile camps. There were the lovers of melody who were in the large majority and included the musical critics; and, on the other side, the subscribers to the Conservatoire and the Maurin, Alard and Amingaud quartets. They were devotees of learned music; "poseurs," others said, who pretended to admire works they did not understand at all. There was no melody in Beethoven; some even denied that there was any in Mozart. Melody was found, we were told, only in the works of the Italian school, of which Rossini was the leader, and in the school of Herold and Auber, which was descended from the Italian. The Melodists considered Rossini their standard bearer, a symbol to rally around, even though they had just obtained good prices for his works at the second-hand shops and now permitted them to fall into oblivion. From some words he let fall during our intimacy I can state that this neglect was painful to him. But it was a just--perhaps too just--retribution for the fatality with which Rossini, doubtless in spite of himself, served as a weapon against Beethoven. The first encounter was at Vienna where the success of _Tancred_ crushed forever the dramatic ambitions of the author of _Fidelio_; later, at Paris, they used _Guillaume Tell_ in combating the increasing invasion of the symphony and chamber music.