Another friend of these tentative years was Paul Claudel, the author of books with mystical tendencies upon the history of Catholicism. Already Rolland had expressed a fugitive, recurrent wish to write a romance, “the history of a single-hearted artist who bruises himself against the rocks of life.” Such was the norm of _Jean-Christophe_. He was surprised, and not wholly pleased, when he was told that he had won a traveling scholarship from the Normal School and could go to the French School of Archeology and History at Rome. For two years he stayed in this city, making contacts with some of the vital influences of his life, notably the friendship with Fräulein Malwida von Meysenburg; she was many years his senior but still alert and inspiring. She knew intimately scores of statesmen, writers, and artists, as references in her book, _Mémoires d’une idéaliste_, testify. She took a profound interest in this young Frenchman with his musical gifts and visionary hopes. In his essay, “To the Undying Antigone,” Rolland speaks of his gratitude to two women--his mother and Fräulein von Meysenburg. With the latter he went to visit Wagner at Bayreuth and increased his musical enthusiasm and knowledge. One day, as he was walking on the Janiculum, the germ-idea and plan of his epic novel, _Jean-Christophe_, formed in his mind but its writing was delayed for many years. Back in Paris as lecturer at the Normal School, and at the Sorbonne, he determined to attack indifference to the fine arts. His thesis had a title of arresting words for that time, “The Origins of the Modern Lyrical Drama.” While in Rome he had written a few plays that were not made public, _Orsino_, _Caligula_, and _Niobe_. He was eager to increase interest in music at the Normal School and elsewhere. He attended musical festivals at Bonn and Strasburg and began that series of biographies published later as _Musicians of Former Days_, _Musicians of Today_, _Beethoven_, _Handel_, and other volumes. He married the daughter of Michael Bréal, the philologist, at whose home he met noted men of letters, science, and art. His wife was cultured and sympathetic with his aspirations to extend knowledge of music and art among the people. He rebelled against educational restrictions, as well as political reactions; in such moods he wrote plays such as _Danton_, _Fourteenth of July_, _Triumph of Reason_, and _Saint Louis_, a heroic legend. He urged popularizing of the theatre and lamented the dominance of “the aristocratic theatre.” Some of the articles which he wrote at different times on this theme have been translated by Barrett H. Clark as _The People’s Theatre_ (New York, 1918). He looked to the theatre as beneficial to the people in three ways: “(1) as a source of joy; (2) as a source of energy; (3) as a source of guiding light to the intelligence.”