In a measure both Spontini and Rossini may be excused if they thought that Meyerbeer, in developing their art tendencies, transformed and distorted them. Spontini, no doubt, looked on him as a huckster who bartered away the sacred mysteries of creative art for the sake of cheap applause. The straightforward Rossini probably thought him a hypocrite. And therein they both wronged him. An eclectic, ‘an art-lover rather than an artist,’ Meyerbeer revelled in the luxury of using every style and attempting every novelty, in order to prove himself master of whatever he undertook. But he was undeniably honest in all that he did, though he lacked that spontaneity which belongs to the artist alone. And in _Les Huguenots_, his next work, first performed in 1836, five years after _Robert_, he composed an opera which in gorgeous color, human interest, consistent dramatic treatment and accentuation of individual types, in force and breadth generally, marked a decided advance on its predecessor. _Les Huguenots_ was not a historical opera in the sense of _Tell_. In _Tell_ Rossini showed himself as an Italian and a patriot. The Hapsburgs of his hero’s day were the same who, at the time he wrote, oppressed his countrymen. Gessler stood for the imperial governor of Lombardy, his guards for Austrian soldiers; the liberty-loving Swiss he identified with the Lombards and Venetians whose liberties were attacked. But, though the subject of Meyerbeer’s opera is an episode of the ‘Massacre of St. Bartholomew,’ that episode is merely used as a sinister background, against which his warm and living characters move and tell their story. _Les Huguenots_ may be considered Meyerbeer’s most finished and representative score. Not a single element of color and contrast has escaped him. In only two respects did its interest fall short of that awakened by its predecessor. So successful had the composer been in his treatment of the supernatural in _Robert_ that the omission of that element now was regretted; and, more important, the fifth act proved to be an anti-climax. The opera, when given now, usually ends at the fourth act, when Raoul, leaping from the window to his death, leaves Valentine fainting. In psychological truth _Les Huguenots_ is undoubtedly superior to _Robert_. There is a double interest: that of knowing how the mutual love of Valentine the Catholic and Raoul the Protestant will turn out; and that of the drama in general, _against_ which and not _out_ of which the fate of the Huguenots is developed.