He was a German by birth and his musical ideas naturally rhymed with German in direct contradiction to the French words to which they applied.

This constant bungling passed for originality.
Sometimes it would have been necessary to change the division of a measure to get a correct melody, as in the song: Un p'tit bonhomme Pas plus haut qu'ca.
In such a case we might say that he did wrong for the mere pleasure of going astray.

But popular taste was so corrupted that no one noticed it and everybody who wrote in the lighter vein fell into the same habits.
We owe a debt of gratitude to Andre Messager for breaking away from this manner and setting musical phraseology aright.

His return to the old traditions was not the least of the attractions of his delightful _Veronique_.
But we are wandering far from Gluck and _Orphee_, although not so far as we might think.

In art, as in everything, extremes meet, and there are all kinds of tastes..