This lecture examines both the truth and the myth of a dominant theme in the historiography of French music: that it was "reborn," now following a progressive new path in the wake of the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. As it will demonstrate, the seeds of an independent new musical culture were already planted in the 1860s, after the foundation of the musical equivalent of the Salon des Réfusées – the Théatre Lyrique. From here it will examine those composers who emerged in this period, such as Gounod, Bizet, Saint-Saens and Chabrier, the latter becoming one of the first great collectors of impressionist painting. Finally, it will consider how Debussy was able to profit not only from academic institutions such as the Conservatoire, but from France's now thriving independent culture, which included the Symbolists and the Société Nationale de Musique Française.