How does Debussy’s work became to be considered as one of the most important of occidental music history? It is certain that we here dealing with a very complex process of recognition. However, this article aims to isolate from it and to examine one of its main stages, such as the recognition of Debussy by some of his peers. Our thesis is the following: the recognition that today knows Debussy’s work is widely due to its appropriation between the 1900s and 1910s by French musicians from the group of the “Indépendants.” It seems essential, in the first instance, to widen the scale of observation and restore the collective position occupied by this group within the structure of the relatively autonomous macro-social world that constitutes the “French musical field” of the early 20th century. We can then show that they are part of a dual opposition—inextricably institutional, aesthetic and musical—to the Institut and to the Schola Cantorum managed by Vincent d’Indy. In this conflicting context, an accurate review of the writings from Émile Vuillermoz, Florent Schmitt, Maurice Ravel and Charles Koechlin shows that the Indépendants take hold of Debussy’s work through specific aesthetic logics (logic of emotion and logic of innovation). If this appropriation of Debussy’s work by the Indépendants is so decisive, it is not only because they are among the first to make an indisputable milestone of history of music, but also because they identify with it in a coherent and near-organized way to found their own artistic existence. It is through this double action, which consists on making of the author of Pelléas the founder of their artistic lineage and struggling (successfully) to exist within french musical field, that the Indépendants gradually make the value of Debussy’s work grow.