Lonjumeau"? and was it not the most successful work of Boiledieu's successor? The fact had altered his whole life. Ever after, all he sought in opera was some similarity with Le Postilion. And there was nothing of Adam in this music, still less anything of De Leuven in the poem. That was sufficient for him. "Allons", said he one day to Gallet, who arrived at rehearsal just as Djamileh was about to sing her laments: "allons, vous arrivez pour le De Profundis."
As for the public, they understood it not at all, this charming miniature. "C'est indigne," cried one; "c'est odieux," from another; "c'est trés drôle," said a third. "Quelle cacophonie, quelle audace, c'est se moquer du monde. Voilà, où méne le culte de Wagner à la folie. Ni tonalite, ni mesure, ni rythme; ce n'est plus de la musique," and the rest. The press itself was no better, no whit more rational. Yet this "Djamileh" was rich in premonition of those very qualities that go to make "Carmen" the immortal work it is. It so glows with true Oriental colour, is so saturate with the true Eastern spirit, as to make us wonder for the moment—as did Mr. Henry James about Théophile Gautier—whether the natural attitude of the man was not to recline in the perfumed dusk of a Turkish divan, puffing a chibouque. Here the tints are stronger, mellower, and more carefully laid on than in "Les Pêcheurs des Perles." There is, too, all the bizarrerie, as well as all the sensuousness of the East. Yet there is no obliteration of the human element for sake of the picturesque. Wagnerism was the cry raised against it on all sides; yet, if it be anything but Bizet, it is surely Schumann. It was, in effect, all too good for the public—too fine for their vulgar gaze, their indiscriminating comment. And Reyer, farseeing amongst his fellows, spoke truth when he said in the Dèbats: "I feel sure that if M. Bizet knows that his work has been
