The choral music of contemporary France has its immediate origin in the recent past. In particular the oratorio and sacred cantata may be said to represent the larger fruition of what Romain Rolland calls ‘the new religious art which has sprung up since the death of César Franck, around the memory of that great musician.’ Pierné, d’Indy, Schmitt--some of the most distinctive composers of modern France--have been influenced by the Belgian master in a greater or less degree. Hence it is not strange that the best-known French choral works of the present day in the larger forms are of a religious or quasi-religious nature. Thus, even in the case of Debussy (less directly influenced by Franck than any of his contemporaries), we find that two of his three principal choral works, the lyric scene _L’enfant prodigue_ and the ‘mystery’ _Le martyre de Saint-Sébastien_, are developments of Biblical and hagiographic text-motives. And even in his _Damoiselle élue_, a cantata for female voices with solos, the heroine of Rossetti’s famous poem (to a French paraphrase of which Debussy has written his score) looks down from the ramparts of her pre-Raphaelite paradise. In _L’enfant prodigue_ (Roman Prize, 1884), its composer does not as yet inaugurate those radical changes which were to find complete expression in his later works. It may be briefly described as a simple and expressive miniature oratorio, including duets, trios, a cleverly written _cortège_ and dance, whose frequent recitative anticipates the melodic declamation employed in _Pelléas et Mélisande_. But when Debussy sent in his _Damoiselle élue_ (first published in 1887) from Rome, the departure, from accepted standards was more marked. Its music is rich in delicate imagery and attention to detail, orchestral and vocal, yet despite its subtle expression of the yearning of the translated for the one left behind on earth--the chorus of sopranos descending in flexible, fluid cadences as the Blessed Damozel ‘leans out from the gold bars of Heaven’ and ‘casts her arms along the golden barriers’--the customary public hearing accorded ‘works sent from Rome’ was denied it in Paris. Since then, however, its composer has not had to complain of a lack of performances.