These verses were read by M. Saint-Saens at a concert given on 10 June,
1896, in the Salle Pleyel, to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of his
_debut_, which he made in 1846. It was in this same Salle Pleyel that he
gave his first concert.]
Later on, he achieved success by a long and painful struggle, in which
he had to fight against the kind of stupid criticism that condemned him
"to listen to one of Beethoven's symphonies as a penance likely to give
him the most excruciating torture."[111] And yet after this, and after
his admission to the Academy, after _Henry VIII_ and the _Symphonie avec
orgue_, he still remained aloof from praise or blame, and judged his
triumphs with sad severity:
"Tu connaitras les yeux menteurs, l'hypocrisie
Des serrements de mains,
Le masque d'amitie cachant la jalousie,
Les pales lendemains
"De ces jours de triomphe ou le troupeau vulgaire
Qui pese au meme poids
L'histrion ridicule et le genie austere
Vous mets sur le pavois."[112]
M. Saint-Saens has now grown old, and his fame has spread abroad, but he
has not capitulated. Not many years ago he wrote to a German journalist:
"I take very little notice of either praise or censure, not because I
have an exalted idea of my own merits (which would be foolish), but
because in doing my work, and fulfilling the function of my nature, as
an apple-tree grows apples, I have no need to trouble myself with other
people's views.
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