Pelletan brought me into the work, the two _Iphigenie_ had been published; _Alceste_ was about to be, and _Armide_ was ready.

In _Armide_ Damcke had been entirely carried away by his zeal for "improvements"-- a zeal that can do so much harm.

It was time this was stopped.

Not only had he corrected imaginary faults here and there, but he had also inserted things of his own invention.

He had even gone so far as to re-orchestrate the ballet music, in the naive belief that he was bringing out the author's real meaning better than he had done himself.