“ His father being too poor to give him a regular musical education, his first ideas of art were derived from a poor blind organist of Givet; yet such was his aptitude that, when ten years old, he was appointed organist of the convent of the Récollets. In 1775 an able German musician and organist, Wilhelm Hauser, was engaged for the monastery of Lavaldieu, a few miles from Givet, and Méhul became his occasional pupil. ”