It is the five-act mystery _Le martyre de Saint-Sébastien_, given in 1911 at the _Châtelet_ theatre in Paris, which is Debussy’s most ambitious and individual contribution to the literature of the newer French choral art, though the music is really incidental to D’Annunzio’s drama. In general, the greatest French critics paid tribute to the merits of the work. Alfred Bruneau spoke of ‘its clarity, serenity and strength,’ insisting that while the composer had hitherto given his attention mainly to the instrumental forms, he had attained new power in the choral portions of _Le martyre_. He dwells on the beauty of the lament of the women at Sébastien’s death, and the ‘vast and magnificent’ final _alleluia_. Pierre Laloy does not share Bruneau’s enthusiasm for the choral close. He admits its ‘occasional Palestrinian character,’ but deprecates the intrusion of trifling motives evidently used for effect alone. Robert Broussel counts the four Preludes, hieratic and voluptuous, among Debussy’s most finished pages. Reynaldo Hahn laments a lack of continuity in the score. Yet all critics agree, in the main, on the interest and artistry of the score, in which the religious feeling is strongly and definitely marked. This concludes the tale of the composer’s choral compositions of a religious nature, but no mention of Debussy’s activity in the choral field would be complete without a reference to his lovely _a cappella_ choruses, _Chansons de Charles d’Orleans_, practically the only secular music for chorus which he has written, but music well worth careful study. Notwithstanding the religious expressiveness which permeates _Le martyre_, as witness the musical treatment of its last scene in which paradise unfolds its gates amid a golden glory of angel hosts, it is Gabriel Pierné whose scores are the most successful examples of oratorio composition in modern France. Reynaldo Hahn, it is true, in a manner anticipated Pierné’s _Enfants de Bethlehem_ in 1901, with a Christmas oratorio, _Pastorale de Noël_, written upon the text of one of the great passion-mysteries of the thirteenth century, using the actual mediæval words and thus projecting the liturgic drama of the Middle Ages into the present day. Yet his work has never attained that wider public recognition accorded Pierné’s oratorios. On these rest the latter’s fame, though he has written a secular cantata, _Edith_ (1882), and a prize symphony for chorus and orchestra, _L’an mil_. _La croisade des enfants_ (known throughout this country as ‘The Children’s Crusade’), _Les enfants de Bethlehem_ and, finally, _Les fioretti de Saint-François d’Assisi_, are his chief works.