In 1892 Claude-Achille's plans and contacts still far outnumbered any completed works that could have helped ease his financial situation. He gave no indication whatsoever of seeking public success, and even less of holding down a job—along the lines of, for example, Georges Marty, his former colleague from Rome, who was appointed professor of ensembles at the Conservatoire in February. We could almost surmise that he had been blacklisted from the musical world, if we did not know how uncompromising he was. “He would sooner agree to forge counterfeit coins,” observed Raymond Bonheur, “than to write three measures without feeling the urgent need to do so.” We learn from the news reports at the beginning of the year that, in January, L'art musical announced a series of afternoon concerts devoted to young composers, to be presented by “eminent literary figures”: two performances focused on Gabriel Pierné (introduced by Georges Boyer), two on Georges Marty (introduced by Paul Milliet), and two on Charles René (introduced by Arthur Pougin), who had won second prize in the Prix de Rome the same year in which Debussy had won first prize. But Claude-Achille was completely left out, and he certainly would not have lacked for writers to introduce his music!

The composer often went to hear new works by his contemporaries—as he did on 18 May for La vie du poète, one of Gustave Charpentier's envois from Rome, performed first at the Conservatoire and then again at the Théâtre du Châtelet on 29 January 1893 with considerable success. Debussy was particularly annoyed by this work, and he wrote that the future composer of Louise was “bound for glory that would be rewarding but hardly aesthetic. […] It [Louise] is, as one might say, the triumph of the brasserie. It smells of tobacco, and the music is sleazy. […] There is even a prostitute who moans in fake orgasms.” One of the most irritating reports for him and his friends appeared, a few months thereafter, in Le ménestrel :