However the next day the paying public was admitted and we took seventy-five thousand francs. This time I brought the orchestra down into the body of the hall, with fine effect. I sent to Brussels for an electrician I knew, who made me a five-wired metronome so that by the single movement of my left hand, I could mark time for the five deputy conductors placed at different points of the enormous space. The _ensemble_ was marvellous. Since then most of the theatres have adopted electric metronomes for the guidance of chorus-masters behind the scenes. The Opera alone refused; but, when I undertook the supervision of _Alcestis_, I introduced it. In these Palais de l’Industrie concerts the finest effects were obtained from broad, grand, simple and somewhat slow movements, such as the chorus from _Armida_, the _Tibi omnes_ of my _Te Deum_ and the _Apotheosis_ of my _Funeral Symphony_. _Letters to_ FERRAND and LOUIS BERLIOZ from 1858 to 1863. _To_ HUMBERT FERRAND. “_November 1858._--I have nothing to tell you, I simply want to write. I am ill, miserable (how many _I’s_ to each line!) Always _I_ and _me_! One’s friends are for _oneself_, it ought to be oneself for one’s friends. “My dejection melts away as I write; for pity’s sake let us write oftener! These years of silence are insupportable. “Think how horribly quickly we are dying and how much good your letters do me! “Last night I dreamt of music, this morning I recalled it all and fell into one of those supernal ecstasies.... All the tears of my soul poured forth as I listened to those divinely sonorous smiles that radiate from the angels alone. Believe me, dear friend, the being who could write such miracles of transcendent melody would be more than mortal. “So sings great Michael as, erect upon the threshold of the empyrean, he dreamily gazes down upon the worlds beneath. “Why, oh, why! have I not such an orchestra that I, too, could sing this archangelic song! “Back to this lower earth! I am interrupted. Vulgar, commonplace, stupid life! Oh! that I had a hundred cannon to fire all at once! “Good-bye. I feel better. Forgive me!” * * * * * “_6th July 1861._--_The Trojans_ has been accepted for the Opera, but I cannot tell when they will produce it as Gounod and Gervaert have to come first. But I am determined to worry myself no more; I will not court Fortune, I will lie in bed and await her. “All the same, I could not resist a little uncourtly frankness when the Empress asked me when she should hear _The Trojans_. “‘I do not know, madame, I begin to think one must live a hundred and fifty years in order to get a hearing at the Opera.’