In spite of his aristocratic
disdain, his soul was with the masses. M. Hippeau applies to him Taine's
definition of a romantic artist: "the plebeian of a new race, richly
gifted, and filled with aspirations, who, having attained for the first
time the world's heights, noisily displays the ferment of his mind and
heart." Berlioz grew up in the midst of revolutions and stories of
Imperial achievement. He wrote his cantata for the _Prix de Rome_ in
July, 1830, "to the hard, dull noise of stray bullets, which whizzed
above the roofs, and came to flatten themselves against the wall near
his window."[93] When he had finished this cantata, he went, "pistol in
hand, to play the blackguard in Paris with the _sainte canaille_." He
sang the _Marseillaise_, and made "all who had a voice and heart and
blood in their veins"[94] sing it too. On his journey to Italy he
travelled from Marseilles to Livourne with Mazzinian conspirators, who
were going to take part in the insurrection of Modena and Bologna.
Whether he was conscious of it or not, he was the musician of
revolutions; his sympathies were with the people.
[Footnote 93: _Memoires_, I, 155.
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