On my return to Chaumont I outlined this idea to several officers of the Staff and of the French Commission, who received it with enthusiasm and promised every assistance, but, alas, nothing ever came of it. When I returned to France the following spring the armistice had been arranged and the Versailles Conference was dragging its weary and dreary deliberations toward an unsatisfactory conclusion. There did not seem to be enough illusion or enthusiasm left to celebrate anything international connected with the war. On my last visit to Chaumont I gave a little dinner to Colonel Collins, secretary of the Staff, whose constant interest had been invaluable and whose mind seemed to be capable at a moment’s notice of turning from the consideration of some intricate military problem to the great advantages to be derived from the introduction of the French B-flat bugle into our army. Over a very good magnum of champagne I rose and made him, Colonel Boyd, and Lieutenant Weill solemnly swear that for the rest of the war and as long thereafter as necessary the bandmaster’s school at Chaumont should be to them as the apple of their eye, and this oath they faithfully kept. The school flourished from October, 1918, until June, 1919, when it was discontinued owing to the return of our army to America. The relations between the French professors and our boys, all living together like a happy family, became so sympathetic and intimate that the results may truly be said to have been remarkable. The soldiers realized that they were receiving an education in music equal to that of the foremost schools of France or America, and the French professors entered into their duties with an enthusiasm which was touching. Casadesus told me that many of his pupils worked at their musical problems twelve hours a day and I urged him, in some way or other, to continue these pleasant and important international musical relations by founding a summer school somewhere in France, preferably near Paris, to which American men and women, already sufficiently advanced in their study of music, could repair for three months every summer in order to acquaint themselves with French art and French methods of teaching. Until the war began, hundreds of American students had gone to Germany every year, and it seemed a pity that, owing to the Frenchman’s lack of propaganda for what his country could offer to our students, some of this stream could not be diverted to France. Our talks eventually led to the founding of the _Conservatoire Américain_ at Fontainebleau, of which details are told in another chapter.