Decadence in art is often far from being artistic deterioration.
Massenet's music has one great attraction for me and one that is rare in these days--it is gay.

And gaiety is frowned upon in modern music.
They criticise Haydn and Mozart for their gaiety, and turn away their faces in shame before the exuberant joyousness with which the _Ninth Symphony_ comes to its triumphal close.

Long live gloom.

Hurrah for boredom! So say our young people.

They may live to regret, too late, the lost hours which they might have spent in gaiety.
Massenet's facility was something prodigious.