Steve Schwartz wrote:

>At the time, no non-Frenchman could be admitted to the Conservatoire.
>Gottschalk was rejected without an audition.

According to David Dubal's *The Art of the Piano*, Gottschalk "had been
denied even an audition at the Paris Conservatoire by Zimmerman, who,
with typical French condescension, exclaimed that "America was a land of
steam entines...the country of railroads but not musicians." (Ironically,
Gottschalk's *Bamboula* would, in several years, be an entrance piece for
a conservatoire competition at which Gottschalk served as a judge.)"

Walter Meyer