He even went so far as to put French words into Italian rhythm.

The famous duet _Amour sacre de la Patrie_ is versified as if the text were _Amore sacro della patria._ This is seen only in reading it, for it is never sung as it is written.
Meyerbeer was, then, excusable to a certain extent, but he abused all indulgence in such matters.

In order to preserve intact his musical forms--even in recitatives, which are, as a matter of fact, only declamation set to music--he accented the weak syllables and vice versa; he added words and made unnecessarily false verse, and transformed bad verse into worse prose.

He might have avoided all these literary abominations without any harm to the effect by a slight modification of the music.

The verses given to musicians were often very bad, for that was the fashion.