Today Camille SaintSaëns is classified as a conservative classicist by many people. By his contemporaries he was considered as a musical revolutionary who demanded "dreams of the future" his audience. His oratorio Le Déluge courted the pope's resentment; he criticized it as too secular. It certainly is a significant contribution to the French Oratorio, whose composer is finally rediscovered as one of the great personalities in the history of music.