And so the future artist commenced his professional career as a Parisian
rag-picker.
While wandering about the great city in the interest of his employer,
his only solace was to listen to the songs of itinerant vocalists and
the occasional music of a military band. Music became his passion. From
some of the gamins he learned the seven notes of the scale, and, to
preserve the melodies that delighted him, he invented a system of
musical notation. On a certain holiday, when he was twelve years old,
while listening to the delightful music in the garden of the Tuileries,
the little _chiffonnier_ busied himself with drawing figures in the
dust. An old man of eccentric appearance, noticing his earnest
diligence, accosted him.
"What are you doing there, boy?" he asked.
Terrified at first, but reassured by the kind manner of the stranger,
Delsarte replied: "Writing down the music, sir."
"Do you mean to say those marks have any significance? That you can read
them?"
"Certainly, sir."
"Let me hear you."
Encouraged by the interest manifested in him, the lad sang in a sweet
and pure but sad voice the strains just played by the military band. The
old man was amazed.
"Who taught you this process?"
"Nobody, sir; found it out myself."
Bambini--for it was the then distinguished, but now almost forgotten,
professor--offered to take the boy home with him; and he who had entered
the garden of the Tuileries a rag-picker, left it a recognized musician.
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