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The discovery of the total loss of their last piece of plate had the effect of sobering them just enough to enable them to stand over Gluck, beating him very steadily for a quarter of an hour; at the expiration of which period they dropped into a couple of chairs, and requested to know what he had got to say for himself. Gluck told them his story, of which, of course, they did not believe a word.
By a violent effort, Gluck recovered the use of his limbs, took hold of the crucible, and sloped it so as to pour out the gold.
It must be said that Gluck himself stooped to be the instigator of these intrigues." In spite of all, the day came for the presentation of Piccinni's opera, "Roland," and the family broke into tears when he went to the theatre. He alone was calm in the midst of this desolation, reassured his wife, and departed with his friends.
"Glück, shut the door," commanded the Prince. "Now, my dear sir, proceed."
Singularly rich in fresh and sprightly ideas, he lacked depth and grandeur, and failed to suit the deeper and sounder taste which Cherubini and Méhul, great followers in the footsteps of Gluck, gratified by a series of noble masterpieces. Grétry's services to his art, however, by his production of comic operas full of lyric vivacity and sparkle, have never been forgotten nor underrated.
"I do not think you care for classic sonatas the great works of Gluck, or Bach, or Beethoven?" "No," replied the young man frankly; "I do not care about anything I can't understand. I like music that goes to one's heart."
And that revolution was effected alone, without a model, without a guide. What could he have heard beyond the operas of Gluck and Spontini while he was at the Conservatoire? At the time when he composed the Ouverture des Francs-Juges even the name of Weber was unknown to him, and of Beethoven's compositions he had only heard an andante.
"The truth is," said Olivier, "that if there are frontiers in art, they are not so much barriers between races as barriers between classes. I'm not so sure that there is a French art or a German art: but there is certainly one art for the rich and another for the poor. Gluck was a great man of the middle-classes: he belongs to our class.
* An English wit some years afterward perpetrated the same witticism on the occasion of Edmund Burke's leaving the House of Commons in a rage, because he was interrupted in one of his great speeches by a thick-witted country member. It is pleasant to know that the Prince de Hennin was obliged to make a humble apology to Gluck, by order of Marie Antoinette.
The youngest brother, Gluck, was as completely opposed, in both appearance and character, to his seniors as could possibly be imagined or desired. He was not above twelve years old, fair, blue-eyed, and kind in temper to every living thing. He did not, of course, agree particularly well with his brothers, or, rather, they did not agree with him.
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