What might not Berlioz have done if the means had been given him, or if
his works had found a place in the fetes of the Revolution? Unhappily,
one must add that here again his character was the enemy of his genius.
As this apostle of musical freedom, in the second part of his life,
became afraid of himself and recoiled before the results of his own
principles, and returned to classicism, so this revolutionary fell to
sullenly disparaging the people and revolutions; and he talks about "the
republican cholera," "the dirty and stupid republic," "the republic of
street-porters and rag-gatherers," "the filthy rabble of humanity a
hundred times more stupid and animal in its twitchings and revolutionary
grimacings than the baboons and orang-outangs of Borneo."[105]
[Footnote 105: Berlioz never ceased to inveigh against the Revolution of
1848--which should have had his sympathies. Instead of finding material,
like Wagner, in the excitement of that time for impassioned
compositions, he worked at _L'Enfance du Christ_. He affected absolute
indifference--he who was so little made for indifference. He approved
the State's action, and despised its visionary hopes.
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