The French Immortals, too old for actual participation in the war, have found an outlet for their patriotism in shedding red ink of ridiculous chauvinism. It has become a matter of course to meet a name of some “Membre de l’Academie” signed under such outbursts as this: “Nothing of the Barbarians, nothing of their literature, of their music, of their art, of their science, nothing of their culture, of anything Made in Germany!” Another Academic gives vent to his ire against those Frenchmen who still find certain German things worth admiring, and he vehemently advocates the prohibition of the Barbarian music and art “by law, by persuasion, by force, by violence if necessary!” The octogenarian Saint-Saens has written a series of articles venomously attacking Wagnerian music, labeling traitor any Frenchman who favors the art of the arch-foe of his country. Even the semi-official _Le Temps_ was shocked by the violent tone of the old composer; it quoted Saint-Saens’s articles of the year 1876, in which the author appeared to be an ardent Wagnerite and appealed to his compatriots for broad-mindedness and toleration for “the greatest genius of our times.” As a substitute for the atrocious Wagner Saint-Saens recommends the return to Haydn and Mozart, even to Meyerbeer; Schumann’s Lieder he would ban for Gounod and Massenet; he favors even Dussek, for he is “only a Bohemian.” Patriotic as he is, he refuses to sanction the modern French composers, since Debussy, Fauré, D’Indy, and the rest are Wagnerians in his estimation. It is a case of “senile reactionarism,” as the _Mercure de France_ rightly observes. _Comparative Morale_