Note 45 — III The ‘Clerks’—The Great Betrayal

In Nietzsche’s opinion, this was the case with Wagner, who, when he gave himself out to his compatriots as the Messiah of German art, saw that there was ‘a good vacant place to take’, while the whole of his artistic formation as well as his profound philosophy, was essentially universalist. (See Ecce Homo, p. 58. ‘What I have never forgiven Wagner is his condescending to Germany.’) One wonders whether the same might not be said of a certain apostle of ‘Lorrain genius’ or of ‘Provençal genius’.