In the final analysis where are these young composers of genius?
Who are they and what are their names?
Let them go to the orchestra and hear _Le Nozze di Figaro_, _Oberon_, _Freischutz_ and _Orphee_ ...
we are doing something for them by placing such models before them.
The young composers who were thus politely invited to be seated included, among others, Bizet, Delibes, Massenet, and the writer of these lines.

Massenet and I would have been satisfied with writing a ballet for the Opera.

He proposed the _Rat Catcher_ from an old German tale, while I proposed _Une nuit de Cleopatra_ on the text of Theophile Gautier.

They refused us the honor, and, when they consented to order a ballet from Delibes, they did not dare to trust him with the whole work.
They let him do only one act and the other was given to a Hungarian composer.

As the experiment succeeded, they allowed Delibes to write, without assistance, his marvellous _Coppelia_.