Musical Memories

By: Camille Saint-Saëns

MEMORIES OF MY CHILDHOOD

I

n bygone days I was often told that I had two mothers, and, as a matter

of fact, I did have two-the mother who gave me life and my maternal

great-aunt, CharlotteMasson. The latter came from an old family of lawyers

named Gayard and this relationship makes me a descendant of General Del-

cambre, one of the heroes of the retreat from Russia. His granddaughter

married 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 a

childless aunt and uncle who made their home in Paris. He was a wealthy

lawyer and they lived magnificently.

My great-aunt was a precocious child-she walked at nine months-and she

became a woman of keen intellect and brilliant attainments. She remem-

bered perfectly the customs of the Ancien Regime, and she enjoyed telling

about them, as well as about the Revolution, the Reign of Terror, and the

times 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, on

the pianoforte-the instrument was a novelty then-in singing, painting, em-

3 CAMILLE SAINT-SAËNS

broidery, in fact in everything she knew and in much that she did not. If she

did 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 niece

was my mother, Clemence Collin. The Massons were about to retire from

business with a comfortable fortune, when they lost practically everything

within 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 of

the Interior. My great-uncle died of a broken heart some months before my

birth on October 9, 1835. My father died of consumption on the thirty-first

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0HH4XDC5S
• ISBN13: 9798240887680
• Release Date: August 2026
• Publisher: Ward Library
• Length: 164 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.3" x 6.0"