The _Conservatoire national de Musique et de Declamation_, which dates
from the last years of the _Ancien Regime_ and the Revolution, was
designed by its patriotic and-democratic origin to serve the cause of
national art and free progress.[210]
[Footnote 210: One knows that the Conservatoire originated in _L'Ecole
gratuite de musique de la garde nationale parisienne_, founded in 1792
by Sarrette, and directed by Gossec. It was then a civic and military
school, but, according to Chenier, was changed into the _Institut
national de musique_ on 8 November, 1793, and into the _Conservatoire_
on 3 August, 1795. This Republican Conservatoire made it its business to
keep in contact with the spirit of the country, and was directly opposed
to the Opera, which was of monarchical origin. See M. Constant Pierre's
work _Le Conservatoire national de musique_ (1900), and M. Julien
Tiersot's very interesting book _Les Fetes et les Chants de la
Revolution francaise_ (1908).]
It was for a long time the corner-stone of the edifice of music in
Paris. But although it has always numbered in its ranks many illustrious
and devoted professors--among whom it recognised, a little late, the
founder of the young French school, Cesar Franck--and though the
majority of artists who have made a name in French music have received
its teaching, and the list of laureates of Rome who have come from its
composition classes includes all the heads of the artistic movement
to-day in all its diversity, and ranges from M.
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