I also remember that while I was in the orchestra I assisted at the performances of Reyer's _La Statue_, a superb score and a tremendous success. I can still see Reyer in the wings during the performances eluding the firemen and smoking interminable cigars. It was a habit he could not give up. One day I heard him tell about being in Abbé Liszt's room in Rome. The walls were covered with religious pictures--Christ, the Virgin, and the Saints--and he blew out a cloud of smoke which filled the room. In reply to his witty excuses about incommoding the "august persons," he drew the following reply from the great abbé. "No," said Liszt, "it is always incense." For six months, under the same conditions of work, I substituted for one of my fellows in the orchestra at the Théâtre-Italien. As I had heard the admirable Mme. Miolan-Carvalho in _Faust_--excellent singing--I now heard the tragediennes like Penco and Frezzolini and such men as Mario, Graziani, Delle Sedie, and the buffo Zucchini. The last is no longer alive and our great Lucien Fugère of the Opéra-Comique of to-day reminds me of him almost exactly. There is the same powerful voice and the same perfect artistic comedy. But the time for the competition of the Institute approached. During our residence _en loge_ at the Institute we had to pay for our meals for twenty-five days and also the rent of a piano. I got out of that difficulty as best I could; at any rate I forestalled it. All the same the money I had been able to put aside was insufficient and acting on the advice of a friend (giving and acting on advice are two entirely different things) I went to a pawnshop and pawned my watch ... a gold one. It had adorned my fob since the morning of my first communion. Alas! it must have been light weight, for they offered me only ... sixteen francs!!! This odd sum, however, enabled me to pay for my meals. But the charge for the piano was so exorbitant--twenty francs!--that I couldn't afford it. I did without it much more easily, for I have never needed its help in composing. I would have hardly imagined that my neighbors would have bothered me so by their pounding on their pianos and by their singing at the top of their lungs. It was impossible to divert my thoughts or to escape their noise, as I had no piano, and, in addition, the corridors of our garrets were unusually reverberant. On my way to the Saturday sittings of the Académie des Beaux-Arts I often cast a sad glance at the grated window of my cell; it can be seen from the Cour Mazarine to the right in a recess. Yes, my glance is sad, for I left behind those old bars the dearest and most affecting recollections of my youth, and because they cause me to reflect on the unhappy times in my long life. In the trial competition in 1863 I was examined first and I kept the same place in the choral work. The first test was in the large hall of the École des Beaux-Arts which is entered from the Quai Malaquais.