Even from concert-giving in Paris I am excluded, for, thanks to the machinations of my enemies in the Conservatoire, the Minister of the Interior at the prize-giving took occasion to state that in future the hall of the Conservatoire (the only possible one for my purpose) would be lent to _no one_. The no one could only be me, for, with two or three exceptions in twenty years, I was the only one who so used it. Although most of the executants in this celebrated society are my friends, they are overborne by a hostile chief and a small clique; my compositions, therefore, are never given. Once, six or seven years ago, they did ask me for some excerpts from _Faust_, then tried to damn them by sandwiching them between Beethoven’s _C minor Symphony_ and Spontini’s finale to the _Vestal_. Fortunately they were disappointed, the Sylph scene was enthusiastically encored; but Girard, who had conducted the whole thing clumsily and colourlessly, pretended he could not find the place, so it was not repeated. After that they avoided my works like the plague. Of all the millionaires in Paris none thinks of doing anything for music. Paganini’s example was not followed, and the great artist’s gift to me stands alone. No; a composer of classical music must be absolutely independent or must resign himself to all the miseries from which I suffered--to incomplete rehearsals, to inconvenient concert halls, to checks of every foreseen and unforeseen kind, and to the rapacity of the hospital tax-gatherers, who seize one-eighth of the _gross_ receipts. Usually I am willing and anxious to make every possible sacrifice, but sometimes occasions arise when such sacrifices cease to be generous and become criminal. Two years ago, when there was still some hope of my wife’s recovery, and therefore expenses were greatly increased, I dreamt one night of a symphony. On waking I could still recall nearly all the first movement, an allegro in A minor. As I moved towards my writing-table to put it down, I suddenly thought: “If I do this I shall be drawn on to compose the rest, and, since my ideas always expand, it will end by being enormously long; it will take me three or four months; I shall write no articles, and my income will fail. When the symphony is written I shall, weakly, have it copied and so incur a debt of a thousand or twelve hundred francs. “Then I shall be impelled to give a concert that it may be heard; the receipts will hardly equal half the expenditure, and I shall lose money. I have not got it. My poor invalid will be without necessary comforts, and my son’s expenses on board ship will not be met.” With a shudder of horror I threw aside my pen, saying: “To-morrow I shall have forgotten the symphony.”