In the dust of Paris were first written the elements of a system
destined to regenerate art. Bambini taught his protege all he knew, but
the pupil soon surpassed the master and became his instructor in turn;
for if the one had talent, the other possessed genius.
Bambini predicted the future of Delsarte. One day when they were walking
arm-in-arm in the Avenue des Champs-Elysees, the former said: "Do you
see all those people in carriages, with their fine liveries and
magnificent clothes? Well, the day will come when they will only be too
happy to listen to you, proud of your presence in their _salons_,
envying your fame as a great artist."
Bambini's death left Delsarte poor and friendless. At fourteen, however,
he managed to get admitted into the Conservatoire, where, though he
labored hard, he met with harsh treatment and discouragement. The
professors disliked him for his reflective nature and persistent
questionings which brought to light the superficiality of their
acquirements; his fellow-pupils, for his exclusive devotion to study and
his reserve, the result of diffidence rather than of _hauteur_. His
professors were dictators, who, while differing from each other as
teachers, were yet united in frowning upon any attempt on the part of
their pupil to emancipate himself from the thraldom of conventionalism
and routine. Genius was a heresy for which they had no mercy.
Thrown upon his own resources, he soon developed, by careful observation
of nature and a constant study of cause and effect, a system and a style
radically differing from those of the professors and their servile
imitators.
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