All this was opposed to my natural feelings, and I was unable to conform to it.

They reproached me by saying that I would never get a really fine effect--to which I was entirely indifferent.
When I was ten, my teacher decided that I was sufficiently prepared to give a concert in the Salle Pleyel, so I played there, accompanied by an Italian orchestra, with Tilmant as the conductor.

I gave Beethoven's _Concerto in C minor_ and one of Mozart's concertos in B flat.

There was some question of my playing at the Societe des Concerts du Conservatoire, and there was even a rehearsal.

But Seghers, who afterwards founded the Societe St.Cecile, was a power in the affairs of the orchestra.