Gallet used the same blank verse in
_Dejanire_, although its use here was more debatable, but he handled it
with surprising skill. Now that this text has been set to music, it
shows its full beauty.
Louis Gallet devoted a large part of his time to administrative duties,
for he was successively treasurer and manager of hospitals. Nevertheless
he produced works in abundance. He left a record of no less than forty
operatic librettos, plays, romances, memoirs, pamphlets, and innumerable
articles. I wish I knew what to say about the man himself, his
unwearying goodness, his loyalty, his scrupulousness, his good humor,
his originality, his continual common sense, and his intellect, alert to
everything unusual and interesting.
What good talks we used to have as we dined under an arbor in the large
garden which was his delight at Lariboisiere! I used to take him seeds,
and he made amusing botanical experiments with them.
He was seriously ill at one period of his life. He was wonderfully
nursed by his wife--who was a saint--and he endured prolonged and
atrocious sufferings with the patience of a saint. He watched the growth
of his fatal disease with a stoicism worthy of the sages of antiquity
and he had no illusion about the implacable illness which slowly but
surely would result in his premature death.
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