But it is a question whether we should believe the legend that the great duet, the climax of the whole work, was improvised during the rehearsals at the request of Norritt and Madame Falcon. It is hard to believe that. The work, as is well known, was taken from Merimee's _Chronique du regne de Charles IX_. This scene is in the romance and it is almost impossible that Meyerbeer had no idea of putting it into his opera. More probably the people at the theatre wanted the act to end with the blessing of the daggers, and the author with his duet in his portfolio only had to take it out to satisfy his interpreters. A beautiful scene like this with its sweep and pleasing innovation is not written hastily. This duet should be heard when the author's intentions and the nuances which make a part of the idea are respected and not replaced by inventions in bad taste which they dare to call traditions. The real traditions have been lost and this admirable scene has lost its beauty. The manner in which the duet ends has not been noted sufficiently. Raoul's phrase, _God guard our days. God of our refuge!_ remains in suspense and the orchestra brings it to an end, the first example of a practice used frequently in modern works. We do not know how Meyerbeer got his idea of putting the schismatic John Huss on the stage under the name of John of Leyden. Whether this idea was original with him or was suggested by Scribe, who made a fantastic person out of John, we do not know. We only know that the role of the prophet's mother was originally intended for Madame Stoltz, but she had left the Opera. Meyerbeer heard Madame Pauline Viardot at Vienna and found in her his ideal, so he created the redoubtable role of Fides for her. The part of Jean was given to the tenor Roger, the star of the Opera-Comique, and he played and sang it well. Levasseur, the Marcel of _Les Huguenots_ and the Bertram of _Robert_, played the part of Zacharie. _Le Prophete_ was enormously successful in spite of the then powerful censer-bearers of the Italian school. We now see its defects rather than its merits. Meyerbeer is criticised for not putting into practice theories he did not know and no account is taken of his fearlessness, which was great for that period. No one else could have drawn the cathedral scene with such breadth of stroke and extraordinary brilliancy. The paraphrase of _Domine salvum fac regem_ reveals great ingenuity. His method of treating the organ is wonderful, and his idea of the ritournello _Sur le Jeu de hautbois_ is charming. This precedes and introduces the children's chorus, and is constructed on a novel theme which is developed brilliantly by the choruses, the orchestra and the organ combined. The repetition of the _Domine Salvum_ at the end of the scene, which bursts forth abruptly in a different key, is full of color and character. [Illustration: Meyerbeer, Composer of _Les Huguenots_] III