Musical Memories

MEMORIES OF MY CHILDHOODIn bygone days I was often told that I had two mothers, and, as a matterof fact, I did have two-the mother who gave me life and my maternalgreat-aunt, CharlotteMasson. The latter came from an old family of lawyersnamed Gayard and this relationship makes me a descendant of General Del-cambre, one of the heroes of the retreat from Russia. His granddaughtermarried Count Durrieu of the Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres.My great-aunt was born in the provinces in 1781, but she was adopted by achildless aunt and uncle who made their home in Paris. He was a wealthylawyer and they lived magnificently.My great-aunt was a precocious child-she walked at nine months-and shebecame a woman of keen intellect and brilliant attainments. She remem-bered perfectly the customs of the Ancien Regime, and she enjoyed tellingabout them, as well as about the Revolution, the Reign of Terror, and thetimes that followed. Her family was ruined by the Revolution and the slight,frail, young girl undertook to earn her living by giving lessons in French, onthe pianoforte-the instrument was a novelty then-in singing, painting, em-3 CAMILLE SAINT-SAËNSbroidery, in fact in everything she knew and in much that she did not. If shedid not know, she learned then and there so that she could teach. After-wards, she married one of her cousins. As she had no children of her own,she brought one of her nieces from Champagne and adopted her. This niecewas my mother, Clemence Collin. The Massons were about to retire frombusiness with a comfortable fortune, when they lost practically everythingwithin two weeks, in a panic, saving just enough to live decently. Shortly af-ter this my mother married my father, a minor official in the Department ofthe Interior. My great-uncle died of a broken heart some months before mybirth on October 9, 1835. My father died of consumption on the thirty-first