The hostility of my people had somewhat died down, thanks to the success of my mass, but, naturally another reverse started it with renewed fury. In the 1826 preliminary examination of candidates for admission to the Institute I was hopelessly plucked. Of course my father heard of it, and promptly wrote that, if I persisted in staying on in Paris, my allowance would stop. My dear master kindly wrote asking him to reconsider his letter, saying that my eventual success was certain, since I _oozed music at every pore_. But, by ill luck, he brought in religious arguments--about the worst thing he could have done with my free-thinking father, whose blunt--almost rude--answer could not but wound Lesueur on his most susceptible side. From the beginning: “Monsieur, I am an atheist,” the rest may be guessed. The forlorn hope of gaining my end by personal pleading sent me back to La Côte, where I was received frostily and left to my own reflections for some days, during which I wrote to Ferrand: “No sooner away from the capital than I want to talk to you. My journey was tiresome as far as Tarare, where I began a conversation with two young men, whom I had, so far, avoided, thinking they looked _dilettanti_. They told me they were artists, pupils of Guérin and Gros, so I told them I was a pupil of Lesueur. They said all sorts of nice things of him, and one of them began humming a chorus from the _Danaïdes_. “The _Danaïdes_!” I cried, “then you are not a mere trifler?” “Not I,” he answered; “have I not heard Dérivis and Madame Branchu thirty-four times as Danaüs and Hypermnestra?” “O-o-oh!” and we fell upon each other’s neck. “I know Dérivis,” said the other man. “And I Madame Branchu.” “Lucky fellows!” I said. “But how is it that, since you are not professional musicians, you have not caught Rossini fever and turned your backs on nature and common sense?” “Well, I suppose it is because, being used to seeking all that is grandest and best in nature for our pictures, we recognise the same spirit in Gluck and Salieri, and so turn our backs on fashionable music.” “Blessed people! Such as they are alone worthy of being allowed to listen to _Iphigenia_!” * * * * * Again my parents returned to the charge, telling me to choose my profession, since I refused to be a doctor. Again I replied that I could and would only be a musician and must return to Paris to study. “Never,” said my father, “you may give up that idea at once.” I was crushed; with paralysed brain I sank into a torpor from which nothing roused me. I neither ate nor spoke nor answered when spoken to, but spent part of the day wandering in the woods and fields and the rest shut up in my own room. I was mentally and morally dying for want of air. Early one morning my father came to my bedside: “Get up and come to my study,” he said, “I want to talk to you.” He was grave and sad, not angry.