Berlioz in Paris
Institut de France
The building which houses the Institut de France was constructed between 1663 and 1684 through a bequest of Cardinal Mazarin, and was known at first as the Collège Mazarin or Collège des Quatres Nations. The Institute itself, grouping several existing Academies (including that of the Beaux-Arts), was founded in 1795 but moved in 1806 to the building which then took its name. The Pont des Arts over the river Seine, which leads straight to the Institut, had been built shortly before, in 1802-1804.
Berlioz’s contacts with the Institut started early in his career: it was in the precincts of the building that candidates for the Prix de Rome prize would come and reside in June or July every year to write the obligatory cantata on a set text. Berlioz thus wrote his four cantatas there in his protracted attempts to win the prize from 1827 to 1830. In his Memoirs he gives a colourful account of his experiences there (chapters 22-23, 25, 29-30). His final and successful attempt in July 1830 coincided with the outbreak of the July revolution in Paris. He relates how he completed his cantata (Sardanapale) "to the dry sound of stray bullets which flew over the rooftops and crashed on the wall of my room near my windows" (chapter 29). In a letter to his father, dated 2 August 1830, he writes: "The bullets and cannon balls were aimed directly at us, from a battery in the Louvre raking the Pont des Arts and reaching the doors of the Institut, which were riddled with them" (letter no. 48 in Hugh Macdonald’s Selected Letters of Berlioz). See also Galerie Vivienne.
Berlioz’s attempts to be elected as a member of the Institute
tested his patience even more than his efforts to win the Prix de Rome prize. He tried and failed no less than four times (in
1842, 1851, 1853 and 1854), and was only finally elected on 21
June 1856. "I am now a respectable man, and no longer a gipsy [...] What a
farce! I do not despair of becoming Pope one day" (letter to Princess
Carolyne Sayn-Wittgenstein, 24 June 1856).
Institut de France in our time
Institut de France in 1838
This engraving by Rouargue brothers dated 1838 is in our own collection.
View from the Pont des Arts
View from the Pont des Arts in 1898
This picture was originally published in John L. Stoddards Lectures, Volume V – Paris La Belle France and Spain, by John L. Stoddard (Balch Brothers, 1898), in our own collection.
View from the Pont des Arts in the early 20th century
This picture has been scanned
from an early 20th century postcard in our collection.
Pont des Arts
This old postcard is in our collection
The Institute and the Louvre on 29 July 1830
This picture is taken from: Armand Dayot, Journées révolutionnaires (1830, 1848). Paris, 1897.
© 2000-2006 (unless otherwise stated) Michel Austin and Monir Tayeb for all the photos, engravings and information on this and other Berlioz in Paris pages
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