GOUNOD

Thème.

History will tell that among the great men of the nineteenth century there was none greater than Gounod. He was about forty years old when he composed his masterpiece, Faust, the first performance of which took place in November, 1858. When a boy, he already had a great love for music, and he used to scrawl music on his copy-books. When he won the great prize of Rome, the first one who came to congratulate him on his success was the principal of the school where he had been educated.

Gounod then went to Leipzig, when he won the admiration and friendship of Mendelssohn, who one day compared him to Cherubini.

Gounod was not only a great composer, he was also a good writer, and when we hâve said that he also had refined and tender sentiments, we shall not be able to nnd anything worth adding to his praise. One of his favorite pupils was Saint-Saëns, the now well-known composer, and when, in 1893, the latter sent him a copy of the score of Phryné, Gounod thanked him by a letter full of the best sentiments.

That great man died in 1893 at the âge of seventy-five, in the full enjoyment of a well-deserved and world-wide réputation.

Exercices de Traduction. 231

CUEIOSITÉS DU CALENDRIER.

Thème.

The Christian era was thought of for the first time in the sixth century by a monk named Denys le Petit. Tliat monk livecl in Eome about 580. He had taken as a basis for his chronology the foundation of Eome, which he thought had taken place in 753 b.c. But as, according to tradition, Jésus was born under the reign of Herod, and as this monarch died in 750 b.c., his calculations are erroneous.

It is now too late to change anything, as history rests on that basis.

We may, nevertheless, take it as correct that Jésus was born in the 749th year from the foundation of Eome, and that he died in the 36th year after this date.

The year did not always begin on the first of January; that date was adopted by Charles IX. in 1563. Up to that time the kings of France reckoned the beginning of the year, sometimes from Christmas, sometimes from Easter, while other people followed the Eoman law and placed it on the first of March.

There is, in fact, no astronomical reason to commence the year on January first ; the date is purely arbitrary. '

During the Erench Eevolution, the 22nd of September, being the anniversary of the proclamation of the Eepublic, had been selected as the first day of the year ; in fact, -the whole calendar had been changée!. The new names of the months, that had been made to agrée with the conditions of the crops or the climatic changes, had the great fault of being appropriée to part of the world only, and this is why the Fi-ench *evolution did not succeed in having them adopted

by everybody. Yet it must be granted that the selected date (22nd of September) was neither worse nor better than any other.

The Romans commenced the year on the first of March, and it was only in 1563 that January lst was adopted as the first day of the New Year. The Gregorian calendar, which we now follow, was proposed by Pope Gregory XIII. and ail the countries under his power or influence began to use it in October, 1582. It was not until 1752 that England adopted it, and Russia still clings to the old one, so that she is now twelve days behind us, and January lst in New York is December 21st in Saint Petersburg.