PREFACE TO THE FRENCH EDITION

Summary

The life of Berlioz is only known to us through the Mémoires which he published during his life-time, not for the mere pleasure of writing a series of confessions, but to leave behind him an exact biographical notice which, by its recital of his struggles and his mortifications, might serve as a course of instruction to youthful composers. Consequently, while entering into the details of his artistic career, he avoided any confidential disclosures about his private life. He omitted the most interesting particulars, and even when he narrated certain episodes, he did it under every possible restriction, or presented them under a dramatic aspect which deprived them of their greatest charm, sincerity of expression. In many respects it would have been difficult for him to have acted otherwise. If it is permissible in an author to hide personal facts under the fiction of romance, there is always something painful in the spectacle of a man of talent abusing his celebrity by unfolding the intimate relations of his life to the public gaze, and scattering before him the contents of his secret drawer. Berlioz, therefore, only recounted what he could set down without injury to his dignity. But posterity is bound by less reserve, especially when such a life as this presents itself, brimful of exceptional agitation and the torments of a genius unfathomed and oppressed.