Perhaps of all his powers Bizet's greatest was that of recuperation. It would be wrong to say he did not know defeat; he knew it all too well, but he never let it get the better of him. He was never without his irons upon the fire, never without a project to fall back upon. And perhaps it is not too much to say that he had no life outside his art. This too may in truth be told of him: that in all the struggle and the scramble, in all his fight with fortune, it was the sweeter qualities of his nature that came uppermost. His strength of purpose stood on a sound basis--a basis of confidence in, though not arrogance of, his own power. Where he was most handicapped was in carrying on his artistic progress _coram populo_. Had it been as gradual as most men's--had it been but the acquiring of an ordinary experience--all might have been well; he would probably have been accorded his niche and would have occupied it. But he progressed by leaps and bounds, and even then his ideal kept steadily miles ahead of his achievement. It was for long a very will-o'-the-wisp for him. Now and again he caught it, and it is at such moments that we have him at his best; but he can be said only to have captured it completely--so far as we are in a position to tell--in "L'Arlésienne" and certain parts of "Carmen." His faculty of self-criticism was developed in such an extraordinary degree as to baulk him. He loved this Don Rodrigue and thought it was his masterwork, and that too at the time when "Carmen" must have been well forward. We know then that the loss is not a small one. It had not been alone the fate of the Opéra House that had stood in the way. That institution had in course taken up its quarters at the Salle Ventadour, and once installed there had proceeded with the _répertoire_. But Bizet's "Rodrigue," although well backed by Fauré, was pushed aside for others. The three names that it bore were all too impotent; and when a new work was announced, it was "L'Esclave" of Membrée that was seen to grace the bills, and not "Don Rodrigue." Poor Bizet, disappointed and sore at heart, vanished to hide himself once more by his beloved Seine. This time it was to Bougival he went.