One such is that of Jean-Baptiste Faure, the illustrious French lyric artist; he had, however, withdrawn from the world many years ago, never making his appearance anywhere, and was over eighty-four years of age when he passed away peacefully on November the 9th, 1914. To-day it is difficult to realize what an exceptional position he occupied in the world of art at the end of the Empire, and even after the war of 1870, when all the life-forces of France were infused with new energy in every branch of her multifarious activities. His world-wide celebrity, the deference paid him on every hand, his entire personality even, were almost without precedent at the theatre; and he had won this extraordinary esteem as much by the dignity of his life as by his reverence for art-as much by his determination and conscientiousness in work as by the marvellous harmony of his faculties. On approaching him one felt, in very truth, the fine unity of his lifework; one admired the proud independence of his character. From childhood he had vowed to become the foremost promoter, above and beyond any one else, of the study of that art for which he was gifted; to spare no effort to attain the highest place; and when his aim was achieved, when no one ventured to claim equality with him, and his possible rivals, on the contrary, bowed down before him, he still spared no pains to satisfy a severer judge than all these-himself. Nor did he weary in working to attain the perfection which, from the outset, had been his goal, and whose imperious demands still controlled his whole life.