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diff --git a/36728.txt b/36728.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ed4c5aa --- /dev/null +++ b/36728.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7513 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of My Recollections, by Jules Massenet + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: My Recollections + +Author: Jules Massenet + +Translator: H. Villiers Barnett + +Release Date: July 14, 2011 [EBook #36728] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY RECOLLECTIONS *** + + + + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was +produced from scanned images at The Internet Archive.) + + + + + + + + + +MY RECOLLECTIONS + +[Illustration: The Master, Jules Massenet] + + + + +MY RECOLLECTIONS + +BY + +JULES MASSENET +(1842-1912) + +THE AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION DONE AT THE + +MASTER'S EXPRESS DESIRE + +BY HIS FRIEND + +H. VILLIERS BARNETT + +Authorized Translator of + +H. S. H. the Prince of Monaco's Autobiography: +_La Carriere d'un Navigateur_ + +[Illustration] + +BOSTON + +SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY +PUBLISHERS + +Copyright, 1919, + +By SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY +(INCORPORATED) + +TO + +LUCY ARBELL + +CONSUMMATE DRAMATIC ARTIST + +AND + +GREATEST CONTRALTO SINGER + +OF OUR TIME + +IN AFFECTIONATE ADMIRATION + +I DEDICATE + +THIS ENGLISH VERSION + +OF HER + +BELOVED MASTER'S BOOK + +"_Chere amie, gardez aussi sa religion, et qu'elle vous conduise, ferme +et courageuse, au milieu des cahots de la vie, jusq'au paradis des +arts._" + + + + +FOREWORD + + +I have been often asked whether I put together the recollections of my +life from notes jotted down from day to day. To tell the truth I did, +and this is how I began the habit of doing so regularly. + +My mother--a model wife and mother, who taught me the difference between +right and wrong--said to me on my tenth birthday: + +"Here is a diary." (It was one of those long-shaped diaries which one +found in those days at the _little_ Bon Marche, not the immense +enterprise we know now.) "And," she added, "every night before you go to +bed, you must write down on the pages of this memento what you have +seen, said, or done during the day. If you have said or done anything +which you realize is wrong, you must confess it in writing in these +pages. Perhaps it will make you hesitate to do wrong during the day." + +How characteristic of an unusual woman, a woman of upright mind and +honest heart this idea was! By placing the matter of conscience among +the first of her son's duties, she made Conscience the very basis of her +methods of teaching. + +Once when I was alone, in search of some distraction I amused myself by +foraging in the cupboards where I found some squares of chocolate. I +broke off a square and munched it. I have said somewhere that I am +greedy. I don't deny it. Here's another proof. + +When evening came and I had to write the account of my day, I admit that +I hesitated a moment about mentioning that delicious square of +chocolate. But my conscience put to the test in this way conquered, and +I bravely recorded my dereliction in the diary. + +The thought that my mother would read about my misdeed made me rather +shamefaced. She came in at that very moment and saw my confusion; but +directly she knew the cause she clasped me in her arms and said: + +"You have acted like an honest man and I forgive you. All the same that +is no reason why you should ever again eat chocolate on the sly!" + +Later on, when I munched other and better chocolate, I always obtained +permission. + +Thus it came about that from day to day I have always made notes of my +recollections be they good or bad, gay or sad, happy or not, and kept +them so that I might have them constantly in mind. + + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER PAGE + + + FOREWORD vii + +I MY ADMISSION TO THE CONSERVATOIRE 1 + +II YOUTHFUL YEARS 11 + +III THE GRAND PRIX DE ROME 20 + +IV THE VILLA MEDICI 29 + +V THE VILLA MEDICI (CONTINUED) 37 + +VI THE VILLA MEDICI (CONTINUED) 43 + +VII MY RETURN TO PARIS 53 + +VIII MY DEBUT AT THE THEATER 63 + +IX THE DAYS AFTER THE WAR 74 + +X JOY AND SORROW 82 + +XI MY DEBUT AT THE OPERA 93 + +XII THE THEATERS IN ITALY 103 + +XIII THE CONSERVATOIRE AND THE INSTITUTE 114 + +XIV A FIRST PERFORMANCE AT BRUSSELS 123 + +XV THE ABBE PREVOST AT THE OPERA-COMIQUE 136 + +XVI FIVE COLLABORATORS 148 + +XVII A JOURNEY TO GERMANY 161 + +XVIII A STAR 173 + +XIX A NEW LIFE 186 + +XX MILAN--LONDON--BAYREUTH 199 + +XXI A VISIT TO VERDI--FAREWELL TO AMBROISE THOMAS 208 + +XXII WORK! ALWAYS WORK! 217 + +XXIII IN THE MIDST OF THE MIDDLE AGES 231 + +XXIV FROM _Cherubin_ TO _Therese_ 242 + +XXV SPEAKING OF 1793 254 + +XXVI FROM _Ariane_ TO _Don Quichotte_ 267 + +XXVII A SOIREE 278 + +XXVIII DEAR EMOTIONS 288 + +XXIX THOUGHTS AFTER DEATH 302 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + +The Master, Jules Massenet _Frontispiece_ + + sPAGE + +Massenet at Egreville 44 + +One of the last portraits of Massenet 68 + +Mme. Pauline Viardot 84 + +Titta Ruffo, Caruso and Chaliapine 110 + +The Forum from the First Act of _Roma_ (_See page 300_) 154 + +Posthumia (_Roma_) (_See page 297_) 170 + +Lucy Arbell 212 + +Persephone in _Ariane_ 244 + +Queen Amahelly (_Bacchus_) 268 + +Dulcinee (_Don Quichotte_) 282 + +Facsimile of Massenet's Reply to an Invitation to Visit America 296 + + + + +MY RECOLLECTIONS + + + + +CHAPTER I + +MY ADMISSION TO THE CONSERVATOIRE + + +Were I to live a thousand years--which is hardly likely--I should never +forget that fateful day, February 24, 1848, when I was just six years +old. Not so much because it coincided with the fall of the Monarchy of +July, as that it marked the first steps of my musical career--a career +which, even yet, I am not sure was my real destiny, so great is my love +for the exact sciences! + +At that time I lived with my parents in the Rue de Beaune in an +apartment overlooking the great gardens. The day promised to be fine, +but it was very cold. + +We were at luncheon when the waitress rushed into the room like a +maniac. "_Aux armes, citoyens!_" she yelled, throwing rather than +placing the plates on the table. + +I was too young to understand what was going on in the streets. All I +can remember is that riots broke out and that the Revolution smashed +the throne of the most debonair of kings. The feelings which stirred my +father were entirely different from those which disturbed my mother's +already distracted soul. My father had been an officer under Napoleon +Bonaparte and a friend of Marshal Soult, Duke of Dalmatia. He was all +for the Emperor, and the atmosphere of battles suited his temperament. +My mother, on the other hand, had experienced the sorrows of the first +great revolution, which dragged Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette from +their throne, and thrilled with worship for the Bourbons. + +The memory of that exciting meal remained the more deeply fixed in my +mind because on the morning of that historic day, by the light of tallow +candles (wax candles were only for the rich) my mother for the first +time placed my fingers on the piano. + +In order best to introduce me to the knowledge of this instrument, my +mother--she was my music teacher--stretched along the keyboard a strip +of paper upon which she wrote the notes corresponding to each of the +black and white keys, with their position on the five lines. It was most +ingenious; no mistake was possible. + +My progress on the piano was so pronounced that three years later, in +October, 1851, my parents thought I ought to apply at the Conservatoire +for the entrance examination to the piano classes. + +One morning that month we went to the Rue de Faubourg-Poissonniere. The +Conservatoire National de Musique was there then, and it remained there +until it was moved to the Rue de Madrid. The large room we entered--like +all the rest in the place at that time--had walls painted a bluish gray, +spotted with black. A few old benches were the only furniture in this +anteroom. + +M. Ferriere, a harsh, severe looking man--he was one of the upper +employees--came out to call the candidates by flinging their names into +the crowd of relatives and friends that accompanied them. It was like +summoning the condemned to execution. Then he gave each candidate the +number of his turn before the jury which had already assembled in the +rooms where the sessions were held. + +This room was intended for examinations and was a sort of small theater +with a row of boxes and a circular gallery in the Consulate style. I +confess that I have never entered that room without feeling emotion. I +have always fancied that I saw, seated opposite in a first-tier box, as +in a black hole, Bonaparte, the First Consul, and Josephine, the sweet +companion of his early years. He with his forceful, handsome face; she +with her kind and gentle glances, for both used to come to such +occasions. By her visits to this sanctuary dedicated to Art and by +bringing him, so preoccupied with many cares, good and noble Josephine +seemed to wish to soften his thoughts and to make them less stern by +contact with the youth who some day perforce would not escape the +horrors of war. + +From the time of Sarette, the first director, until recently, all the +examinations for classes in the institution, both tragedy and comedy, +were held in this same small hall, but it should not be confused with +the hall so well known as the Salle de la Societe des Concerts du +Conservatoire. + +The organ class was also held there several times a week for at the +back, hidden behind a large curtain, was a great organ with two +keyboards. Beside that old, worn, squeaky instrument was the fateful +door through which the pupils came on to the platform that formed the +small stage. Again, this same small hall, for many a year, was the +judgment seat for the award of prizes for musical composition known as +the _Prix de Rome_. + +But to return to the morning of October 9, 1851. When all the youngsters +had been informed of the order in which we must take our examinations, +we went into an adjoining room which led into the hall through the +"fateful" door, and which was only a sort of dusty, disordered garret. + +The jury whose verdict we had to face was composed of Halevy, Carafa, +Ambroise Thomas, several professors of the school, and the director, who +was also the president of the Conservatoire, Monsieur Auber. We rarely +said just Auber when we spoke of this French master, the most eminent +and prolific of all who made the opera and opera-comique of that time +famous. + +At this time Monsieur Auber was sixty-five. He was universally respected +and everyone at the Conservatoire adored him. I shall always remember +his pleasing, unusually bright black eyes, which remained the same until +his death in May, 1871. + +May, 1871! We were then in open insurrection, almost in the last throes +of the Commune ... and Monsieur Auber, still faithful to his beloved +boulevard near the Passage de l'Opera--his favorite walk--met a friend +also in despair over the terrible days we were passing through, and said +to him, in an accent of utter weariness, + +"Ah! I have lived too long!" Then he added, with a slight smile, "One +should never abuse anything." + +In 1851--the date when I became acquainted with Monsieur Auber--he had +already lived a long time in his old mansion in the Rue St. George, +where I remember having been received soon after seven in the morning, +the master's work was finished by that time, the hour at which he gave +himself to the calls he welcomed so simply. + +Then he went to the Conservatoire in a tilbury which he ordinarily drove +himself. At sight of him one was instantly reminded of the opera _La +Muette de Portici_, which had exceptional good luck, and which was the +most lasting success before _Robert le Diable_ made its appearance at +the Opera. To speak of _La Muette de Portici_ is to be vividly reminded +of the magical effect which the duet in the second act, _Amour sacre de +la patrie_, produced on the patriots in the audience when it was +produced at the Theatre de la Monnaie at Brussels. In very truth it gave +the signal for the revolution which broke out in Belgium in 1830 and +which brought about the independence of our neighbors on the north. The +whole audience was wild with excitement, and sang the heroic strain with +the artists, repeating it again and again without stopping. What master +can boast of a success like that in his own career? + + * * * * * + +When my name was called, all of a tremble, I made my appearance on the +stage. I was only nine years old and I had to play the finale of +Beethoven's Sonata, Opus 29. What ambition! + +They stopped me in the usual way after I had played two or three pages. +I was utterly embarrassed as I heard Monsieur Auber's voice calling me +before the jury. To get down from the stage, I had to descend two or +three steps. I paid no attention to them and would have gone head first +if Monsieur Auber had not kindly called out, "Take care, my little man." +Then he immediately asked me where I had studied so well. After replying +with some pride that my mother had been my only teacher, I went out, +absolutely bewildered, almost at a run, but entirely happy. _He_ had +spoken to me! + +Next morning my mother received the official notice. I was a pupil at +the Conservatoire. + +At this time there were two teachers of the piano at the great +school--Mamontel and Laurent. There were no preparatory classes. I was +assigned to Laurent's class, and I remained there two years while I +continued my classical studies at college. At the same time I took +_sol-fa_ lessons from M. Savard who was excellent. + +Professor Laurent had been _Premier Prix de piano_ under Louis XVIII. +Then he was a cavalry officer, but left the army to become a professor +in the Royal Conservatoire of Music. He was goodness itself, realizing +the ideal of that quality in the fullest sense of the word. He placed +entire confidence in me. + +M. Savard was an extraordinarily erudite man. He was the father of one +of my pupils, a Grand Prix de Rome, now the director of the +Conservatoire at Lyons. (What a number of my old pupils are or have been +directors of conservatoires!) His heart was as large as his learning was +extensive. It is pleasant to recall that when I wanted to work at +counterpoint, before I entered the class in fugue and composition--Ambroise +Thomas was the professor--M. Savard was quite willing to give me +lessons. I went to his house to take them, and every evening I went down +from Montmartre where I lived to Number 13, Rue de la Vielle-Estrpade, +behind the Pantheon. + +What wonderful lessons I had from that simple, learned man! How +courageous I was as I walked the long way I had to go to his house from +which I returned each evening about ten o'clock full of the wise and +learned advice he had given me! + +As I said, I made the trip on foot. I did not even ride on the top of an +omnibus in order to set aside sou by sou the price I would have to pay +for my lessons. I had to follow this system; the shade of Descartes +would have congratulated me. + +But note the delicacy of that charitable-hearted man. When the day came +for him to take what I owed him, M. Savard told me that he had some work +for me--the transcription for a full orchestra of the military band +accompaniment to Adolphe Adam's mass, and he added that the work would +net me three hundred francs!!... + +His purpose was obvious, but I did not see it. It was not till long +afterwards that I understood that M. Savard had thought of this way of +not asking me for money--by making me think that the three hundred +francs represented the fee for his lessons; that, to use a fashionable +phrase, they "compensated" him. + +After all the years which have gone since he was no more, my heart still +says to that master, to that charming, admirable soul, "Thank you!" + + + + +CHAPTER II + +YOUTHFUL YEARS + + +When I took my seat on the benches of the Conservatoire, I was rather +delicate and not very tall. This was the excuse for the drawing which +the celebrated caricaturist Cham made of me. He was a great friend of +the family and often came to spend the evening with my parents. They had +many talks which the brilliant craftsman enlivened with his sprightly +and witty enthusiasms, seated around the family table lighted by the dim +light of an oil lamp. (Kerosene was scarcely known and electricity had +not come into use for lighting.) + +We used to drink a sweet syrup on such occasions, for this was before a +cup of tea was the fashionable drink. + +I was often asked to play, so that Cham had every opportunity to draw my +profile. He represented me as seated on five or six folios of music with +my hands in the air, scarcely reaching the keyboard. This was obviously +an exaggeration, but there was enough truth in it to show that it was +founded on fact. + +I often went with Cham to see a lovely and lovable friend of his in the +Rue Tarranne. Naturally I was asked to "play the piano." I remember that +on one evening when I was asked to play I had just received third place +in a prize competition both on the piano and in solfeggio, and to prove +it I had two heavy bronze medals inscribed "Conservatoire imperial de +musique et de declamation." It is true that they listened to me no +better on this account, but I was affected by the honor nevertheless. + +Some years later, in the natural course of events, I learned that Cham +had secretly married the beautiful lady of the Rue Tarranne. As he was +somewhat embarrassed by the marriage, he did not send announcement cards +to his friends, much to their surprise. When they asked him about it, he +replied, wittily, + +"Of course I sent announcements.... They were anonymous." + +In spite of my mother's extreme watchfulness, I escaped from home one +evening. I knew that they were giving Berlioz's _L'Enfance du Christ_ +at the Opera-Comique and that the great composer was to conduct. I could +not pay my way in, but I had an irresistible desire to hear the work, +especially as it was a creation of Berlioz's, who aroused the enthusiasm +of all our young people. So I asked my companions who sang in the +children's chorus to take me in and let me hide among them. I must +confess that I secretly wanted to get behind the scenes of a theater. + +As might be imagined, my escapade rather upset my mother. She waited up +for me until after midnight ... she thought I was lost in this vast +Paris. + +Needless to say that, when I came in abashed and shamefaced, I was well +scolded. I bore up under two storms of tears--if it is true that a +woman's wrath, like the rain in the forests, falls twice; still, a +mother's heart cannot bear anger forever--and I went to bed made easy on +that scare. Nevertheless I could not sleep. I recalled all the beauties +of the work I had just heard and before my mind's eye I saw again the +tall and impressive figure of Berlioz as he directed the superb +performance in masterly style. + +My life ran on happily and industriously, but this did not last. The +doctors ordered my father to leave Paris, as the climate did not agree +with him, and to take treatment at Aix-les-Bains in Savoy. My mother and +father followed this advice and went to Chambery taking me with them. My +artistic career was interrupted, but there was nothing else for me to +do. + +I stayed at Chambery for two long years; still the life there was not +monotonous. I passed the time in classical studies, alternating with +diligent work on scales and arpeggios, sixths and thirds, as if I were +going to be a fiery pianist. I wore my hair ridiculously long, as was +the style with every virtuoso, and this touch of resemblance harmonized +with my dreams. It seemed to me that wild locks of hair were the +complement of talent. + +Between times I took long rambles through the delightful country of +Savoy which was still ruled by the King of Piemont; sometimes I went to +the Dent de Nicolet, sometimes as far as Les Charmettes, that +picturesque dwelling made famous by Jean Jacques Rousseau's stay there. + +During my enforced rustication I found, by sheer accident, some of +Schumann's works which were then little known in France and still less +in Piemont. I shall always remember that everywhere I went I did my +share by playing a few pieces on the piano. I sometimes played that +exquisite thing entitled _Au Soir_ and that brought me one day this +singular invitation, "Come and amuse us with your Schumann with its +detestable false notes." It is unnecessary to repeat my childish +outburst at these words. What would the good old people of Savoy say if +they could hear the music of to-day? + +But the months went on, and on, and on ... until one morning, before the +first signs of day-break had come over the mountains, I escaped from the +paternal homestead and started for Paris without a sou or even a change +of clothes. For Paris, the city with every artistic attraction, where I +should see again my dear Conservatoire, my masters, and the "behind the +scenes," for the memory of them was still with me. + +I knew that in Paris I should find my good older sister, who, in spite +of her modest means, welcomed me as though I were her own child and +offered me board and lodging; a very simple lodging and a very frugal +table, but made so delightful by the magic of greatest kindliness that I +felt exactly as though I were in my own home. + +Imperceptibly my mother forgave me for running away to Paris. + +What a good devoted creature my sister was! Alas! she died January 13, +1905, just as she was glorying in attending the five hundredth +performance of _Manon_, which took place the very evening of her death. +Nothing can express the sorrow I felt. + + * * * * * + +In the space of two years I had made up for the time I had lost in Savoy +and I had won a prize. I was awarded a first prize on the piano, as well +as one in counterpoint and fugue, on July 26, 1859. + +I had to compete with ten of my fellow students and by chance my name +was number eleven in the order. All the contestants were shut up in the +foyer of the concert hall of the Conservatoire to wait until their names +were called. + +For a moment Number Eleven found himself alone in the foyer. While +waiting for my turn, I studied respectfully the portrait of Habeneck, +the founder and the first conductor of the orchestra of the Societe des +Concerts. A red handkerchief actually blossomed in his left buttonhole. +If he had become an officer of the Legion of Honor and had several +orders to accompany that, he certainly would have worn, not a rosette, +but a rose. + +Then I was called. + +The test piece was the concerto in F minor by Ferdinand Hiller. At the +time it was pretended that his music was so like that of Niels Gade that +they would think it was Mendelssohn's. + +My good master M. Laurent stayed close to the piano. When I had +finished--concerto and sight reading--he threw his arms about me without +thought of the public which filled the hall and I felt my face grow +moist from his dear tears. + +Even at that age, I was apprehensive about success, and during my whole +life I have always fled from public rehearsals and first nights, +thinking it better to learn the worst ... as late as possible. + +I raced all the way home, running like a gamin, but I found no one +there, for my sister had gone to the prize contest. However I did not +stay long, for I finally decided to go back to the Conservatoire. I was +so excited that I ran all the way. At the corner of the Rue +Sainte-Cecile I met my boon companion Alphonse Duvernoy, whose after +career as a teacher and composer was most successful, and I fell into +his arms. He told me what I might have known already, that Monsieur +Auber had announced the decision for the jury, "Monsieur Massenet is +awarded the first prize on the piano." + +One of the jury was Henri Ravina, a master who was one of the dearest +friends I ever had, and my thoughts go out to him in affectionate +gratitude. + +I scarcely touched the ground in getting from the Rue Bergere to the Rue +de Bourgogne where my excellent master M. Laurent lived. I found my old +professor at lunch with several generals who had been his comrades in +the army. + +He had hardly caught sight of me when he held out two volumes to me: the +orchestral score of _Le Nozze di Figaro_, _dramma giocoso in quarti +atti_. _Messo in musica dal Signor W. Mozart._ + +The binding bore the arms of Louis XVIII and the following +superscription in gold letters: _Menus plaisirs du Roi_. _Ecole royale +de musique et de declamation. Concours de 1822. Premier prix de piano +decerne a M. Laurent._ + +My honored master had written on the first page: + + "Thirty-seven years ago I won, as you have done, my child, the + prize for the piano. I do not think that there is any more pleasing + gift I could give you than this with my sincerest friendship. Go on + as you have begun and you will be a great artist. + + "This is the opinion of the jury which to-day awarded you this fine + reward. + + "Your old friend and professor, + + "LAURENT." + +It was indeed a fine thing for an honored professor to speak like this +to a youth who had hardly begun his career. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE GRAND PRIX DE ROME + + +So I had won the first prize on the piano. I was doubtless as fortunate +as I was proud, but it was out of the question for me to live on the +memory of this distinction. The necessities of life were pressing, +inexorable, and they demanded something more real and above all more +practicable. I really could not go on accepting my dear sister's +hospitality without contributing my personal expenses. So to ease the +situation I gave lessons in solfeggio and on the piano in a poor little +school in the neighborhood. The returns were small, but the labor was +great. Thus I drew out a precarious and often difficult existence. I was +offered the post of pianist in one of the large cafes in Belleville; it +was the first cafe to provide music, a scheme invented to hold the +customers, if not to distract them. The place paid me thirty francs a +month! + +_Quantum mutatus_.... Like the poet I may say, "What changes since that +time?" To-day even the young pupils have only to _enter_ a competition +to get their pictures in the papers and at the very outset of their +careers they are anointed great men. All this is accompanied by +Bacchanalian lines and they are fortunate if in their exalted triumph +they do not add the word "colossal." That is glory; deification in all +its modesty. In 1859 we were not glorified in any such way. + +But Providence--some called it Destiny--watched over me. + +A friend, who to my great joy is still living, got me better lessons. He +was not like so many friends I met later, who are ever in need of one's +assistance; those who slink away when you want to be comforted in +poverty; the friends who are always pretending that they defended you +last night against malevolent attacks in order to show you their fine +opinions, but at the same time torturing you by repeating the wounding +words directed at you. I must add, however, that I have had truly +genuine friendships, as I have found in my hours of weariness and +discouragement. + +The Theatre-Lyrique was then on the Boulevard du Temple and it gave me a +place in its orchestra as kettle-drummer. Then, good Father Strauss, the +orchestra leader at the Opera balls, let me play the bass drum, the +kettle-drums, the tam-tam, and all the rest of the resonant instruments. +It was dreadfully tiring to sit up every Saturday from midnight until +six in the morning, but all told I managed to make eighty francs a +month. I felt as rich as a banker and as happy as a cobbler. + +The Theatre-Lyrique was founded by the elder Alexander Dumas as the +Theatre-Historique, and was established by Adolphe Adam. + +I was living at the time at No. 5, Rue de Menilmontant, in a huge +building, almost a city in itself. My neighbors on the floor, separated +only by a narrow partition, were the clowns--both men and women--of the +Cirque Napoleon which was near our house. + +From my attic window I was able to enjoy--for nothing of course--whiffs +from the orchestra which escaped from the popular concerts that +Pasdeloup conducted in the circus every Sunday. This happened whenever +the audience packed in the overheated hall shouted loudly for air and +they opened the casement windows on the third floor to satisfy them. + +From my perch--that is the only thing to call it--I applauded with +feverish joy the overture of _Tannhauser_, the _Symphonie Fantastique_, +in short the music of my gods: Wagner and Berlioz. + +Every evening at six o'clock--the theater began very early--I went by +the way of the Rue des Fosses-du-Temple, near my house, to the stage +door of the Theatre-Lyrique. In those days the left side of the +Boulevard du Temple was one unbroken line of theaters. Consequently I +went along the back of the Funambules, the Petit-Lazari, the +Delassements-Comiques, the Cirque Imperial and the Gaite. Those who did +not know that corner of Paris in 1859 can have no idea of it. + +The Rue des Fosses-du-Temple, on which all the stage doors opened, was a +sort of wonderland where all the supers, male and female, from all the +theaters waited in great crowds on the dimly lighted pavements. The +atmosphere was full of vermin and microbes. Even in our Theatre-Lyrique +the musicians' dressing room was only an old stable in which the horses +used in historical plays were kept. + +Still, my delight was too great for words and I felt that I was to be +envied as I sat in the fine orchestra which Deloffre conducted. Ah! +those rehearsals of _Faust_! My happiness could not be expressed when, +from my own little corner, I could leisurely devour with my eyes our +great Gounod who managed our work from the stage. + +Many times later on when we came out, side by side, from the sessions of +the Institute--Gounod lived in the Place Malesherbes--we talked over the +time when _Faust_--now past its thousandth performance--was such a +subject for discussion and criticism in the press, while the dear +public--which is rarely deceived--applauded it. + +_Vox Populi, vox Dei!_ + +I also remember that while I was in the orchestra I assisted at the +performances of Reyer's _La Statue_, a superb score and a tremendous +success. + +I can still see Reyer in the wings during the performances eluding the +firemen and smoking interminable cigars. It was a habit he could not +give up. One day I heard him tell about being in Abbe Liszt's room in +Rome. The walls were covered with religious pictures--Christ, the +Virgin, and the Saints--and he blew out a cloud of smoke which filled +the room. In reply to his witty excuses about incommoding the "august +persons," he drew the following reply from the great abbe. "No," said +Liszt, "it is always incense." + +For six months, under the same conditions of work, I substituted for one +of my fellows in the orchestra at the Theatre-Italien. + +As I had heard the admirable Mme. Miolan-Carvalho in _Faust_--excellent +singing--I now heard the tragediennes like Penco and Frezzolini and such +men as Mario, Graziani, Delle Sedie, and the buffo Zucchini. + +The last is no longer alive and our great Lucien Fugere of the +Opera-Comique of to-day reminds me of him almost exactly. There is the +same powerful voice and the same perfect artistic comedy. + +But the time for the competition of the Institute approached. During our +residence _en loge_ at the Institute we had to pay for our meals for +twenty-five days and also the rent of a piano. I got out of that +difficulty as best I could; at any rate I forestalled it. All the same +the money I had been able to put aside was insufficient and acting on +the advice of a friend (giving and acting on advice are two entirely +different things) I went to a pawnshop and pawned my watch ... a gold +one. It had adorned my fob since the morning of my first communion. +Alas! it must have been light weight, for they offered me only ... +sixteen francs!!! This odd sum, however, enabled me to pay for my meals. + +But the charge for the piano was so exorbitant--twenty francs!--that I +couldn't afford it. I did without it much more easily, for I have never +needed its help in composing. + +I would have hardly imagined that my neighbors would have bothered me so +by their pounding on their pianos and by their singing at the top of +their lungs. It was impossible to divert my thoughts or to escape their +noise, as I had no piano, and, in addition, the corridors of our garrets +were unusually reverberant. + +On my way to the Saturday sittings of the Academie des Beaux-Arts I +often cast a sad glance at the grated window of my cell; it can be seen +from the Cour Mazarine to the right in a recess. Yes, my glance is sad, +for I left behind those old bars the dearest and most affecting +recollections of my youth, and because they cause me to reflect on the +unhappy times in my long life. + +In the trial competition in 1863 I was examined first and I kept the +same place in the choral work. The first test was in the large hall of +the Ecole des Beaux-Arts which is entered from the Quai Malaquais. + +The final decision was made the next day in the hall used for the +regular sittings of the Academie des Beaux-Arts. + +My interpreters were Mme. Van den Heuvel-Duprez, Roger and Bonnehee, all +three from the Opera. With such artists I had to triumph. And that is +what happened! + +I went in first--there were six competitors--and as at that time one +could not listen to the work of the other candidates--I went wandering +haphazard down to the Rue Mazarine ... on the Pont des Arts ... and, +finally, in the square court of the Louvre where I sat down on one of +the iron seats. + +I heard five o'clock strike. I was very anxious. "All must be over by +now," I said to myself. I had guessed right, for suddenly I saw under +the arch three people chatting together and recognized Berlioz, Ambroise +Thomas and Monsieur Auber. + +Flight was impossible. They were in front of me almost as if they barred +my escape. + +Ambroise Thomas, my beloved master, came towards me and said, "Embrace +Berlioz, you owe him a great deal for your prize." + +"The _prize_," I cried, bewildered, my face shining with joy. "I have +the prize!!!" I was deeply moved and I embraced Berlioz, then my master, +and finally Monsieur Auber. + +Monsieur Auber comforted me. Did I need comforting? Then he said to +Berlioz pointing to me, + +"He'll go far, the young rascal, when he's had _less_ experience!" + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE VILLA MEDICI + + +The winners of the Grand Prix de Rome for 1863 in painting, sculpture, +architecture, and engraving, were Layraud and Monchablon, Bourgeois, +Brune and Chaplain. Custom decreed--it still does--that we should all go +to the Villa Medici together and should visit Italy. What a changed and +ideal life mine now was! The Minister of Finance sent me six hundred +francs and a passport in the name of Napoleon III, signed by Drouyns de +Luys, Minister of Foreign Affairs. + +I then met my new companions and we went to pay the formal calls on the +members of the Institute before our departure for the Academie de France +at Rome. + +On the day after Christmas, in three open carriages, we started to pay +our official calls which took us into every quarter of Paris where our +patrons lived. + +The three carriages, crowded with young men, real _rapins_, I had almost +said gamins, mad with success and intoxicated by thoughts of the +future, made a veritable scandal in the streets. + +Nearly all the gentlemen of the Institute sent out word that they were +not at home--to avoid making a speech. M. Hirtoff, the famous architect, +who lived in the Rue Lamartine, put on less airs and shouted out to his +servant from his bedroom, "Tell them I'm not in." + +I recall that of old the professors accompanied their pupils as far as +the starting place of the diligences in the Rue Notre-Dame-des-Victoires. +One day as the heavy diligence with the students packed on the rear--the +cheapest places which exposed them to all the dust of the road--was +about to start on the long journey from Paris to Rome, M. Couder, Louis +Philippe's favorite painter, was heard to say impressively to his +special pupil, "Above all don't forget my style." This was a +delightfully naive remark, but it was touching nevertheless. He was the +painter of whom the king said, after he had given him an order for the +museum at Versailles, "M. Couder pleases me. His drawing is correct; his +coloring satisfies, and he is not dear." + +Oh, the good, simple times, when words meant what they seemed to and +admiration was just without that deifying bombast that is so readily +heaped on one to-day! + +I broke the custom and went on alone after making arrangements to meet +my comrades on the road to Genoa where I would overtake them driving an +enormous coach drawn by five horses. My plans were first to stop at +Nice, where my father was buried, and then to go to embrace my mother +who was living at Bordighera. She had a modest villa in a pleasant +location in a forest of palms overlooking the sea. I spent New Year's +with my mother, the anniversary of my father's death, hours filled to +overflowing with tenderness. All too soon I had to leave her, for my +joyous comrades awaited me in their carriage on the road of the Italian +La Corniche. My tears turned to laughter. Such is youth! + +Our first stop was at Loano about eight o'clock in the evening. + +I have confessed that I was almost gay and this is true. Nevertheless I +was a prey to indefinite thoughts; I felt myself almost a man, +henceforth to be alone in life. I pondered over such thoughts, too +reasonable perhaps for my years, while Italy's blossoming mimosas, lemon +trees and myrtles threw around me their sweet disturbing odors. What a +pleasant contrast it was for me who until then had only known the sour +smell of the faubourgs of Paris, the trampled grass of their +fortifications, and the perfume--I mean perfume--of my beloved wings of +the stage. + +We spent two days in Genoa visiting the Campo-Santo, the city's +cemetery, so rich in the finest marble monuments, reputed to be the most +beautiful in Italy. After that who can deny that self-esteem survives +after death? + +Next I found myself one morning on the Place du Dome at Milan walking +with my companion Chaplain, the famous engraver of medallions, and later +my confrere at the Institute. We shared our enthusiasms before the +marvellous cathedral of white marble dedicated to the Virgin by that +terrible partisan leader Jean Galeas Visconti as a repentance for his +life. "In that epoch of faith the world covered itself with white +robes," thus spake Bossuet whose weighty eloquence comes back to me. + +We were completely carried away by Leonardo da Vinci's "Last Supper." We +found it in a large hall which the Austrian soldiers had used as a +stable and they had cut a door--Horrors! Abomination of +abominations!--in the central panel of the picture. + +The masterpiece is gradually fading away. In time it will have entirely +disappeared, but it is not like "La Giaconda" easier to carry away than +the wall thirty feet high on which it is painted. + +We went through Verona and made the obligatory pilgrimage to the tomb of +Juliet, the beloved of Romeo. That excursion satisfies the inmost +feelings of every young man in love with Love. Then Vienza, Padua, +where, while I was looking at Giotto's paintings on the story of Christ, +I had an intuition that Mary Magdalene would occupy my life some day, +and then Venice! + +Venice! One might have told me that I still lived although I would not +have believed it, so unreal were the hours I passed in that matchless +city. As we had no Baedeker--his guide was too costly for us--it was +only through a sort of divination that we discovered all the wonders of +Venice without directions. + +My companions admired a painting by Palma Vecchio in a church whose name +they did not know. How was I to find it among the ninety churches in +Venice? I got into my gondola alone and said to my "barcaiollo" that I +was going to Saint Zacharie; but I did not find the picture, a Santa +Barbara, so I had him take me to another saint. A new deception! As this +kept repeating and threatened never to end, my gondolier laughingly +showed me another church--All Saints--and said to me, mockingly, "Go in +there; you'll surely find yours." + +I pass over Pisa and Florence which I shall describe in detail later. + +When we came near the Papal territory, we decided to add a picturesque +touch to our journey and instead of entering Rome in the conventional +way by Ponte-Moll, the ancient witness of the defeat of Maxentius and +the glorification of Christianity, we took a steamer from Leghorn to +Civitta Vecchia. It was the first sea voyage that I went through ... +almost decently, thanks to some oranges which I kept in my mouth all the +time. + +At last we reached Rome by the railroad from Civitta Vecchia to the +Eternal City. It was the pensionnaires' dinner hour and they were +nonplussed at seeing us, for we had deprived them of a holiday in going +to meet our coach on the Flammian Way. Our welcome was spontaneous. A +special dinner was hastily got together and this started the jokes +practised on newcomers, who were called "_Les Affreux Nouveaux_." + +As a musician I was instructed to go bell in hand to call dinner through +the numerous walks of the Villa Medici, now plunged in darkness. As I +did not know the way, I fell into a fountain. Naturally the bell stopped +ringing and the boarders, who were listening to the sound and rejoicing +in the fun, burst into hearty laughter at the sudden cessation of the +noise. They understood what had happened and came to fish me out. + +I had paid my first debt, the debt of entrance to the Villa Medici. +Night was to bring other trials. + +The dining room of the pensionnaires, which I found so pleasant the next +day, was transformed into a den of bandits. The servants, who ordinarily +wore the green livery of the Emperor, were dressed as monks with short +blunderbusses across their shoulders and with pistols in their belts. +Their false noses were modeled by a sculptor and were painted red. The +pine table was stained with wine and covered with dirt. + +Our seniors wore proud and haughty looks, but this did not prevent +them, at a given signal, from telling us that while the food was simple, +all lived in the most fraternal harmony. Suddenly, after a discussion of +art which was carried on facetiously, there was a hub-bub and amid +frightful shouts all the plates and bottles went flying through the air. + +At a signal from one of the supposed monks there was instant silence and +we heard the voice of the oldest pensionnaire, Henner, saying gravely, +"Here all is harmony." + +It was well that we knew we were the butts for jokes. I was a little +embarrassed. I did not dare to move, and I sat with my head down, +staring at the table, where I read the name of Herold, the author of the +_Pre aux Clercs_, cut with a knife when he was a pensionnaire at this +same Villa Medici. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE VILLA MEDICI + + +As I had foreseen and gathered from the meaning looks which the +pensionnaires exchanged, another joke, the masterpiece of the hazing, +was arranged for us. We had hardly left the table when the pensionnaires +wrapped themselves in the huge capes that were fashionable in Rome at +the time and obliged us, before we went to rest in the rooms assigned to +us, to take a constitutional (Was it really necessary?) to the Forum, +the ancient Forum which all our memories of school recalled to us. + +We knew nothing of Rome by night, or by day for that matter, but we +walked on surrounded by our new school fellows who acted as guides. It +was a January night and very dark, and favorable for the schemes of our +cicerones. When we got near the Capitol, we could scarcely distinguish +the outlines of the temples in the hollows of the famous Campo Vaccino. +Their reproductions in the Louvre are still one of the masterpieces of +Claude Lorrain. + +In those days, under the rule of His Holiness Pope Pius IX, no official +excavations had been begun even in the Forum. The famous place was only +a heap of stones and shafts of columns buried in the weeds on which +herds of goats browsed. These pretty creatures were watched over by +goatherds in large hats and wrapped in great black cloaks with green +linings, the ordinary costume of the peasant of the Roman campagna. They +were armed with long pikes to drive off the wild cattle which splashed +about in the Ostian marshes. + +Our companions made us cross the ruins of the basilica of Constantine. +We could just make out the immense coffered vaults. Our admiration +changed to fright when we found ourselves a moment later in a place +entirely surrounded by walls of indescribably colossal proportions. In +the middle of this place was a large cross on a pedestal formed by +steps--a sort of Calvary. When I reached this point, I could no longer +see my companions and on turning back I found that I was alone in the +middle of the gigantic amphitheater of the Colosseum in a silence which +seemed frightful to me. + +I tried to find a way which would lead me back to the streets where +some late but complacent passerby might direct me to the Villa Medici. +But my search was in vain. I was so exasperated by my fruitless attempts +that I fell on one of the steps of the cross overcome by weariness. I +cried like a child. It was quite excusable, for I was worn out with +exhaustion. + +Finally, daylight appeared. Its rays showed me that I had gone round and +round like a squirrel in a cage and had come across nothing save the +stairways to the upper tiers. When one thinks of the eighty tiers which +in the time of Imperial Rome held a hundred thousand spectators, this +round of mine could easily have been endless for me. But the sunrise was +my salvation. After a few steps I was happy to see that, like Little Tom +Thumb lost in the woods, I was following the path which would take me on +the right road. + +I reached the Villa Medici at last and took possession of the room which +had been reserved for me. The window looked out on the Avenue du Pincio; +my horizon was the whole of Rome and ended in the outlines of the dome +of St. Peter's at the Vatican. The Director, M. Schnetz, a member of the +Institute, took me to my room. He was tall and he had willingly wrapped +himself in a capacious dressing gown and had put on a Greek cap +bedizened, like the gown, with magnificent gold tassels. M. Schnetz was +the last of that generation of great painters which had a special +reverence for the country about Rome. His studies and pictures were +conceived in the midst of the Sabine brigands. His strong, determined +appearance made his hosts in his adventurous wanderings respect and fear +him. He was a perfect father to all the children of the Academie de +France at Rome. + +The bell for luncheon sounded. This time it was the real cook who rang +it and not I who had been so kindly given the duty the evening before. +The dining room had taken on its comfortable every-day appearance. Our +companions were positively affectionate. The servants were no longer the +pseudo monks we had seen at the first meal. I learned that I had not +been the only one to be hoaxed. + +The Carnival festivities at Rome were just ending with their wild +bacchanalian revelries. While they were not so famous as those of +Venice, they had, nevertheless, just as much dash and life. Their +setting was altogether different--more majestic if not more +appropriate. We all participated in a large car built by our architects +and decorated by our sculptors. We spent the day in throwing confetti +and flowers at all the lovely Roman girls, who replied with bewitching +smiles from their palace balconies on the Corso. Surely when Michelet +wrote his brilliant and poetic study _La Femme_, the sequel to his +_L'Amour_, he must have had in his mind's eye, as we saw them in life, +these types of rare, sparkling and fascinating beauty. + +What changes have taken place in Rome since such careless freedom and +gaiety were the usual thing! The superb Italian regiments march on this +same Corso to-day, and the rows of shops for the most part belong to +German shopkeepers. + +Progress! How many are thy blows! + +One day the Director told us that Hippolyte Flandrin, the famous leader +of the religious movement in Nineteenth Century Art, had reached Rome +the night before and wanted to meet the students. + +I little thought that forty-six years later I should recall this visit +in the speech I would deliver as president of the Institute and the +Academie des Beaux Arts. + +In this speech I said: + +"On the Pincio, opposite the Academie de France, is a small bubbling +fountain shaped like an ancient vase, which, beneath a bower of green +oaks, stands out against the horizon with its fine lines. There, when +after thirty-two years he returned to Rome a great artist, Hippolyte +Flandrin, before he entered the temple, dipped his fingers as in a holy +font and crossed himself." + +The sorrow stricken arts to which he had contributed so much went into +mourning at almost the very moment we were getting ready to go to thank +him officially for his consideration of us. He lived in the Piazza della +Spagna, near the Villa Medici where he wanted to be. In the church of +Santa Luigi della Francese we laid on his coffin wreaths of laurel from +the garden of the Villa, which, as a student, he had loved so well. He +was a comrade at the Villa of his beloved musician Ambroise Thomas, whom +he saw for the last time at the height of his glory.... + +Some days later Falguiere, Chaplain and I started for Naples, by +carriage as far as Palestrina, on foot to Terracina, at the southern end +of the Pontian marshes, then again by carriage to Naples!... + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE VILLA MEDICI + + +What never to be forgotten times they were for youthful artists, when we +shared our enthusiasms for all we saw in these pleasantly picturesque +villages--a picturesqueness which has certainly gone by now. + +Our lodgings were in the most primitive inns. I remember that one night +I was greatly disturbed by the feeling that my neighbor in the garret +had set the miserable hovel on fire. Falguiere had the same idea too. It +was only imagination. It was the bright starlight shining through the +dilapidated ceiling. + +As we passed through the woods of Subiacco, a shepherd's _zampogna_ (a +sort of rustic bagpipe) sounded a burst of melody which I presently +noted down on a bit of paper loaned me by a Benedictine monk in a +neighboring monastery. These measures became the first notes of +_Marie-Magdeleine_, the sacred drama which I was already planning for my +first venture. + +I still have the sketch Chaplain made of me at the moment. + +As was the custom in the olden times of the pensionnaires of the Villa +Medici, we lodged in Naples at the Casa Combi, an old house overlooking +the Quay Santa Lucia. The fifth floor was reserved for us. It was an old +ruin with a pink rough-cast front and windows framed in mouldings shaped +in small figures and cleverly painted, like those one sees all over +Italy as soon as one crosses the Var. + +A vast room held our three beds. As for the dressing room and the rest, +they were on the balcony, where, according to the local custom, we hung +our clothes to dry. + +In order to travel as comfortably as possible, we had rigged ourselves +out at Rome with three suits of white flannel with blue stripes. + +_Risum teneatis_, as that delightful poet Horace would have said. First, +listen to this. + +[Illustration: Massenet at Egreville] + +From the moment of our arrival at the station in Naples we were watched +with surprising perseverance by the gendarmes. In addition, the +passersby observed us with the utmost astonishment. We were intensely +curious and wondered what the reason was for all this. We did not +have long to wait. Our landlady, Marietta, told us that the Neapolitan +convicts wore almost exactly the same costume. The laughter which +greeted this revelation led us to complete the resemblance. So we went +to the Cafe Royal in the Piazza S. Ferdinando, the three of us dragging +our right legs as if they were fastened to a ball and chain as the +convicts were. + +We almost lived in the galleries of the Borbonico Museum during our +first days in Naples. The most wonderful of the discoveries in the ruins +of Herculanum, Pompeii, and their neighbor Stabies had been placed +there. We were astonished at it all, enraptured, charmed by endless and +ever new discoveries. + +In passing I must recall our dutiful ascent of Vesuvius, whose plume of +smoke we could see in the distance. We came back carrying our burned +shoes in our hands and with our feet wrapped in flannel which we had +bought at Torre del Greco. + +We took our meals at Naples on the seashore on the Quay Santa Lucia, +almost opposite our house. For twelve grani, about eight sous, we had an +exquisite soup of shellfish, fish fried in an oil which had been used +for that purpose for two or three years at least, and a glass of Capri +wine. + +Then, there were walks to Castellamare at the end of the Gulf of Naples, +where we enjoyed a wonderful view; and to Sorrento so rich in orange +trees that the arms of the city are interwoven in the form of a crown of +orange leaves. At Sorrento we saw where Tasso was born--the famous +Italian poet, the immortal author of "Jerusalem Delivered." + +A simple terra cotta bust decorates the front of this half ruined house! +Thence to Amalfi, once almost the rival of Venice in the size of its +commerce. + +If Napoleon got the itch through handling the gun sponge of a dirty +artilleryman, we owe it to the truth to state that the morning after we +passed the night in the place all three of us were covered with lice. We +had to have our heads shaved, which added to our resemblance to +convicts. + +We were somewhat consoled for this adventure by sailing to Capri. We +left Amalfi at four o'clock in the morning, but we did not reach Capri +until ten at night. The island is delightful and the views bewitching. +The top of Mount Solaro is 1800 feet above the sea and about nine and a +half miles around. The view is one of the most beautiful and extensive +in all Italy. + +We were overtaken by a frightful storm on our way to Capri. The boat was +loaded with a large quantity of oranges and the wild waves swept over +everything to the great despair of the sailors who outshouted each other +in calling on St. Joseph, the patron saint of Naples. + +There is a pretty legend that St. Joseph, grieved by the departure of +Jesus and the Virgin Mary for Heaven, ordered his Son to come back to +him. Jesus obeyed and came back with all the saints in Paradise. The +Virgin came back, too, to the conjugal roof escorted by eleven thousand +virgins. When the Lord saw Paradise depopulated in this way and not +wanting to put St. Joseph in the wrong, he declared that the latter was +the stronger and so Heaven was repopulated by his permission. The +veneration of the Neapolitans for St. Joseph is surprising, as the +following detail illustrates. + +In the Eighteenth Century the streets of Naples were hardly safe, and it +was dangerous to pass through them at night. The king had lanterns +placed at the worst corners to light the passersby, but the _birbanti_ +broke them as they found they interfered with their nocturnal deeds. +Whereupon some one was struck with the idea of placing an image of St. +Joseph beside each lantern, and thereafter they were respected to the +great joy of the people. + +To be in and live in Capri is the most ideal existence that one can +dream of. I brought back from there page after page of the works which I +intended to write later. + +Autumn saw us back in Rome. + +At that time I wrote my beloved master Ambroise Thomas as follows: + +"Last Sunday Bourgault got up an entertainment to which he invited +twenty Transteverins and Transteverines--plus six musicians, also from +the Transtervere. All in costume! + +"The weather was fine and the scene was simply wonderful when we were in +the 'Bosco,' my sacred grove. The setting sun lighted up the old walls +of ancient Rome. The entertainment ended in Falguiere's studio, lighted +_a giorno_, our doing. There the dance became so captivating and +intoxicating that we finished vis-a-vis to the Transteverines in the +final _salturrele_. They all smoked, ate, and drank--the women +especially liked our punch." + +One of the greatest and most thrilling periods of my life was now at +hand. It was Christmas Eve. We arranged an outing so that we might +follow the midnight masses in the churches. The night ceremonies at +Sainte Marie Majeure and at Saint Jean de Latran impressed me most. +Shepherds with their flocks, cows, goats, sheep and pigs were in the +public square, as if to receive the benediction of the Savior, recalling +in this way His birth in a manger. The touching simplicity of these +beliefs really affected me and I entered Sainte Marie Majeure +accompanied by a lovely goat which I embraced and which did not want to +leave me. This in no way astonished any of the crowd of men and women +packed in that church, kneeling on those beautiful Mosaic pavements, +between a double row of columns--relics taken from the ancient temples. + +The next day--a day to be marked with a cross--on the staircase with its +three hundred steps which leads to the church of Ara Coeli, I passed two +women, obviously fashionable foreigners. I was especially charmed by the +appearance of the younger. Several days later I was at Liszt's who was +preparing for his ordination, and I recognized among the famous +master's visitors the two women whom I had seen at Ara Coeli. + +I learned almost at once that the younger had come to Rome with her +family on a sightseeing trip and that she had been recommended to Liszt +so that he might select for her a musician capable of directing her +studies. She did not want to interrupt them while she was away from +Paris. Liszt at once proposed me. I was a pensionnaire at the Academie +de France and was supposed to work there, so that I did not want to +devote my time to lessons. The young girl's charm, however, overcame my +reluctance. + +You may have already guessed that this beautiful girl was the one who +was to become my wife two years later, the ever-attentive, often-worried +companion of my life, the witness of my weaknesses as well as of my +bursts of energy, of my sorrows and my joys. With her I have gone up the +steps of life, already long, but not so steep as those which led to Ara +Coeli, that altar of the skies which recalls to Rome the pure and +cloudless celestial abodes, which have led me along a way sometimes +difficult and where the roses have been gathered in the midst of +thorns. But is not life always so? + +In the following spring came the pensionnaires' annual entertainment, +which took place as was customary at Castel Fusano on the Roman +Campagna, a couple of miles from Ostia in a magnificent pine forest +divided by an avenue of beautiful evergreen oaks. I brought away with me +such an agreeable remembrance of the day that I advised my fiancee and +her family to make the acquaintance of this incomparable spot. + +In that splendid avenue paved with old marble slabs I recalled Gaston +Boissier's story, in his "Promenades Archelogiques," of Nisus and +Euraylus, those unfortunate young men who were sent to their downfall by +Volscens, as he came from Laurentium, to bring part of his troops to +Turnus. + +The thought that in December my two years' stay would be up and that I +would have to leave the Villa Medici and return to France made me +extremely sad. I wanted to see Venice again. I stayed there two months +and during the time I jotted down the rough sketch of my first _Suite +d'Orchestra_. + +I noted the strange and beautiful notes of the Austrian trumpets which +sounded every evening as they closed the gates for the night. And I used +them twenty-five years later in the fourth act of _Le Cid_. + +My comrades bade me good-by on December seventeenth, not only at the +last sad dinner at our large table, but also at the station in the +evening. I had given over the day to packing, gazing meditatively the +while at the bed in which I should never sleep again. + +All the souvenirs of my two years in Rome--palms from Palm Sunday, a +drum from the Transtevere, my mandolin, a wooden Virgin, a few sprays +and branches from the Villa's garden, all my souvenirs of a past which +would be with me always, went into my trunk with my clothes. The French +Embassy paid the carriage. + +I was unwilling to leave my window until the setting sun had disappeared +behind St. Peter's. It seemed as if Rome in its turn took refuge in +shadow--a shadow which bade me farewell. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +MY RETURN TO PARIS + + +My comrades went with me to the station "dei Termini," hard by the +Diocletian ruins. They did not leave until we had embraced warmly and +they stayed until my train disappeared beyond the horizon. Happy beings! +they would sleep that night at the Academie, while I was alone, torn by +the emotions of leaving, numbed by the keen, icy December cold, shrouded +in memories, and, unless fatigue aided me, unable to sleep. Next day I +was in Florence. + +I wanted to see again this city with the richest collections of art in +Italy. I went to the Pitti Palace, one of the wonders of Florence. In +going through the galleries it seemed to me as though I were not alone, +but that the living remembrance of my comrades was with me, that I was a +witness of their enthusiasms and raptures before all the masterpieces +piled in that splendid palace. I saw again the Titians, the Tintorets, +the works of Leonardo, the Veronese, the Michel Angelos, and the +Raphaels. + +With what delightfully charmed eyes I admired anew that priceless +treasure, Raphael's masterpiece of painting, the "Madonna della +sedella," then the "Temptation of St. Anthony" by Salvator Rosa placed +in the Hall of Ulysses, and in the Hall of Flora Canova's "Venus," +mounted on a revolving base. I studied, too, the works of Rubens, +Rembrandt and Van Dyck. + +From the Pitti Palace I went to be astounded anew by the Strozzi Palace, +the most beautiful type of Florentine palace. Its cornice, attributed to +Simon Pollajo, is the most beautiful known to modern times. I saw once +more the Buboli gardens, beside the Pitti Palace, designed by Tribolo +and Buontalenti. + +I finished the day with a walk in the so-called Bois de Boulogne de +Florence, the Cascine Walk, at the western gate of Florence, between the +right bank of the Arno and the railroad. It is the favorite walk of the +elegant and fashionable world of Florence, the city called the Athens of +Italy. I remember that evening had already fallen and as I was without +my watch--I had left it at the hotel--I asked a peasant I met on the +road what time it was. The answer I received was so poetically turned +that I can never forget it, "_Sono le sette, l'aria ne treme +ancor!..._" + +"It is seven o'clock. The air still trembles from the sound." + +I left Florence to continue my trip by the way of Pisa. + +Pisa seemed to me as depopulated as if it had been swept by the plague. +When one considers that in the Middle Ages it was a rival of Genoa, +Florence, and Venice, one feels puzzled by the comparative desolation +that envelops it. I remained alone for nearly an hour on the Piazza del +Duomo, looking with curiosity on the masterpieces which raise their +artistic beauty there, the Cathedral or Le Dome de Pisa, the Campanile, +better known as the Leaning Tower, and last, the Baptistiere. + +Between the Dome and the Baptistiere stretches the Campo Santo, the +famous cemetery. The earth for this cemetery was brought from Jerusalem. + +It seemed to me that the Leaning Tower was only waiting until I had +passed, unlike the Campanile of Venice, in order to bring down deadly +destruction on me. On the contrary, it appears that the tower, which +aided Galileo in making his famous experiments on gravitation, was +never more secure. This is proved by the fact that the seven great +bells which sound in full swing several times a day have never affected +the strength of this curious structure. + +Here I come to the most interesting part of my journey--after I left +Pisa, huddled under the top of the diligence, which followed the shores +of the Mediterranean, by Spezzia as far as Genoa. What an unreal journey +that one of mine was along the ancient Roman Way on the top of the rocks +which overlook the sea! I journeyed as though I were in the car of a +capricious balloon. + +All the way the road skirted the sea, sometimes cutting through forests +of olives, and again rising over the tops of the hills where one +overlooked a wide horizon. + +It was picturesque everywhere; there was always a variety of astonishing +views along this way. Traveling as I did by the light of a magnificent +moon, it was most ideally beautiful in its originality with its villages +in which one saw at times a lighted window in the distance and this sea +into which one could see to fathomless depths. + +During this journey it seemed to me that I had never accumulated so many +ideas and projects, obsessed as I was by the thought that in a few +hours I would be back in Paris and that my life was about to commence. + +I traveled from Genoa to Paris by rail. When one is young, one sleeps so +well! I woke up shivering. It was freezing. The piercing cold of the +night had covered the car windows with frosty ornaments. + +We went by Montereau, and Paris was almost in sight! I could not imagine +then that some years later I should own a summer house in this country +near Egreville. + +What a contrast between the beautiful sky of Italy, that eternally +beautiful sky, sung by the poets, which I had just left, and the one I +saw again, so dark, gray, and sullen! + +When I had paid for my journey and a few small expenses, I had left in +my pockets the sum of ... two francs! + +How joyful I was, when I reached my sister's house! Also, what +unforeseen good fortune! + +It was raining in torrents and my precious two francs went to buy that +indispensable _vade mecum_, an umbrella. I had not needed one during my +entire stay in Italy. Protected from the weather I went to the Ministry +of Finance where I knew I should find my allowance for the first +quarter of the new year. At this time the holders of the Grand Prix +enjoyed a pension of three thousand francs a year. I was still entitled +to it for three years. What good luck! + +The good friend, whom I have already mentioned, had been forewarned of +my return and had rented a room for me on the fifth floor of No. 14, Rue +Taitbout. From the calm and quiet beauty of my room at the Academie, I +had fallen into the midst of busy, noisy Paris. + +Ambroise Thomas introduced me to wealthy friends who gave famous musical +evening entertainments. I saw there for the first time Leo Delibes, +whose ballet _La Source_ had already won him a great reputation at the +Opera. I saw him direct a delightful chorus sung by fashionable ladies +and I whispered to myself, "I, too, will write a chorus. And it will be +sung." Indeed it was, but by four hundred male voices. I had won the +first prize in the Ville de Paris competition. + +My acquaintance with the poet Armand Silvestre dates from this time. By +chance he was my neighbor on the top of an omnibus, and, one thing +leading to another, we got down the best of friends. He saw that I was +a good listener, and he told me some of the most drolly improper +stories, in which he excelled. But to my mind the poet surpassed the +story teller and a month later I had written the _Poeme d'Avril_, +inspired by the exquisite verses in his first book. + +As I speak of the _Poeme d'Avril_, I remember the fine impression it +made on Reyer. He urged me to take it to a publisher. Armed with a too +flattering letter from him I went to Choudens to whom he recommended me. +After four futile attempts I was finally received by the wealthy +publisher of _Faust_. But I was not even to show my little manuscript. I +was immediately shown out. The same sort of reception awaited me at +Flaxland's, the publisher, Place de la Madeleine, and also at Brandus's, +the owner of Meyerbeer's works. I considered this altogether natural, +for I was absolutely unknown. + +As I was going back (not too bitterly disappointed) to my fifth floor on +the Rue Taitbout, with my music in my pocket, I was accosted by a fair, +tall young man, with a kindly, intelligent face, who said to me: +"Yesterday I opened a music store near here in the Boulevard de la +Madeleine. I know who you are and I am ready to publish anything you +like." It was Georges Hartmann, my first publisher. + +All I had to do was to take my hand from my pocket and give him the +_Poeme d'Avril_ which had just received such a poor reception elsewhere. + +It is true that I made nothing out of it, but how much I would have +given--had I had it--to have it published. A few months later lovers of +music were singing: + + _Qu'on passe en aimant!_ + _Que l'heure est donc breve_ + +As yet I had neither honor nor money, but I certainly had a good deal of +encouragement. + +Cholera was raging in Paris. I fell ill and the neighbors were afraid to +come and see how I was. However, Ambroise Thomas learned of my dangerous +illness and my helpless distress and visited me in my room accompanied +by his doctor, the Emperor's physician. This brave and fatherly act on +the part of my beloved master affected me so much that I fainted in bed. +I must add that this illness was only fleeting and that I finished ten +pieces for the piano for which Girod, the publisher, paid me two +hundred francs. A louis a page! To that benevolent publisher I owed the +first money I made from music. + + * * * * * + +The health of Paris improved. + +On the eighth of October I was married in the little old church in the +village of Avon near Fontainebleau. + +My wife's brother and my new cousin, the eminent violinist Armingaud, +the founder of the famous quartet, were my witnesses. However, there +were others too. A flock of sparrows came in through a broken window and +out-chirped one another so that we could scarcely hear the words of the +good cure. + +His words were a kindly homage to my new companion and encouragement for +my still uncertain future. + +After the wedding ceremony we walked in the beautiful forest of +Fontainebleau, where I seemed to hear, in the midst of the magnificence +of nature, verdant and purple in the warm rays of the bright sun, +caressed by the songs of the birds, the words of that great poet Alfred +de Musset: + +"_Aime et tu renaitrais; fais-toi fleur pour eclore._" + +We left Avon to pass a week at the seashore, in a charming solitude _a +deux_, often the most enviable solitude. While I was there, I corrected +the proofs of the _Poeme d'Avril_ and the ten piano pieces. + +To correct proofs! To see my music in print! Had my career as a composer +really begun? + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +MY DEBUT AT THE THEATER + + +On my return to Paris I lived with my wife's family in a lovely +apartment whose brightness was calculated to delight the eye and charm +the thoughts. Ambroise Thomas sent me word that at his request the +directors of the Opera-Comique, Ritt and de Lewen, wanted to entrust to +me a one-act work. This was _La Gran'Tante_, an opera-comique by Jules +Adenis and Charles Grandvallet. + +This was bewildering good fortune and I was almost overcome by it. +To-day I regret that at that time I was unable to put into the work all +of myself that I might have wished. The preliminary rehearsals began the +next year. How proud I was when I received my first notices of +rehearsals and when I sat in the same place on the famous stage which +had known Boieldieu, Herold, M. Auber, Ambroise Thomas, Victor Masse, +Gounod, Meyerbeer!... + +I was about to learn an author's trials. But I was so happy in doing so! + +A first work is the first cross of honor. A first love. + +I had everything except the cross. + +The first cast was: Marie Roze, in all the splendor of her youthful +beauty and talent; Victor Capoul, the idol of the public; and Mlle. +Girard, the spirited singer and actress, the delight of the +Opera-Comique. + +We were ready to go on the stage when the cast was upset. Marie Roze was +taken away from me and replaced by a seventeen year old beginner, Marie +Heilbronn, the artist to whom I was to entrust the creation of _Manon_ +seventeen years later. + +At the first rehearsal with the orchestra I was unconscious of what was +going on, I was so deeply absorbed in listening to this and that, in +fact to all the sonorousness of the work, which did not prevent me, +however, telling every one that I was entirely pleased and satisfied. + +I had the courage to attend the first performance--in the wings, which +reminded me of Berlioz's _L'Enfance du Christ_ which I had attended +secretly. + +That evening was both exciting and amusing. + +I spent the entire afternoon in feverish agitation. + +I stopped at every poster to look at the fascinating words so large with +promise: + + First Performance of _La Grand'Tante_ + Opera-Comique in One Act + +I had to wait to read the authors' names. That would come only with the +announcement of the second performance. + +We served as a curtain raiser for the great success of the moment, _La +Voyage en Chine_ by Labiche and Francois Bazin. + +I had been a pupil of the latter for a brief while at the Conservatoire. +His pilgrimages to the land of the Celestials had not deprived his +teaching of that hard, unamiable form which I suffered from with him, +and I left his class in harmony a month after I joined it. I went into +the class of Henri Reber of the Institute. He was a fine, exquisite +musician, of the race of Eighteenth Century masters. All his music +breathed forth pleasant memories. + +One fine Friday evening in April, at half-past seven, the curtain rose +at the Opera-Comique. I was in the wings near my dear friend Jules +Adenis. My heart throbbed with anxiety, seized by that mystery to which +for the first tune I gave myself body and soul, as to an unknown God. +To-day that seems a little exaggerated, rather childish. + +The piece had just begun, when we heard a burst of laughter from the +audience. "Listen, _mon ami_, what a splendid start," said Adenis. "The +audience is amused." + +The audience was indeed amused, but this is what happened. The scene +opened in Brittany on a stormy, tempestuous night. Mlle. Girard had +faced the audience and sung a prayer, when Capoul entered, speaking +these words from the text: + +"What a country! What a wilderness! Not a soul in sight!" when he saw +Mlle. Girard's back and cried: + +"At last.... There's a face!" + +He had scarcely uttered this expression when the roars of laughter we +had heard broke loose. + +However, the piece went on without further incident. + +They encored Mlle. Girard's song, _Les filles de la Rochelle_. + +They applauded Capoul and gave the young debutante Heilbronn a great +welcome. + +The opera ended in sympathetic applause, whereupon the stage manager +came out to announce the names of the authors. Just then a cat walked +across the stage. This was the cause of fresh hilarity which was so +great that the authors' names went unheard. + +It was a day of mishaps. Two accidents on the same evening gave grounds +for fear that the piece would fail. There was nothing in it, however, +and the press showed itself really indulgent. It sheathed its claws in +velvet in its appreciation. + +Theophile Gautier, a great poet and an eminent critic, was kind enough +to fling a few of his sparkling bits at the work, proof of his obvious +good feeling. + +_La Grand'Tante_ was played with _La Voyage en Chine_, a great financial +success, and I lived fourteen evenings. I was in raptures. I no longer +consider only fourteen performances; they scarcely count. + +The orchestral score (it was not engraved) was lost in the fire at the +Opera-Comique in 1887. It was no great loss to music, but I should be +happy to have the evidence of the first steps in my career. + +At this time I was giving lessons in a family at Versailles, with which +I am still in touch. I was caught in a heavy shower on my way there one +day. That rain was good to me, verifying the adage, "Every cloud has a +silver lining." I waited patiently in the station for the rain to stop, +when I saw near me Pasdeloup who was also waiting until the shower was +over. + +He had never spoken to me. The wait at the station and the bad weather +were an easy and natural excuse for the conversation we had together. On +his asking me whether in my work at Rome I had not written something for +the orchestra, I replied that I had a _Suite d'Orchestra_ in five parts +(the one I had written in Venice in 1865); he begged me point blank to +send it to him. I sent it the same week. + +I take extreme pleasure in paying homage to Pasdeloup. He not only aided +me generously on this occasion, but he was also the creative genius of +the first popular concerts which aided so powerfully in making music +understood outside the theater. + +[Illustration: One of the last portraits of Massenet] + +In the Rue des Martyrs one rainy day (Always rain! Truly Paris is not +Italy!) I met one of my confreres, a violoncellist in Pasdeloup's +orchestra. While we were chatting, he said, "This morning we read a very +remarkable _Suite d'Orchestra_. We wanted to know the author's name, but +it wasn't on the orchestral parts." + +I jumped up at once. I was greatly excited. Was it my work or that of +some one else? + +"In this _Suite_," I asked him with a start, "is there a fugue, a march, +and a nocturne?" + +"Exactly," he replied. + +"Then," I said, "it is mine." + +I rushed to the Rue Lafitte and flew up the stairs like a madman to tell +my wife and her mother. + +Pasdeloup had given me no warning. + +On the program for the next day but one, Sunday, I saw my first +orchestral suite announced. + +How was I to hear what I had written? + +I paid for a place in the third balcony and listened, lost in that dense +crowd, as it was every Sunday, in that gallery where they even had to +stand. Each passage was well received. The last had just ended when a +young fellow near me hissed twice. Both times, however, the audience +protested and applauded all the more heartily. So the kill-joy did not +gain the effect he wanted. + +I went back home all of a tremble. My family had also gone to the Cirque +Napoleon and came to find me at once. If my people were happy at my +success, they were still more pleased to have heard my work. + +One would have thought no more about that misguided hisser, except that +the next day Albert Wolf devoted a long article on the front page of the +_Figaro_, as unkind as it could be, to breaking my back. His brilliant, +cutting wit was amusing reading for his public. My friend, Theodore +Dubois, as young as I was in his career, had the fine courage to reply +to Wolf at the risk of losing his position. He wrote a letter worthy in +every way of his great, noble heart. + +Reyer for his part consoled me for the _Figaro_ article by this curious, +piquant bon-mot: "Let him talk. Wits, like imbeciles, can be mistaken." + +I owe it to the truth to say that Albert Wolf regretted what he had +written without attaching any importance to it except to please his +readers, and never thinking that at the same time he might kill the +future of a young musician. Afterwards he became one of my warmest +friends. + +Emperor Napoleon III opened three competitions, and I did not wait a +single day to enter them. + +I competed for the cantata _Promethee_, the opera-comique _Le +Florentin_, and the opera _La Coupe du Roi de Thule_. + +I got nothing. + +Saint-Saens won the prize with his _Promethee_; Charles Lenepveu was +crowned for his _Le Florentin_--I was third--and Diaz got first place +with _La Coupe du Roi de Thule_. It was given at the Opera under +marvellous conditions of interpretation. + +Saint-Saens knew that I had competed and that the award had wavered +between me and Diaz who had won. Shortly after this he met me and said: + +"There are so many good and beautiful things in your score that I have +just written to Weimar to see if your work can't be performed there." + +Only great men act like that! + +Events, however, decreed otherwise, and the thousand pages of +orchestration were for thirty years a well from which I drew many a +passage for my subsequent works. + +I was beaten, but not broken. + +Ambroise Thomas, the constant, ever kind genius of my life, introduced +me to Michel Carre, one of the collaborators on _Mignon_ and _Hamlet_. +The billboards constantly proclaimed his successes and he entrusted me +with a libretto in three acts which was splendidly done, entitled +_Meduse_. + +I worked on this during the summer and winter of 1869 and during the +spring of 1870. On the twelfth of July of that year the work had been +done for several days, and Michel Carre made an appointment to meet me +at the Opera. He intended to tell the director, Emile Perrin, that he +must put the work on and that it would pay him to do so. + +Emile Perrin was not there. + +I left Michel Carre, who embraced me heartily and said, "Au revoir. On +the stage of the Opera." + +I went to Fontainebleau where I was living, that same evening. + +I was going to be happy.... + +But the future was too lovely! + +The next morning the papers announced the declaration of war between +France and Germany and I never saw Michel Carre again. He died some +months after this touching meeting which seemed so decisive to me. + +Good-by to my fine plans for Weimar, my hopes at the Opera, and my own +hopes too. War, with all its alarms and horrors, had come to drench the +soil of France with blood. + +I went. + + * * * * * + +I will not take up my recollections again until after that utterly +terrible year. I do not want to make such cruel hours live again; I want +to spare my readers their mournful tale. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE DAYS AFTER THE WAR + + +The Commune had just gasped its last breath when we found ourselves +again at the family abode in Fontainebleau. + +Paris breathed once more after a long period of trouble and agony; +gradually calm returned. As if the lesson of that bloody time would +never fade away and as if its memory would be perpetual, bits of burnt +paper were brought into our garden from time to time on the wings of the +wind. I kept one piece. It bore traces of figures and probably came from +the burning of the Ministry of Finance. + +As soon as I saw again my dear little room in the country, I found +courage to work and in the peace of the great trees which spread over us +with their sweetly peaceful branches I wrote the _Scenes Pittoresques_. + +I dedicated them to my good friend Paladilhe, author of _Patrie_, later +my confrere at the Institute. + +As I had undergone all kinds of privation for so many months, the life +I was now living seemed to me most exquisite; it brought back my good +humor and gave me a calm and serene mind. + +On this account I was able to write my second orchestral suite which was +played some years later at the Chatelet concerts. + +But I went back to Paris before long, for I wanted to see, as soon as +possible, the great city which had been so sorely tried. I had hardly +got back when I met Emile Bergerat, the bright and delightful poet, who +later became Theophile Gautier's son-in-law. + +How dear a name in French letters is that of Theophile Gautier! What +glory he heaped on them--that illustrious Benvenuto of style as they +called him! + +Bergerat took me with him one day to visit his future father-in-law. + +My sensations in approaching that great poet were indescribable! He was +no longer in the dawn of life, but he was still youthful and vivacious +in thought, and rich in images with which he adorned his slightest +conversation. And his learning was extremely wide and varied. I found +him sitting in a large armchair with three cats about him. I have always +been fond of the pretty creatures, so I at once made friends with them +which put me in the good graces of their master. + +Bergerat, who has continued to be a charming friend to me, told him that +I was a musician and that a ballet over his name would open the doors of +the Opera to me. He developed on the spot two subjects for me: _Le +Preneur de Rats_ (The Rat Catcher) and _La Fille du Roi des Aulnes_. The +recollection of Schubert frightened me off the latter, and it was +arranged that the _Rat Catcher_ should be offered to the director of the +Opera. + +Nothing came of it as far as I was concerned. The name of the great poet +was so dazzling that the poor musician was completely lost in its +brilliance. It was said, however, that I would not remain a nonentity, +but that I would finally emerge from obscurity. + +Duquesnel, an admirable friend, then the director of the Odeon, at the +instance of Hartmann, my publisher, sent for me to come to his office at +the theater and asked me to write the stage music for the old tragedy +_Les Erinnyes_ by Leconte de Lisle. He read several scenes to me and I +became enthusiastic at once. + +How splendid the rehearsals were! They were under the direction of the +celebrated artist Brindeau, the stage manager at the Odeon, but Leconte +de Lisle managed them in person. + +What an Olympian attitude was that of the famous translator of Homer, +Sophocles, and Theocritus, those geniuses of the past whom he almost +seemed to equal! How admirable the expression of his face with his +double eye-glass which seemed a part of him and through which his eyes +gleamed with lightning glances! + +How could they pretend that he did not like music when they inflicted so +much of it on him, in that work at any rate? It was ridiculous. That is +the sort of legend with which they overwhelm so many poets. + +Theophile Gautier, who, they said, considered music the most costly of +all noises, knew and liked other marvellous artists too well to +disparage our art. Besides, who can forget his critical articles on +music which his daughter Judith Gautier, of the Goncourt Academy, has +just collected in one volume with pious care, and which are uncommonly +and astonishingly just appreciations. + +Leconte de Lisle was a fervent admirer of Wagner and of Alphonse +Daudet, of whom I shall speak later, and had a soul most sensitive to +music. + +In spite of the snow I went to the country in December to shut myself up +for a few days with my wife's good parents and I wrote the music of _Les +Erinnyes_. + +Dusquesnel placed forty musicians at my disposal, which, under the +circumstances, was a considerable expense and a great favor. Instead of +writing a score for the regular orchestra--which would have produced +only a paltry effect--I had the idea of having a quartet of thirty-six +stringed instruments corresponding to a large orchestra. Then I added +three trombones to represent the three Erinnyes: Tisiphone, Alecto and +Megere, and a pair of kettle-drums. So I had my forty. + +I again thank that dear director for this unusual luxury of instruments. +I owed the sympathy of many musicians to it and to him. + +As I was already occupied with an opera-comique in three acts which a +young collaborator of Ennery's had obtained for me from the manager of +the theater--how my memory flies to Chantepie, vanished from the stage +too early--I received a letter from du Locle, then director of the +Opera-Comique, telling me that this work, _Don Cesar de Bazan_, must be +ready in November. + +The cast was: Mlle. Priola, Mme. Galli Marie, already famous as +_Mignon_, later the never to be forgotten _Carmen_, and a young beginner +with a well trained voice and charming presence, M. Bouchy. + +The work was put on hastily with old scenery, which so displeased Ennery +that he never appeared in the theater again. + +Madame Galli took the honors of the evening with several encores. The +_Entr'acte Sevillana_ was also applauded. The work, however, did not +succeed for it was taken off the bill after the thirteenth performance. +Joncieres, the author of _Dimitri_, pled my cause in vain before the +Societe des Auteurs, of which Auguste Maquet was president, arguing that +they had no right to withdraw a work which still averaged so good +receipts. They were kind words lost! _Don Cesar_ was played no more. + +I recall that later on I had to re-write the whole work at the request +of several provincial houses so that it might be played as they wished. +The manuscript of the score (only the entr'acte was engraved) was +burned in the fire of May, 1887, as was my first work. + +An invincible secret power directed my life. + +I was invited to dine at the house of Mme. Pauline Viardot, the sublime +lyric tragedienne. In the course of the evening I was asked to play a +little music. + +I was taken unawares and I began to sing a bit from my sacred drama +_Marie Magdeleine_. + +Although I had no voice, at that age I had a good deal of go in the +manner of singing my music. Now, I speak it, and in spite of the +insufficiency of my vocal powers, my artists get what I mean. + +I was singing, if I may say so, when Mme. Pauline Viardot leaned over +the keyboard and said with an accent of emotion never to be forgotten, + +"What is that?" + +"_Marie Magdeleine_," I told her, "a work of my youth which I never even +hope to put on." + +"What? Well, it shall be and I will be your Mary Magdalene." + +I at once sang again the scene of Magdalene at the Cross: + + _O bien-aime! Sous ta sombre couronne_.... + +When Hartmann heard of this, he wanted to play a trick on Pasdeloup, who +had heard the score not long before and who had refused it almost +brutally, so he created, in collaboration with Duquesnel at the Odeon, +the Concert National. The leader of the orchestra at this new popular +concert was Edouard Colonne, my old friend at the Conservatoire, whom I +had already chosen to conduct _Les Erinnyes_. + +Hartmann's publishing house was the rendezvous for all the youngsters, +including Cesar Franck whose lofty works had not yet come into their +own. + +The small shop at 17 Boulevard de la Madeleine became the center of the +musical movement. Bizet, Saint-Saens, Lalo, Franck, and Holmes were a +part of the inner circle. Here they chatted gaily and with every +enthusiasm and ardor in their faith in the great art which was to +ennoble their lives. + +The first five concerts at the Concert National were devoted to Cesar +Franck and to other composers. The sixth and last was given to the full +performance of _Marie Magdeleine_. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +JOY AND SORROW + + +The first reading of _Marie Magdeleine_ to the cast took place at nine +o'clock one morning in the small hall of the Maison Erard, Rue de Mail, +which had been used heretofore for quartet concerts. Early as the hour +was Mme. Viardot was even earlier, so eager was she to hear the first +notes of my work. The other interpreters arrived a few moments later. + +Edouard Colonne conducted the orchestra rehearsals. + +Mme. Viardot took a lively interest in the reading. She followed it like +an artist well acquainted with the composition. She was a marvellous +singer and lyric tragedienne and more than an artist; she was a great +musician, a woman marvellously endowed and altogether unusual. + +On the eleventh of April the Odeon received the public which always +attends dress rehearsals and first nights. The theater opened its doors +to All Paris, always the same hundred persons who think it the most +desirable privilege in the world to be present at a rehearsal or a first +night. + +The press was represented as usual. + +I took refuge with my interpreters in the wings. They were all there and +they were highly excited. In their emotion it seemed as if they were to +pass a final sentence on me, that they were about to give a verdict on +which my life depended. + +I can give no account of the impression of the audience. I had to leave +the next day with my wife for Italy, so I had no immediate news. + +The first echo of _Marie Magdeleine_ reached me at Naples in the form of +a touching letter from the ever kindly Ambroise Thomas. + +This is what the master, always so delicately attentive to everything +which marked the steps of my musical career, wrote: + + PARIS, April 12, 1873 + + As I am obliged to go to my country place to-day, I shall, perhaps, + not have the pleasure of seeing you before your departure. In the + uncertainty I cannot postpone telling you, my dear friend, how + pleased I was last evening and how happy I was at your fine + success. + + It is at once a serious, noble work, full of feeling. It is of + _our times_, but you have proved that one can walk the path of + progress and still remain clear, sober, and restrained. + + You have known how to move, because you have been moved yourself. + + I was carried away like everyone else, indeed more than anyone + else. + + You have expressed happily the lovely poetry of that sublime drama. + + In a mystical subject where one is tempted to fall into an abuse of + somber tones and severity of style, you have shown yourself a + colorist while retaining charm and clearness. + + Be content; your work will be heard again and will endure. + + Au revoir; with all my heart I congratulate you. + + My affectionate congratulations to Madame Massenet. + + AMBROISE THOMAS. + +I read and re-read this dear letter. I could not get it out of my +thoughts so agreeable and precious was the comfort it brought me. + +[Illustration: Mme. Pauline Viardot] + +I was lost in such delightful revery when, as we were taking the steamer +for Capri, I saw a breathless hotel servant running towards me with a +package of letters in his hands. They were from my friends in Paris who +were delighted with my success and who were determined to express +their joy to me. A copy of the _Journal des Debats_ was enclosed. It +came from Ernest Reyer and contained over his signature an article which +was most eulogistic of my work, one of the most moving I have ever +received. + +I had now returned to see this charming and intoxicating country. I +visited Naples and Capri, then Sorrento, all picturesque places +captivatingly beautiful, perfumed with the scent of orange trees, and +all this on the morrow of a never to be forgotten evening. I lived in +the most unutterable raptures. + +A week later we were in Rome. + +We had scarcely reached the Hotel de la Minerve when there arrived a +gracious invitation to lunch from the director of the Academie de +France, a member of the Institute, the illustrious painter Ernest +Hebert. + +Several students were invited to this occasion. We breathed the warm air +of that wholly lovely day through the open windows of the director's +salon where De Troy's magnificent tapestries representing the story of +Esther were hung. + +After lunch Hebert asked me to let him hear some of the passages from +_Marie Magdeleine_. Flattering accounts of it had come to him from +Paris. + +The next day the Villa's students invited me in their turn. It was with +the keenest emotion that I found myself once more in that dining room +with its arched ceiling, where my portrait was hung beside those of the +other Grand Prixs. After lunch I saw in a studio opening into the garden +the "Gloria Victis," the splendid masterpiece which was destined to make +the name of Mercie immortal. + +I must confess in speaking of _Marie Magdeleine_ that I had a +presentiment that the work would in the end gain honors on the stage. +However I had to wait twenty years before I had that pleasant +satisfaction. It verified the opinion I had formed of that sacred drama. + +M. Saugey, the able director of the Opera at Nice, was the first to have +the audacity to try it and he could not but congratulate himself. On my +part I tender him my sincere thanks. + +Our first _Marie Magdeleine_ on the stage was Lina Pacary. That born +artist, in voice, beauty and talent was fitted for the creation of this +part, and when the same theater later put on _Ariane_, Lina Pacary was +again selected as the interpreter. Her uninterrupted success made her +theatrical life really admirable. + +The year following my dear friend and director Albert Carre put the work +on at the Opera-Comique. It was my good fortune to have as my +interpreters Mme. Marguerite Carre, Mme. Aino Ackte, and Salignac. + +So I lived again in Rome in the most pleasant thoughts of _Marie +Magdeleine_. Naturally it was the topic of conversation on the ideal +walks I took with Hebert in the Roman Campagna. + +Hebert was not only a great painter but also a distinguished poet and +musician. In the latter capacity he played in a quartet which was often +heard at the Academie. + +Ingres, also a director of the Academie, played the violin. Delacroix +was asked one day what he thought of Ingres's violin playing. + +"He plays like Raphael," was the amusing answer of this brilliant +colorist. + +So delightful was our stay in Rome that it was with regret that we left +that city so dear to our memories and went back to Paris. + +I had hardly got back to No. 46 Rue du General Foy--where I lived for +thirty years--than I became absorbed in a libretto by Jules Adenis--_Les +Templiers_. + +I had hardly written two acts when I began to worry about it. The piece +was extremely interesting, but its historical situations took me along +the road already travelled by Meyerbeer. + +Hartmann agreed with me; indeed my publisher was so outspoken about it +that I tore into bits the two hundred pages which I had submitted to +him. + +In deep trouble, hardly knowing where I was going, I happened to think +of calling on Louis Gallet, my collaborator in _Marie Magdeleine_. I +came from this interview with him with the plan of _Le Roi de Lahore_. +From the funeral pyre of the last Grand Master of the Templars, Jean +Jacques de Molay, whom I had given up, I found myself in the Paradise of +India. It was the seventh heaven of bliss for me. + +Charles Lamoureux, the famous orchestra leader, had just founded the +Concerts de l'Harmonie Sacree in the Cirque des Champs Elysees, which +to-day has disappeared. (What a wicked delight they take in turning a +superb theater into a branch of the Bank or an excellent concert hall +into a grass plot of the Champs Elysees!) + +As everyone knows Haendel's oratorios made these concerts famous and +successful. + +One snowy morning in January Hartmann introduced me to Lamoureux who +lived in a garden in the Cite Frochot. I took with me the manuscript of +_Eve_, a mystical play in three acts. + +The hearing took place before lunch. And by the time we had reached the +coffee we were in complete accord. The work was to go to rehearsal with +the following famous interpreters: Mme. Brunet Lafleur and Mm. Lasalle +and Prunet. + +Les Concerts de l'Harmonie Sacre had _Eve_ on the program of the +eighteenth of March, 1875, as had been arranged. + +In spite of the superb general rehearsal in the entirely empty +hall--that was the reason I was there, for I had already begun to avoid +the excitements of public performances--I waited in a small cafe nearby +for the news brought by an old comrade, Taffanel, then the first flute +player at the Opera and at the Concerts de l'Harmonie Sacree. Ah, my +dear Taffanel, my departed friend, whom I loved so well, how dear to me +were your affection and your talent when you conducted my works at the +Opera! + +After each part Taffanel ran across the street and told me the +comforting news. After the third part he was still encouraging, and he +told me hastily that it was all over, that the audience had gone, and +begged me to come at once and thank Lamoureux. + +I believed him, but what a fraud he was! No sooner was I in the +musicians' foyer than I was blown like a feather into my confreres arms, +which I grabbed as hard as I could, for I now understood the trick. But +they put me down on the stage before the audience which was still there +and still applauding and waving their hats and handkerchiefs. + +I got up, bounced like a ball, and disappeared--furious! + +I have drawn this doubtless exaggerated picture of my success because +the moments which followed were terrible for me and showed in contrast +the vanity of the things of this world. + +A servant had been searching for me all the evening as she did not know +my whereabouts in Paris and she found me at last at the door of the +concert hall. With tears in her eyes she bade me come to my mother who +was very ill. My dear mother was living in the Rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette. +I had sent her seats for herself and my sister and I felt sure that both +of them had been at the concert. + +The servant and I jumped into a cab, and when I reached the landing, my +sister, with outstretched arms and sobbing, cried, "Mamma is dead ... at +ten o'clock this evening." + +Words cannot express my deep grief at this announcement of the terrible +misfortune which had come upon me. It darkened my days just at the time +when it seemed as if a kind heaven wished to drive away the clouds. + +In accordance with my mother's last wishes, she was embalmed the next +day. My sister and I, both prostrated by grief, were there, when we were +surprised by the sudden appearance of Hartmann. I dragged him swiftly +away from the painful sight, and he hurried out, but not before he had +said, + +"You are down for the cross!" + +Poor mother! how proud she would have been! + + March, 21, 1875 + + _Dear Friend:_ + + If I had not lost your card and, consequently, your address, for + which I searched for a quarter of an hour in the _Testaccio_ of my + papers, I would have told you yesterday of my keen joy and deep + emotion at hearing your _Eve_ and at its success. The triumph of + one of the Elect should be a festival for the Church. And you are + one of the Elect, my dear friend; Heaven has marked you with a sign + as one of its children; I feel it in everything which your + beautiful work has stirred in my heart. But prepare for the + martyr's role--for the part which must be played by all who come + from on high and offend what comes from below. Remember that when + the Lord said, "He is one of the Elect," he added, "And I will show + him how greatly he must suffer in my name." + + Wherefore, my dear friend, spread forth your wings boldly, and + trust yourself fearlessly to the lofty regions where the lead of + earth cannot hit the bird of heaven. + + Yours with all my heart, + + CH. GOUNOD. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +MY DEBUT AT THE OPERA + + +Death, which by taking away my mother had stricken me in my dearest +affections, had also taken her mother from my dear wife. So we lived the +next summer at Fontainebleau in a sorrowful house of mourning. + +Remembrance of the dear departed still hung over us, when I learned on +the fifth of June of the death of Bizet. The news came like a thunder +clap. Bizet had been a sincere and affectionate comrade, and I had a +respectful admiration for him although we were about the same age. + +His life was very hard. He felt the spirit within him, and he believed +that his future glory would outlive him. _Carmen_, famous for forty +years, appeared to those called upon to judge a work which contained +good things, although it was somewhat incomplete, and also--what did +they not say at the time?--a dangerous and immoral subject. + +What a lesson on too hasty judgments!... + +On returning to Fontainebleau after the gloomy funeral I tried to take +up my life again and work on _Le Roi de Lahore_ on which I had already +been busy for several months. + +The summer that year was particularly hot and enervating. I was so +depressed that one day when a tremendous storm broke I felt almost +annihilated and let myself fall asleep. + +But if my body was lulled to sleep, my mind remained active; it seemed +never to stop working. Indeed my ideas seemed to profit from this +involuntary rest imposed by Nature to put themselves in order. I heard +as in a dream my third act, the Paradise of India, played on the stage +of the Opera. The intangible performance had, as it were, filled my +mind. The same phenomenon happened to me on several subsequent +occasions. + +I never would have dared to hope it. That day and those which followed I +began to write the rough draft of the instrumental music for that scene +in Paradise. + +Between times I continued to give numerous lessons in Paris, which I +found equally oppressive and enervating. + +I had long since formed the habit of getting up early. My work absorbed +me from four o'clock in the morning until midday and lessons took up the +six hours of the afternoon. Most of the evenings were given to my +pupils' parents. We had music at their homes and we were made much of +and entertained. I have been accustomed to working in the morning like +this all my life, and I still continue the practice. + +After spending the winter and spring in Paris we returned to our calm +and peaceful family home in Fontainebleau. At the beginning of the +summer of 1876 I finished the whole of the orchestral score for _Le Roi +de Lahore_ on which I had now spent several years. + +Finishing a work is to bid good-by to the indescribable pleasure which +the labor gives one! + +I had on my desk eleven hundred pages of orchestral score and my +arrangement for the piano, which I had just finished. + +What would become of this work was the question I asked myself +anxiously. Would it ever be played? As a matter of fact it was written +for a large stage--that was the danger, the dark spot in the future. + +During the preceding winter I had become acquainted with that soulful +poet Charles Grandmougin. The delightful singer of the Promenades and +the impassioned bard of the French Patrie had written a sacred legend in +four parts, _La Vierge_, which he intended for me. + +I have never been able to let my mind lie idle, and I at once started in +on Grandmougin's beautiful verses. Why then should bitter discouragement +arise? I will tell you later. As a matter of fact I could stand it no +longer. I must see Paris again. It seemed to me that I would come back +relieved of my weak heartedness which I had undergone without noticing +it much. + +I went to Paris on the twenty-sixth of July intending to bother Hartmann +with my troubles by confessing them to him. + +But I did not find him in. I strolled to the Conservatoire to pass the +time. A competition on the violin was in progress. When I got there, +they were taking a ten minute rest, and I took advantage of it to pay my +respects to my master Ambroise Thomas in the large room just off the +jury-room. + +As that place, then so delightfully alive, is to-day a desert which has +been abandoned for other quarters, I will describe what the place was in +which I grew up and lived for so many years. + +The room of which I have spoken was reached by a great staircase entered +through a vestibule of columns. As one reached the landing he saw two +large pictures done by some painter or other of the First Empire. The +door opposite opened on a room ornamented by a large mantelpiece and +lighted by a glass ceiling in the style of the ancient temples. + +The furniture was in the style of Napoleon I. + +A door opened into the office of the director of the Conservatoire, a +room large enough to hold ten or a dozen people seated about the green +cloth table or seated or standing at separate tables. The decoration of +the great hall of the Conservatoire was in the Pompeiian style in +harmony with the room I have described. + +Ambroise Thomas was leaning on the mantelpiece. When he saw me, he +smiled joyfully, held out his arms into which I flung myself, and said +with an appearance of resignation, delightful at the time, "Accept it; +it is the first rung." + +"What shall I accept?" I asked. + +"What, you don't know? They gave you the cross yesterday?" + +Emile Rety, the valued general secretary of the Conservatoire, took the +ribbon from his buttonhole and put it in mine, but not without some +difficulty. He had to open it with an ink eraser which he found on the +jury's table near the president's desk. + +That phrase "the first rung," was delightful and profoundly encouraging. + +Now, I had only one urgent errand--to see my publisher. + +I must confess to a feeling which enters into my tastes to such an +extent as to be indicative of my character. I was still so youthful that +I felt uneasy about the ribbon which seemed to blaze and draw all eyes. + +My face was still moist from those lavish embraces and I was planning to +go home to the country when I was stopped on the corner of the Rue de la +Paix by M. Halanzier, the director of the Opera. I was surprised the +more, for I believed that I was only moderately thought of at the Great +House as a result of the refusal of my ballet, _Le Preneur de Rats_. + +But M. Halanzier had a frank and open mind. + +"What are you doing?" he asked. "I hear nothing of you." + +I may add that he had never spoken to me before. + +"How could I dare to speak of my work to the director of the Opera?" I +replied, thoroughly confused. + +"And if I want you to?" + +"Well, I have a simple work in five acts, _Le Roi de Lahore_, with Louis +Gallet." + +"Come to my house, 18 Place Vendome, to-morrow and bring your +manuscript." + +I rushed to tell Gallet, and then went home to Fontainebleau, carrying +my wife the two bits of news, one obvious in my buttonhole, and the +other the greatest hope I had ever had. + +I was at the Place Vendome the next morning at nine o'clock. Gallet was +there already. + +Halanzier lived in a beautiful apartment on the third floor of the +superb mansion which formed one of the corners of the Place Vendome. + +I began the reading at once. Halanzier stopped me so little that I went +right through the whole of the five acts. My voice was gone ... and my +hands were useless from fatigue. + +As I put my manuscript back into my old leather portfolio and Gallet and +I prepared to go: + +"Well! So you leave me no copy?" + +I looked at Gallet in stupefaction. + +"Then you intend to perform the work?" + +"The future will tell." + +I was scarcely reinstalled in our apartment in the Rue du General Foy on +my return to Paris in October, than the morning's mail brought me the +following bulletin from the Opera: + + _Le Roi + 2 heures----Foyer_ + +The parts had been given to Mlle. Josephine de Reszke--her two brothers +Jean and Edouard were to ornament the stage later on--Salomon and +Lassalle, the last creating a role for the first time. + +There was no public dress rehearsal. It was not the custom then as it is +nowadays to have a rehearsal for the "couturieres," then for the +"colonelle" and, finally, the "general" rehearsal. + +In spite of the obviously sympathetic demonstrations of the orchestra +and all the personnel at the rehearsal, Halanzier announced that as they +were putting on the first work of a debutant at the Opera, he wanted to +look after everything himself until after the first performance. + +I want to record again my deep gratitude to that singularly good +director who loved youth and protected it. + +The staging, scenery and costumes were of unheard-of splendor; the +interpretation of the first order.... + +The first performance of _Le Roi de Lahore_, the twenty-seventh of +April, 1877, was a glorious event in my life. + +Apropos of this I recall that on that morning Gustave Flaubert left his +card with the servant, without even asking for me. On it were these +words: + +"This morning I pity you; to-night I shall envy you." + +These lines show so well the admirable understanding of the writer of +_Salammbo_ and that immortal masterpiece _Madame Bovary_. + +The next morning I received the following lines from the famous +architect and great artist Charles Gamier: + + "I do not know whether it is the hall which makes good music; but, + _sapristi_, what I do know is that I lost none of your work and + found it _admirable_. That's the truth. + + "Your + + "CARLO." + +The magnificent Opera had been opened sixteen months previously, January +5, 1875, and the critics had considered it their duty to attack the +acoustics of that marvellous house built by the most exceptionally +competent man of modern times. It is true that the criticism did not +last, for when one speaks of Garnier's magnificent work it is in words +which are eloquent in their simplicity, "What a fine theater!" The hall +obviously has not changed, but the public which pays to Garnier his just +and rightful homage. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE THEATERS IN ITALY + + +The performances of _Le Roi de Lahore_ were running on at the Opera and +they were well attended and finely done. At least that is what I heard +for I had already stopped going. Presently I left Paris where, as I have +said, I devoted myself to giving lessons, and went back to the country +to work on _La Vierge_. + +In the meantime I had learned that the great Italian publisher Guilio +Ricordi had heard _Le Roi de Lahore_ at the Opera and had come to terms +with Hartmann for its production in Italy. Such a thing was really +unique, for at that time the only works translated into Italian and +given in that country were those of the great masters. And they had to +wait a long time for their turn, while it was my good fortune to see _Le +Roi de Lahore_ played on the morrow of its first performance. + +The first house in Italy at which this honor fell to me was the Regio in +Turin. What an unexpected good fortune it was to see Italy again, to +know their theaters from more than the outside, and to go into their +wings! I found in all this a delight which I cannot express and in this +state of rapture I passed the first months of 1878. Hartmann and I went +to Italy on the first of February, 1878. + +With the Scala at Milan, the San Carlo at Naples, the Communal Opera at +Boulogne, the old Apollo at Rome--since demolished and replaced in +popular favor by the Costanzi--with the Pergola at Florence, the Carlo +Felice at Genoa, and the Fenice at Venice, the beautiful Regio Theater, +built opposite the Madame Palace on the Piazza Castella, is one of the +most noted in all Italy. It rivaled then--as it does now--the most +famous houses of that classic land of the arts to which it was always so +hospitable and so receptive. + +The manners at the Regio were entirely different from those at Paris and +were, as I discovered later, much like those in Germany. Absolute +deference and punctilious exactness are the rule, not only among the +artistes but also among the singers of the minor roles. The orchestra +obeys the slightest wish of the director. + +The orchestra at the Regio at that time was conducted by the master +Pedrotti who was subsequently the director of the Rossini Conservatory +at Pesaro. He was known for his gay, vivacious melodies and a number of +operas, among them _Tutti in maschera_. His death was tragic. I can +still hear honest Pedrotti saying repeatedly to me: + +"Are you satisfied? I am so much." + +We had a famous tenor of the time, Signor Fanselli. He had a superb +voice, but a mannerism of spreading his arms wide open in front of him +with his fingers opened out. In spite of the fact that an excessive +fondness for this method of giving expression is almost inevitably +displeasing, many other artists I have known use it to express their +feelings, at least they think they do, when, as a matter of fact, they +feel absolutely nothing. + +His open hands had won for this remarkable tenor the nickname, _Cinque e +cinque fanno dieci!_ (Five and five make ten!) + +Apropos of this first performance I will mention the baritone Mendioroz +and Signorina Mecocci who took part in it. + +Such goings about became very frequent, for scarcely had Hartmann and I +got back to Paris than we had to start off again for Rome where _Il Re +di Lahore_ had the honor of a first performance on March 21, 1879. + +Here I had still more remarkable artists: the tenor Barbaccini, the +baritone Kashmann, both singers of great merit; then Signorina Mariani, +an admirable singer and tragedienne, and her younger sister who was +equally charming. M. Giacovacci, the director at the Apollo, was a +strange old fellow, very amusing and gay, especially when he recalled +the first performance of _The Barber of Seville_ at the Argentine +Theater in the days of his youth. He drew a most interesting picture of +the young Rossini and his vivacity and charm. To have written _The +Barber of Seville_ and _William Tell_ is indeed a most striking evidence +of wit personified and also of a keen mind. + +I profited by my stay in Rome to revisit my dear Villa Medici. It amused +me to reappear there as an author ... how shall I say it? Well (and so +much the worse) let us say, an enthusiastically applauded author. + +I stopped at the Hotel de Rome, opposite the San Carlo, on the Corso. + +The morning after the first performance, they brought a note to my +rooms--I was hardly awake, for we had come in very late--which bore +these words: + + "The next time you stay at a hotel, let me know beforehand, for I + haven't slept all night with all their serenading and toasting you! + What a row! But I am pleased for your sake. + + "Your old friend, + + "DU LOCLE." + +Du Locle! How could it be he! But there he was--my conductor at the +birth of _Don Cesar de Bazan_. I hastened to embrace him. + +The morning of March 21 brought hours of magical delight and alluring +charm. I count them as among the best that I remember. + +I had obtained an audience with the newly enthroned Pope Leo XIII. The +grand salon where I was introduced was preceded by a long antechamber. +Those who had been admitted like myself were kneeling in a row on each +side of the room. The Pope blessed the faithful with his right hand and +spoke a few words to them. His chamberlain told him who I was and why I +had come to Rome, and the Sovereign Pontiff added to his benediction +words of good wishes for my art. + +Leo XIII combined an unusual dignity with a simplicity which reminded me +forcibly of Pius IX. + +After leaving the Vatican I went at eleven o'clock to the Quirinal +Palace. The Marchese di Villamarina was to present me to Queen +Margherita. We passed through a suite of five or six rooms and in the +one where we waited was a crape-covered glass case in which were +souvenirs of Victor Emanuel who had died only recently. There was an +upright piano between the windows. The following detail was almost +theatrical in its impression. I had noticed that an usher was stationed +at the door of each of the salons through which I had come, and I heard +a distant voice, evidently in the first room, announce loudly, La +Regina, then nearer, La Regina, then nearer still, La Regina, and again +and louder, La Regina, and finally in the next salon, in ringing tones, +La Regina. And the Queen appeared in the salon where we were. + +The Marchese di Villamarina presented me, bowed to the Queen, and went +out. + +Her Majesty, in a charming voice, asked me to excuse her for not going +to the opera the evening before to hear _Il Capolavoro_ of the French +master, and, pointing to the glass case, said, "We are in mourning." +Then she added, "As I was deprived of the evening, will you not let me +hear some of the motifs of the opera?" + +As there was no chair beside the piano, I began to play standing. Then I +saw the Queen looking about for a chair and I sprang towards one, placed +it in front of the piano and continued playing as she had asked so +adorably. + +I was much moved when I left her Majesty and I was deeply gratified by +her gracious reception. I passed through the numerous salons and found +the Marchese di Villamarina whom I thanked heartily for his great +courtesy. + +A quarter of an hour later I was in the Via delle Carozze, visiting +Menotti Garibaldi to whom I had a letter of introduction from a friend +in Paris. + +That was no ordinary morning. Indeed it was unusual in view of the +personages I had the honor to see: His Holiness the Pope, her Majesty +the Queen, and the son of Garibaldi. + +I was presented during the day to Prince Massimo of the oldest Roman +nobility. When I asked, perhaps indiscreetly but with genuine curiosity +nevertheless, whether he were descended from Emperor Maximus, he +replied, simply and modestly, "I do not know certainly, but they have +been sure of it in my family for eighteen hundred years." + +After the theater that evening (a superb success), I went to supper at +the house of our ambassador, the Duke de Montebello. At the request of +the duchess I began to play the same motifs I had given in the morning +before her Majesty the Queen. The duchess smoked, and I remember that I +smoked many cigarettes while I played. That gave me the opportunity, as +the smoke rose to the ceiling, to contemplate the marvellous paintings +of the immortal Carrache, the creator of the famous Farnese Gallery. + +Again, what never to be forgotten hours! + +I returned to my hotel about three in the morning where the serenade +with which they entertained me kept my friend du Locle awake. + +Spring passed rapidly on account of my memories of my brilliant winter +in Italy. I set to work at Fontainebleau and finished _La Vierge_. Then +my dear wife and I set out for Milan and the Villa d'Este. + +[Illustration: _By permission of Ad. Braun and Cie., Paris_ + +Titta Ruffo, Caruso and Chaliapine, three artists who sang in Massenet's +works] + +That was a year of enthusiasms, of pure, radiant joy, and its hours of +unutterable good fortune left a mark on my career, which was never to +be erased. + +Giulio Ricordi had invited Mme. Massenet and me, together with our dear +daughter, still quite a child, to spend the month of August at the Villa +d'Este in that marvellously picturesque country about Lake Como. We +found there Mme. Giuditta Ricordi, the wife of our amiable and gracious +host, their daughter Ginette, a delightful playmate for my little girl; +and their sons Tito and Manuel, small boys then but tall gentlemen +since. We also met there a lovely young girl, a rose that had as yet +scarcely blossomed, who during our stay worked at singing with a +renowned Italian professor. + +Arrigo Boito, the famous author of _Mefistole_, who was also a guest at +the Villa d'Este, was as impressed as I was with the unusual quality of +her voice. That prodigious voice, already so wonderfully flexible, was +that of the future artiste who was never to be forgotten in her creation +of _Lakme_ by the glorious and regretted Leo Delibes. I have named Marie +Van Zandt. + +One evening as I entered the Hotel Bella Venezia, on the Piazza San +Fedele at Milan (where even to-day I should be glad to alight) Giulio +Ricordi came to see me and introduced me to a man of great distinction, +an inspired poet, who read me a scenario in four acts on the story of +Herodias, which was tremendously interesting. That remarkable man of +letters was Zanardini, a descendant of one of the greatest families of +Venice. + +It is easy to see how suggestive and inspiring the story of the Tetrach +of Galilee, of Salome, of John, and of Herodias would become under a pen +so rich in colors as that of the man who had painted it. + +On the fifteenth of August during our stay in Italy, _Le Roi de Lahore_ +was put on at the Vienza Theater, and on the third of October came the +first performance at the Communal Theater at Bologna. That was the +reason for our prolonged stay in Italy. + +Our return to Fontainebleau followed immediately and I had to take up my +normal life again and my unfinished work. + +To my surprise I received a visit from M. Emile Rety the day after my +return! He came from Ambroise Thomas to offer me the place of professor +of counterpoint, fugue and composition at the Conservatoire to replace +Francois Bazin who had died some months before. He advised me at the +same time to become a candidate for the Academie des Beaux Arts as the +election of a successor to Bazin was at hand. + +What a contrast to the months of agreeable nonsense and applause in +Italy! I thought that I was forgotten in France, whereas the truth was +the direct opposite. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE CONSERVATOIRE AND THE INSTITUTE + + +I received the official notice of my nomination as professor at the +Conservatoire and I went to Paris. I would have hardly imagined that I +had said good-by to my beloved house at Fontainebleau with no hope of +seeing it again. + +The life which had now begun for me transplanted my summers of work in +the midst of quiet and peaceful solitude--those summers which I had +passed so happily far from the noise and tumult of the city. If books +have their destiny as the poet says (_habent sua fata libelli_), does +not each one of us follow a destiny which is just as certain and +irrevocable? One cannot swim against the stream. It is easy to swim with +it, especially if it carries one to a longed for shore. + +I gave my course at the Conservatoire twice a week, on Tuesdays and +Fridays at half past one. + +I confess that I was both proud and happy to sit in that chair, in the +same classroom where as a child I had received the advice and lessons +of my master. I looked upon my pupils as other or as new +children--grandchildren rather--who received the teaching which had come +to me and which seemed to filter through the memories of the master who +had imbued me with it. + +The young people with whom I had to do seemed nearly my own age, and I +said to them by way of encouraging them and urging them on to work: "You +have but one companion the more, who tries to be as good a pupil as you +are yourselves." + +It was touching to see the deferential affection which they showed me +from the first day. I was completely happy when I surprised them +sometimes chatting and telling their impressions of the work given the +day before or to be given to-morrow. At the beginning of my +professorship that work was _Le Roi de Lahore_. + +Thus I continued for eighteen years to be both friend and "patron," as +they called me, of a considerable number of young composers. + +Since I took such joy in it, I may perhaps recall the successes they won +each year in the contests in fugue, and how useful this teaching was to +me, for it obliged me to be very clever, face to face with a task, in +finding quickly what should be done in accordance with the rigorous +precepts of Cherubini. + +How delighted I was for eighteen years when nearly annually the Grand +Prix de Rome was awarded to a pupil in my class! I longed to go to the +Conservatoire and heap the honors on my master. + +I can still see, at evening in his peaceful salon with the windows +overlooking the Conservatoire's courtyard--deserted at that hour--the +good Administrator-General Emile Rety listening to me as I told him of +my happiness in having assisted in the success of "my children." + +A few years ago I received a touching expression of their feeling toward +me. + +In the month of December, 1900, I saw come to my publishers, where they +knew they could find me, Lucien Hillemacher, since dead, alas, +accompanied by a group of old Grand Prix. He delivered to me on +parchment the signatures of more than five hundred of my old pupils. The +pages were bound into a thin octavo volume, bound luxuriously in Levant +morocco, spangled with stars. On the fly-leaves in brilliant +illumination, along with my name, were the two dates: 1878-1900. + +The signatures were preceded by the following lines: + + _Dear Master:_ + + Happy at your nomination as Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor, + your pupils unite in offering you this evidence of their deep and + affectionate gratitude. + + The names of the Grand Prix of the Institute who showed me their + gratitude in this way were: Hillemacher, Henri Rabaud, Max + D'Ollone, Alfred Bruneau, Gaston Carraud, G. Marty, Andre Floch, A. + Savard, Croce-Spinelli, Lucien Lambert, Ernest Moret, Gustave + Charpentier, Reynaldo Hahn, Paul Vidal, Florent Schmitt, Enesco, + Bemberg, Laparra, d'Harcourt, Malherbe, Guy Ropartz, Tiersot, + Xavier Leroux, Dallier, Falkenberg, Ch. Silver, and so many other + dear friends of the class! + +Ambroise Thomas saw that I had no thought of standing for the Institute +as he had done me the honor of advising me and was good enough to warn +me that I still had two days left in which to send out the letter of +candidature for the Academie des Beaux Arts. He advised me to make it +short, adding that the mention of titles was necessary only when one +was able to ignore them. This sensible remark rather wounded my +modesty.... + +Election day was fixed for Saturday, November 30. I knew that there were +many candidates and that first and foremost among them was Saint-Saens, +whose friend and great admirer I was and always have been. + +I yielded to Ambroise Thomas without the slightest expectation of being +elected. + +I had spent the day as usual giving lessons in the various parts of +Paris. That morning, however, I had said to Hartmann, my publisher, that +I should be at the house of a pupil, No. 11, Rue Blanche, that evening +between five and six. And I said, laughing, that he would know where to +find me to announce the result whatever it was. Whereupon Hartmann said +grandiloquently, "If you are a member of the Institute this evening, I +will ring twice and you will understand me." + +I was about to begin work at the piano, my mind all on my work, on the +_Promenades d'un Solitaire_, by Stephen Heller (What a dear musician, +that Alfred de Musset of the piano, as they called him!) when two sharp +rings of the bell sounded. My heart stopped. My pupil could not make +out what was the matter. + +A servant dashed in and said, "There are two gentlemen who want to +embrace your professor." Everything was explained. I went with those +"Messieurs," even more startled than happy, and leaving my pupil +probably better pleased than I was. + +When I reached home I found that I had been preceded by my new and +famous colleagues. They had left their congratulations with my concierge +signed Meissonier, Lefeul, Ballu, Cabanel. Meissonier had brought the +report of the sitting signed by him, which showed the two votes, for I +was elected on the second ballot. That was certainly an autograph the +like of which I would not receive twice in my life! + +A fortnight later, according to the custom, I was introduced in the +Salle des Seances of the Academie des Beaux-Arts by Comte Delaborde, the +permanent secretary. + +A new member had to wear a black coat and a white tie, and going to the +reception in dress clothes at three o'clock in the afternoon, one would +have thought I was on my way to a wedding. + +I took my place in the chair which I still occupy. That takes me back +more than thirty-three years! + +A few days later I wanted to take advantage of my privileges by +attending the reception of Renan. The ushers did not know me yet, and I +was the Benjamin of the Academie. They would not believe me and refused +to let me in. One of my colleagues, and not the least of them, Prince +Napoleon, who was going in at the same time, told them who I was. + +While I was making the usual round of visits of thanks, I called on +Ernest Reyer at his picturesque apartment in the Rue de la Tour +d'Auvergne. He opened the door himself and was much surprised to see me +for he knew I must know that he had not been altogether favorable to me. +"I know," I said, "that you did not vote for me. What touched me was +that you did not vote against me!" This put Reyer in good humor, for he +said, "I am at lunch. Share my fried eggs with me!" I accepted and we +talked a long time about art and its manifestations. + +For over thirty years Ernest Reyer was my best and firmest friend. + +As one might imagine, the Institute did not sensibly modify my +position. Indeed it made it somewhat more difficult, as I wanted to get +on with the score of _Herodiade_, and so stopped several lessons which +were my most certain sources of revenue. + + * * * * * + +Three weeks after my election a monster festival took place at the +Hippodrome. More than twenty thousand people took part. Gounod and +Saint-Saens conducted their own works. I had the honor of directing the +finale of the third act of _Le Roi de Lahore_. Everyone remembers the +prodigious effect of that festival which was organized by Albert +Vizentini, one of the best companions of my childhood. + +While I was waiting in the green-room for my turn to go on, Gounod came +in haloed with triumph. I asked him what he thought of the audience. + +"I fancied that I saw the Valley of Jehosophat," he said. + +An amusing detail was told me afterwards. + +There was a considerable crowd outside and the people kept on trying to +get in notwithstanding the loud protests of those already seated. Gounod +shouted so as to be heard distinctly, "I will begin when everyone has +_gone out!_" This amazing exclamation worked wonders. The groups which +had blocked the entrance and approaches to the Hippodrome recoiled. They +vanished as if by magic. + +The second of the Concerts Historiques, founded by Vaucorbeil, the +Director of the National Academy of Music at the time, took place at the +Opera on May 20, 1880. He gave my sacred legend _La Vierge_. Mme. +Gabrielle Krauss and Mlle. Daram were the principals and splendid +interpreters they were. + +That work is a rather painful memory in my life. Its reception was cold +and only one fragment seemed to satisfy the large audience which filled +the hall. They encored three times the passage which is now in the +repertoire of many concerts, the prelude to Part IV, _Le Dernier Sommeil +de la Vierge_. + +Some years later the Societe des Concerts du Conservatoire twice gave +the fourth part of_ La Vierge_ in its entirety. Mme. Aino Ackte was +really sublime in her interpretation of the role of the Virgin. This +success was completely satisfying to me; I had nearly said, the most +precious of revenges. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +A FIRST PERFORMANCE AT BRUSSELS + + +My trips to Italy, journeys devoted to following, if not to the +preparation of, the successive performances of _Le Roi de Lahore_ at +Milan, Piacenza, Venice, Pisa and Trieste on the other side of the +Adriatic, did not prevent my working on the score of _Herodiade_ and it +was soon finished. + +Perhaps such wanderings are surprising since they are so little to my +taste. Many of my pupils, however, have followed my example in this +regard and the reason is obvious. At the beginning of our careers we +have to give hints to the orchestras, the stage manager, the artists and +costumers; the why and wherefore of each scene must, oftentimes, be +explained, and the tempo, as given by the metronome, is little like the +true one. + +I have let such things go for a long time for they take care of +themselves. It is true that, since I have been known for so many years, +it would be difficult to make a choice and decide where I ought to go. +And where should I begin--'twere among my keenest desires--personally +to express my gratitude to all the directors and artists who now know my +work. As to the hints I might have given them, they have gone ahead and +departures from the true rendering have become rare, much more so than +in the beginning when both directors and artists ignored my wishes and +could not foresee them; in short, when my works were, to them, those of +an unknown. + +I must recall, and I do so with sincere emotion, all I owe in the great +provincial houses to those kind directors, so affectionately devoted to +me: Graviere, Saugey, Villefranck, Rachet, and many others who can claim +my thanks and my most grateful congratulations. + +During the summer of 1879 I lived at the seashore at Pourville near +Dieppe. Hartmann, my publisher, and Paul Milliet, my collaborator, spent +the Sundays with me. When I say with me, I abuse the words for I kept +company but little with these excellent friends. I was accustomed to +work fifteen or sixteen hours a day, sleep six hours, and my meals and +dressing took the rest of the time. It is only through such tireless +labor continued without ceasing for years that works of great power and +scope can be produced. + +Alexander Dumas, the Younger, whose modest contemporary I had been at +the Institute for a year, lived in a superb property at Puys near +Dieppe. His being near often furnished me with delightful pleasures. I +was never so happy as when he came for me at seven o'clock in the +evening to take me to dinner. He brought me back at nine o'clock so as +not to take up my time. He wanted me to have a friendly rest, and indeed +it was a rest which was both exquisite and altogether delightful. It is +easy to imagine what a treat the vivacious, sparkling, alluring +conversation of the celebrated Academician was to me. + +How I envied him then for those artistic joys which he had tasted and +which I was to know later! He received and kept his interpreters at his +home and made them work on their parts. At this time Mme. Pasca, the +superb comedienne, was his guest. + +The score of _Herodiade_ was finished at the beginning of 1881. Hartmann +and Paul Milliet advised me to inform the directorate of the Opera. The +three years I had given to _Herodiade_ had been one uninterrupted joy to +me. They were marked by a never to be forgotten and unexpected +concentration. + +In spite of the dislike I have always had for knocking at the doors of a +theater, I had, nevertheless, to decide to speak of this work and I went +to the Opera and had an interview with M. Vaucorbeil, the Director of +the National Academy of Music. Here is the conversation I was honored +with: + +"My dear Director, as the Opera has been in a small way my house with +_Le Roi de Lahore_, permit me to speak of a new work, _Herodiade_." + +"Who is your librettist?" + +"Paul Milliet, a man of considerable talent whom I like immensely." + +"I like him immensely too; but with him one needs ... (thinking of a +word) ... a _carcassier_." + +"_A carcassier!_" I replied in utter astonishment; "_a carcassier!_ What +kind of an animal is that?" + +"A _carcassier_," added the eminent director, sententiously, "a +_carcassier_ is one who knows how to fix up in solid fashion the carcass +of a piece, and I may add that you are not enough of a _carcassier_ in +the strictest sense of the word. Bring me another work and the National +Theater of the Opera will be open to you." + +I understood. The Opera was closed to me, and some days after this +painful interview I learned that the scenery of _Le Roi de Lahore_ had +been relegated irrevocably to the storehouse in the Rue Richer--which +meant the final abandonment. + +One day that same summer I was walking on the Boulevard des Capuchines, +not far from the Rue Daunou; my publisher, George Hartmann, lived in a +ground-floor apartment at the end of the court at No. 20 of this street. +My thoughts were terribly dark. I went along with careworn face and +fainting heart deploring the deceitful promises the directors had +sprinkled on me like holy water, when I was suddenly saluted and stopped +by one whom I recognized as M. Calabresi, director of the Theatre Royal +de la Monnaie at Brussels. + +I stopped nonplussed. Must I put him too in my collection of +wooden-faced directors? + +"I know," said M. Calabresi, as he accosted me, "that you have a great +work, _Herodiade_. If you will give it to me, I will put it on at once +at the Theatre de la Monnaie." + +"But you don't know it," I said. + +"I would never dream of asking a hearing--of you!" + +"Well," I replied at once, "I will inflict it on you." + +"But I am going back to Brussels to-morrow morning." + +"This evening, then," I retorted. "I shall expect you at eight o'clock +in Hartmann's shop. It will be closed by that time ... we shall be +alone." + +I hurried to Hartmann's, radiant, and told him, laughing and crying, +what had happened to me. + +A piano was brought immediately, and Paul Milliet was hurriedly +informed. + +Alphonse de Rothschild, my colleague at the Academie des Beaux Arts, +knew that I had to go to Brussels very often for the rehearsals of +_Herodiade_. They were about to begin at the Theatre Royal de la +Monnaie, and he wanted me to avoid delays at the stations so he gave me +a pass. + +They became so accustomed to seeing me cross the frontier at Feignies +and Quevy that I became a real friend of the customs' officers, +especially of those on the Belgian side. I remember that to thank them +for their kind attentions I sent them seats for the Theatre de la +Monnaie. + +A real ceremony took place at the Theatre Royal in the month of October +of this same year 1881. As a matter of fact _Herodiade_ was the first +French work to be created on the superb stage of the capital of Belgium. + +On the appointed day, my two excellent directors, Stoumon and Calabresi, +went with me as far as the great public foyer. It was a vast place with +gilt paneling and was lighted from the colonnaded peristyle of the +theater on the Place de la Monnaie. On the other side of the Place (a +relic of old Brussels) was the Mint and, in a corner, the Stock +Exchange. These buildings have since disappeared and have been replaced +by a magnificent Post Office. The Exchange has been moved to a +magnificent palace a short ways away. + +In the middle of the foyer to which I was taken was a grand piano about +which there were twenty chairs arranged in a semi-circle. Besides the +directors, there were my publisher and my collaborator, as well as the +artists we had selected to create the parts. At the head of these +artists was Martha Duvivier, whose talent, fame, and beauty fitted her +for the role of Salome; Mlle. Blanche Deschamps, later the wife of the +famous orchestra leader Leon Jehin, had the role of Herodiade; Vernet, +Jean; Manoury, Herod; the elder Gresse, Phanuel. I went to the piano, +turned my back towards the windows, and sang all the roles including the +choruses. + +I was young, eager, happy, and, I add to my shame, very greedy. But if I +accuse myself, it is to excuse myself--for leaving the piano so often to +get a bite at a table laden with exquisite food spread out on a +plentiful buffet in the same foyer. Every time I got up, the artists +stopped me as if to say, "Have pity.... Keep on.... Continue.... Don't +stop again." I ate almost all the food which had been prepared for us +all. The artists were so much pleased that they thought more of +embracing me than of eating. Why should I complain? + +I lived at the Hotel de la Poste, Rue Fosse-aux-Loups, beside the +theater. In the same room, on the ground floor on the corner of the +hotel overlooking the Rue d'Argent, I wrote, the following autumn, the +rough draft of the Seminaire act of _Manon_. Later on I preferred to +live in the dear kindly Hotel du Grand-Monarque, Rue des Fripiers, and +I continued to do so until 1910. + +This hotel plays a part in my deepest memories. I lived there often with +Reyer, the author of _Sigurd_ and of _Salammbo_, my colleague at the +Academie des Beaux-Arts. There, we both lost our collaborator and friend +Ernest Blau. He died here, and in spite of the custom that no funeral +black shall be hung in front of a hotel, Mlle. Wanters, the +proprietress, insisted that the obsequies should be public and should +not be concealed from the people who lived there. In the salon among +strangers we said the tender words of farewell to the collaborator on +_Sigurd_ and _Esclarmonde_. + +A grim detail! Our poor friend Blau dined the evening of his death at +the house of Stoumon, the director. As he was early, he stopped in the +Rue des Sablons to look at some luxurious coffins displayed in an +undertaker's shop. As we had just paid our last farewell and had placed +the mortal remains of Blau in a temporary vault beside the casket of a +young girl, which was covered with white roses, one of the bearers +observed that if he had been consulted the deceased could not have +chosen a better neighborhood. The head undertaker reflected: "We have +done things well. M. Blau noticed a fine coffin and we let him have it +cheap." + +As we came from that vast cemetery, comparatively empty at that time, we +were all impressed by the poignant grief of Mme. Jeanne Raunay, the +great artiste. She walked slowly by the side of the great master +Gevaert. + +Oh, mournful winter day! + + * * * * * + +The rehearsals of _Herodiade_ went on at the Monnaie. They were full of +delirious joy and surprises for me. Its success was considerable. Here +is what I find in the papers of the times. + + * * * * * + +At last the great night came. + +From the night before--Sunday--the public formed lines at the entrance +to the theater (the cheaper seats were not sold in advance at that +time). The ticket sellers spent the whole night in this way, and while +some sold their places in line at a high price on Monday morning, others +held on and sold places in the pit for sixty francs on the average. A +stall cost one hundred and fifty francs. + +That evening the auditorium was taken by storm. + +Before the curtain rose, the Queen entered her stage box accompanied by +two ladies of honor and Captain Chretien, the King's orderly. + +In the neighboring box were their Royal Highnesses the Count and +Countess of Flanders, accompanied by the Baron Van den Bossch d'Hylissem +and Count Oultremont de Duras, grand master of the princely household. + +In the Court Boxes were Jules Devaux, chief of the King's cabinet; +Generals Goethals and Goffinet, aides-de-camp; Baron Lunden, Colonel +Baron Anethan, Major Donny, Captain Wyckerslooth, the King's orderlies. + +In the principal boxes: M. Antonin Proust, Minister of Fine Arts in +France, with Baron Beyens, Belgian Minister to Paris, the heads of the +cabinet, and Mme. Frere Orban, etc. + +In the lower stage box: M. Buls, recently elected Burgomaster, and the +aldermen. + +In the stalls and balcony were numerous people from Paris: the +composers, Reyer, Saint-Saens, Benjamin Godard, Joncieres, Guiraud, +Serpette, Duvernois, Julien Porchet, Wormser, Le Borne, Lecocq, etc., +etc. + +This brilliant emotional audience, said the chronicles of the time, made +the work a delirious success. + +Between the second and the third acts Queen Marie Henriette summoned the +composer to her box and congratulated him warmly, as well as Reyer +whose _Statue_ had just been given at the Monnaie. + +The enthusiasm swelled crescendo to the end of the evening. The last act +ended amid cheers. There were loud calls for the composer and the +curtain was raised several times, but the "author" did not appear. As +the audience was unwilling to leave the house, the stage manager, +Lapissida, who had staged the work, finally had to announce that the +author had left as soon as the performance ended. + +Two days after the Premiere the composer was invited to dine at Court +and a royal decree appeared in the _Moniteur_ naming him Chevalier de +l'Ordre de Leopold. + +The dazzling success of the first performance was trumpeted through the +European press, which, almost without exception, praised it in +enthusiastic terms. As to the enthusiasm of the first days, it continued +persistently through fifty-five consecutive performances, which, +according to the papers, realized four thousand francs every evening +above the subscriptions. + +_Herodiade_, which made its first appearance on the stage of the Monnaie +December 19, 1881, under the exceptionally brilliant circumstances just +quoted from the newspapers of Belgium as well as of other countries, +reappeared at this theater, after many revivals, during the first +fortnight of November, 1911--nearly thirty years later. _Herodiade_ long +ago passed its hundredth performance at Brussels. + +And I was already thinking of a new work. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE ABBE PREVOST AT THE OPERA-COMIQUE + + +One autumn morning in 1881 I was much disturbed, even anxious. Carvalho, +the director of the Opera-Comique, had entrusted to me the three acts of +_Phoebe_ by Henri Meilhac. I had read and re-read them, but nothing in +them appealed to me; I clashed with the work which I had to do; I was +nervous and impatient. + +With fine bravery I went to see Meilhac. The happy author of so many +delightful works, of so many successes, was in his library, among his +rare books in marvellous bindings, a fortune piled up in his rooms on +the mezzanine floor in which he lived at 30 Rue Drouot. + +I can still see him writing on a small round table beside a large table +of the purest Louis XIV style. He had hardly seen me than he smiled his +good smile, as if pleased, in the belief that I brought news of our +_Phoebe_. + +"Is it finished?" he asked. + +I retorted _illico_ to this greeting, in a less assured tone: + +"Yes, it is finished; we will never speak of it again." + +A lion in his cage could not have been more abashed. My perplexity was +extreme; I saw a void, nothingness, about me, when the title of a work +struck me as a revelation. + +"_Manon!_" I cried, pointing to one of Meilhac's books. + +"_Manon Lescaut_, do you mean _Manon Lescaut_?" + +"No, _Manon_, _Manon_ short, _Manon_, it is _Manon!_" + +Meilhac had separated from Dudovic Halevy a little while before and had +associated himself with Philippe Gille, that fine, delightful mind, a +tender-hearted and charming man. + +"Come to lunch with me to-morrow at Vachette's," said Meilhac, "and I +will tell you what I have done...." + +It is easy to imagine whether in keeping this engagement I had more +curiosity in my heart or appetite in my stomach. I went to Vachette's +and there to my inexpressible and delightful surprise I found beneath my +napkin--the first two acts of _Manon_. The other three acts followed +within a few days. + +The idea of writing this work had haunted me for a long time. Now the +dream was realized. + +Although I was much excited by the rehearsals of _Herodiade_ and greatly +upset by my frequent trips to Brussels, I was already at work on _Manon_ +in the summer of 1881. + +Meilhac went to live that summer in the Pavillion Henri IV at +Saint-Germain. I used to surprise him there about five o'clock in the +afternoon, when I knew the day's work would be done. Then, as we walked, +we worked out new arrangements in the words of the opera. Here we +decided on the Seminaire act, and, to bring off a greater contrast at +the end of it, I demanded the act of Transylvania. + +How pleased I was in this collaboration, in that work in which we +exchanged ideas with never a clash, in the mutual desire of reaching +perfection if possible. + +Philippe Gille shared in this useful collaboration from time to time, +and his presence was dear to me. + +What tender, pleasing memories I have of this time at Saint-Germain, +with its magnificent terrace, and the luxuriant foliage of its +beautiful forest. My work was well along when I had to return to +Brussels at the beginning of the summer of 1882. During my different +sojourns at Brussels I made a delightful friend in Frederix, who showed +rare mastery of the pen in his dramatic and lyric criticism in the +columns of the _Independance belge_. He occupied a prominent position in +journalism in his own country and was highly appreciated as well by the +French press. + +He was a man of great worth, endowed with a charming character. His +expressive, spirituel, open countenance rather reminded me of the oldest +of the Coquelins. He was among the first of those dear good friends I +have known whose eyes have closed in the long sleep, alas! and who are +no more either for me or for those who loved them. + +Our Salome, Martha Duvivier, had continued to sing the role in +_Herodiade_ throughout the new season, and had installed herself for the +summer in a country house near Brussels. My friend Frederix carried me +off there one day and, as I had the manuscript of the first acts of +_Manon_ with me, I risked an intimate reading before him and our +beautiful interpreter. The impression I took away with me was an +encouragement to keep on with the work. + +The reason I returned to Belgium at this time was that I had been +invited to go to Holland under conditions which were certainly amusing. + +A Dutch gentleman, a great lover of music, with phlegm more apparent +than real, as is often the case with those Rembrandt's country sends us, +made me the most singular visit, as unexpected as it well could be. He +had learned that I was working on the romance of the Abbe Prevost, and +he offered to install my penates at the Hague, in the very room in which +the Abbe had lived. I accepted the offer, and I went and shut myself +up--this was during the summer of 1882--in the room which the author of +_Les Memories d'un homme de qualite_ had occupied. His bed, a great +cradle, shaped like a gondola, was still there. + +The days slipped by at the Hague in dreaming and strolling over the +dunes of Schleveningin or in the woods around the royal residence. There +I made delightfully exquisite little friends of the deer who brought me +the fresh breath of their damp muzzles. + +It was now the spring of 1883. I had returned to Paris and, as the work +was finished, an appointment was made at M. Carvalho's. I found there +our director, Mme. Miolan Carvalho, Meilhac, and Philippe Gille. _Manon_ +was read from nine in the evening until midnight. My friends appeared to +be delighted. + +Mme. Carvalho embraced me joyfully, and kept repeating, + +"Would that I were twenty years younger!" + +I consoled the great artiste as best I could. I wanted her name on the +score and I dedicated it to her. + +We had to find a heroine and many names were suggested. The male roles +were taken by Talazac, Taskin and Cobalet--a superb cast. But no choice +could be made for Manon. Many had talent, it was true, and even great +fame, but I did not feel that a single artist answered for the part as I +wanted it and could play the perfidious darling Manon with all the heart +I had put into her. + +However, I found a young artist, Mme. Vaillant Couturier, who had such +attractive vocal qualities that I trusted her with a copy of several +passages of the score. I made her work at them at my publisher's. She +was indeed my first Manon. + +They were playing at this time at Les Nouveautes one of Charles Lecocq's +great successes. My great friend, Marquis de la Valette, a Parisian of +the Parisians, dragged me there one evening. Mlle. Vaillant--later Mme. +Couturier--the charming artiste of whom I have spoken, played the +leading part adorably. She interested me greatly; to my eyes she greatly +resembled a young flower girl on the Boulevard Capucines. I had never +spoken to this delightful young girl (_proh pudor_) but her looks +obsessed me and her memory accompanied me constantly; she was exactly +the Manon I had had in my mind's eye during my work. + +I was carried away by the captivating artiste of Les Nouveautes, and I +asked to speak to the friendly director of the theater, a free and open +man, and an incomparable artist. + +"_Illustrious master_" he began, "what good wind brings you? You are at +home here, as you know!" + +"I came to ask you to let me have Mlle. Vaillant for a new opera." + +"Dear man, what you want is impossible; I need Mlle. Vaillant. I can't +let you have her." + +"Do you mean it?" + +"Absolutely, but I think that if you would write a work for my theater, +I would let you have this artiste. Is it a bargain, _bibi_?" + +Matters stayed there with only vague promises on both sides. + +While this dialogue was going on, I noticed that the excellent Marquis +de La Valette was much occupied with a pretty gray hat covered with +roses passing back and forth in the foyer. + +All at once I saw the pretty hat coming towards me. + +"So a debutant no longer recognizes a debutante?" + +"Heilbronn!" I exclaimed. + +"Herself!" + +Heilbronn recalled the dedication written on the first work I had done +and in which she had made her first appearance on the stage. + +"Do you still sing?" + +"No, I am rich, but nevertheless---- Shall I tell you?--I miss the +stage. It haunts me. Oh, if I could only find a good part!" + +"I have one in _Manon_." + +"_Manon Lescaut_?" + +"No, _Manon_. That is all." + +"May I hear the music?" + +"When you like." + +"This evening?" + +"Impossible, it is nearly midnight." + +"What? I can't wait till morning. I feel that there is something in it. +Go and get the score. You will find me in my apartment (the artiste +lived in the Champs Elysees) with the piano open and the lights lit." + +I did as she said. + +I went home and got the score. Half-past four had struck when I sang the +final bars of Manon's death. + +During my rendering Heilbronn was moved to tears. I heard her sigh +through her sobs, "It is my life ... that is my life." + +This time, as ever has been the case, the sequel showed that I was right +to wait, to take time in choosing an artist who would have to live my +work. + +The day after he heard _Manon_, Carvalho signed the contract. + +The following year, after more than eighty consecutive performances, I +learned of Marie Heilbronn's death!... + +I preferred to stop the performances rather than to see it sung by +another. Some time afterwards the Opera-Comique went up in flames. +_Manon_ was not given again for ten years. Dear unique Sybil Sanderson +took up the work at the Opera-Comique and she played in the +two-hundredth performance. + +A glory was reserved for me on the five hundredth performance. _Manon_ +was sung by Marguerite Carre. A few months ago this captivating, +exquisite artist was applauded on the evening of the 740th performance. + +In passing I want to pay tribute to the beautiful artistes who have +taken the part. I will mention Mlles. Mary Garden, Geraldine Farrar, +Lina Cavalieri, Mme. Brejean-Silver, Mlles. Courtenay, Genevieve Vix, +Mmes. Edvina and Nicot-Vauchelet, and still other dear artistes. They +will pardon me if all their names do not come to my grateful pen at the +moment. + +The Italian Theatre (Maurel's Season), as I have already said, put on +_Herodiade_ two weeks after the first performance of _Manon_, with the +following admirable artists: Fides Devries, Jean de Reszke, Victor +Maurel, Edouard de Reszke. + +As I write these lines in 1911, _Herodiade_ continues its career at the +Theatre-Lyrique de la Gaite (under the management of the Isola brothers) +who put on the work in 1903 with the famous Emma Calve. The day after +the first performance of _Herodiade_ in Paris I received these lines +from our illustrious master, Gounod: + + Sunday, February 3, '84. + + My dear Friend: + + The noise of your success with _Herodiade_ reaches me; but I lack + that of the work itself, and I shall go to hear it as soon as + possible, probably Saturday. Again new congratulations, and + + Good luck to you, CH. GOUNOD. + +Meanwhile _Marie Magdeleine_ went on its career in the great festivals +abroad. I recall the following letter which Bizet wrote me some years +before with deep pride. + + Our school has not produced anything like it. You give me the + fever, brigand. + + You are a proud musician, I'll wager. + + My wife has just put _Marie Magdeleine_ under lock and key! + + That detail is eloquent, is it not? + + The devil! You've become singularly disturbing. + + As to that, believe me that no one is more sincere in his + admiration and in his affection than your, + + BIZET. + +That is the testimony of my excellent comrade and affectionate friend, +George Bizet--a friend and comrade who would have remained steadfast had +not blind destiny torn him from us in the full bloom of his prodigious +and marvelous talent. + +Still in the dawn of life when he passed from this world, he could have +compassed everything in the art to which he devoted himself with so much +love. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +FIVE COLLABORATORS + + +As is my custom, I did not wait for _Manon's_ fate to be decided before +I began to plague my publisher, Hartmann, to wake up and find me a new +subject. I had hardly finished my plaint, to which he listened in +silence with a smile on his lips, than he went to a desk and took out +five books of manuscript written on the yellow paper which is well known +to copyists. It was _Le Cid_, an opera in five acts by Louis Gallet and +Edouard Blatt. As he offered me the manuscript, Hartmann made this +comment to which I had nothing to reply, "I know you. I had foreseen +this outburst." + +I was bound to be pleased at writing a work based on the great +Corneille's masterpiece, the libretto due to the fellow workers I had +had in the competition for the Imperial Opera, _La Coup de roi de +Thule_, in which, as I have said, I failed to win the first prize. + +I learned the words by heart, as I always did. I wanted to have it +constantly in my thoughts, without being compelled to keep the text in +my pocket, so as to be able to work at it away from home, in the +streets, in society, at dinner, at the theater, anywhere that I might +find time. I get away from a task with difficulty, especially when, as +in this case, I am gripped by it. + +As I worked I remembered that d'Ennery sometime before had entrusted to +me an important libretto and that I had found a very moving situation in +the fifth act. While the words did not appear sufficiently worth while +to lead me to write the music, I wanted to keep this situation. I told +the famous dramatist and I obtained his consent to interpolate this +scene in the second act of _Le Cid_. Thus d'Ennery became a +collaborator. This scene is where Chimene finds that Rodriguez is her +father's murderer. + +Some days later, as I was reading the romance of Guilhem de Castro, I +came across an incident which became the tableau where the consoling +apparition appears to the Cid as he is in tears--the second tableau in +the third act. I was inspired to this by the apparition of Jesus to +Saint Julien the Hospitalier. + +I continued my work on _Le Cid_ wherever I happened to be, as the +performances of _Manon_ took me to the provincial theaters where they +alternated it with _Herodiade_ both in France and abroad. + +I wrote the ballet for _Le Cid_ at Marseilles during a rather long stay +there. I was very comfortably established in my room, at the Hotel +Beauveau, with its long latticed windows which looked out on the old +port. The prospect was actually fairylike. This room was decorated with +remarkable panels and mirrors, and when I expressed my astonishment at +seeing them so well preserved, the proprietor told me that the room was +an object of special care because Paganini, Alfred de Musset and George +Sand had all lived there once upon a time. The cult of memories +sometimes reaches the point of fetishism. + +It was spring. My room was scented with bunches of carnations which my +friends in Marseilles sent me every day. When I say friends, the word is +too weak; perhaps it is necessary to go to mathematics to get the word, +and even then? + +The friends in Marseilles heaped upon me consideration, attention and +endless kindness. That is the country where they sweeten the coffee by +placing it outside on the balcony, for the sea is made of honey! + +Before I left the kind hospitality of this Phocean city, I received the +following letter from the directors of the Opera, Ritt and Gailhard: + + "My dear Friend, + + "Can you set the day and hour for your reading of Le Cid? + + "In friendship, + + "E. Ritt." + +But I had brought from Paris keen anguish about the distribution of the +parts. I wanted the sublime Mme. Fides Devries to create the part of +Chimene, but they said that since her marriage she no longer wanted to +appear on the stage. I also depended on my friends Jean and Edouard de +Reszke, who came to Paris especially to talk about _Le Cid_. They were +aware of my plans for them. How many times I climbed the stairs of the +Hotel Scribe where they lived! + +At last the contracts were signed and finally the reading took place as +the Opera requested. + +As I speak of the ballet in _Le Cid_ I remember I heard the motif, which +begins the ballet, in Spain. I was in the very country of _Le Cid_ at +the time, living in a modest inn. It chanced that they were celebrating +a wedding and they danced all night in the lower room of the hotel. +Several guitars and two flutes repeated a dance tune until they wore it +out. I noted it down. It became the motif I am writing about, a bit of +local color which I seized. I did not let it get away. I intended this +ballet for Mlle. Rosita Mauri who had already done some wonderful dances +at the Opera. I even owed several interesting rhythms to the famous +dancer. + +The land of the Magyars and France have been joined at all times by +bonds of keen, cordial sympathy. It was not a surprise, therefore, when +the Hungarian students invited forty Frenchmen--I was one--to go to +Hungary for festivities which they intended to give in our honor. + +We started--a joyous caravan--one beautiful evening in August for the +banks of the Danube, Francois Coppee, Leo Delibes, Georges Clairin, +Doctors Pozzi and Albert Rodin, and many other comrades and charming +friends. Then, some newspaper men went along. Ferdinand de Lesseps was +at our head to preside over us, by right of name if not by fame. Our +illustrious compatriot was nearly eighty at the time. He bore the weight +of years so lightly that for a moment one would have thought he was the +youngest in the lot. + +We started off in uproarious gaiety. The journey was one uninterrupted +flow of jests and humorous wit, intermingled with farce and endless +pleasantries. + +The restaurant car was reserved for us. We did not leave it all night +and our sleeping car was absolutely unoccupied. + +As we went through Munich, the Orient Express stopped for five minutes +to let off two travelers, a man and a woman, who, we did not know how, +had contrived to squeeze into a corner of the dining car and who had +calmly sat through all our follies. As they left the train, they made in +a foreign accent this rather sharp remark, "Those distinguished persons +seem rather common." We certainly did not intend to displease that +puritanical pair and we never overstepped the bounds of joviality and +fun. + +That fortnight's journey continued full of incidents in which jokes +contended with burlesque. + +Every evening, after the warmly enthusiastic receptions of the Hungarian +youth, Ferdinand de Lesseps, our venerated chief, who was called in all +the Hungarian speeches the "Great Frenchman," would leave us after +fixing the order of the next day's receptions. As he finished arranging +our program, he would add, "To-morrow morning, at four o'clock, in +evening dress." And the "Great Frenchman" would be the first one up and +dressed. When we congratulated him on his extraordinary youthful energy, +he would apologize as follows: "Youth must wear itself out." + +During the festivities of every kind which they got up in our honor, +they arranged for a gala spectacle, a great performance at the Theatre +Royal in Budapest. Delibes and I were both asked to conduct an act from +one of our works. + +When I reached the orchestra, amid hurrahs from the audience, only in +Hungary they shout, "Elyen," I found on the desk the score ... of the +first act of _Coppelia_, when I had expected to find before me the third +act of _Herodiade_ for me to conduct. So much the worse! There was no +help for it and I had to beat time--from memory. + +The plot thickened. + +[Illustration: The Forum from the First Act of Roma. _See page 300_] + +When Delibes, who had received the same honors that I had, saw the third +act of _Herodiade_ on his desk, with me rejoining my companions in +the audience, he presented a unique spectacle. My poor dear great friend +mopped his brow, turned this way and that, drew long breaths, begged the +Hungarian musicians--who didn't understand a word he said--to give him +the right score, but all in vain. + +He had to conduct from memory. This seemed to exasperate him, but +Delibes, the adorable musician, was far above a little difficulty like +that. + +After this entertainment we were all present at an immense banquet where +naturally enough toasts were de rigeur. I offered one to that great +musician, Franz Liszt--Hungary was honored in giving him birth. + +When Delibes's turn came, I suggested to him that I collaborate in his +speech as we had done at the Opera with our scores. I spoke for him; he +spoke for me. The result was a succession of incoherent phrases which +were received by the frantic applause of our compatriots and by the +enthusiastic "Elyens" of the Hungarians. + +I will add that Delibes and I, like all the rest, were in a state of +delightful intoxication, for the marvellous vineyards of Hungary are +verily those of the Lord himself. Something must be the matter with +one's head, if he does not enjoy the charm of those wines with their +voluptuous, heady bouquet. + +Four o'clock in the morning! We were, as ordered, in evening dress +(indeed we had not changed it) and ready to go to lay wreaths on the +tomb of the forty Hungarian martyrs who had died to free their country. + +But through all these mad follies, all these distractions, and +impressive ceremonies, I was thinking of the rehearsals of _Le Cid_ +which were waiting for my return to Paris. When I got back, I found +another souvenir of Hungary, a letter from the author of _La Messe du +Saint Graal_, the precursor of _Parsifal_: + + "Most Honored Confrere: + + "The Hungarian _Gazette_ informs me that you have testified + benevolently in my favor at the French banquet at Budapest. Sincere + thanks and constant cordiality. + + "F. Liszt." + + 26 August, '85. Weimar. + +The stage rehearsals of _Le Cid_ at the Opera were carried on with +astonishing sureness and skill by my dear director, P. Gailhard, a +master of this art who had been besides the most admirable of artists +on the stage. He did everything for the good of the work with an +affectionate friendship. It is my pleasant duty to pay him honor for +this. + +Later on I found him the same invaluable collaborator when _Ariane_ was +put on at the Opera. + +On the evening of November 20, 1885, the Opera billed the first +performance of _Le Cid_, while the Opera-Comique played the same evening +_Manon_, which had already passed its eightieth performance. + +In spite of the good news from the general rehearsal of _Le Cid_, I +spent the evening with the artists at _Manon_. Needless to say all the +talk in the wings of the Opera-Comique was of the first performance of +_Le Cid_ which was then in full blast. + +Despite my apparent calmness, in my inmost heart I was extremely +anxious, so the curtain had hardly fallen on the fifth act of _Manon_ +than I went to the Opera instead of going home. An irresistible power +pulled me thither. + +As I skirted the outside of the house from which an elegant and large +crowd was pouring, I overheard a snatch of conversation between a well +known journalist and a reporter who hurriedly inquired the results of +the evening. "It is splitting, my dear chap." + +I was greatly troubled, as one would be in any case, and ran to the +directors' room for further news. At the artists' entrance I met Mme. +Krause. She embraced me in raptures and said, "It's a triumph!" + +Need I say that I preferred the opinion of this admirable artiste. She +comforted me completely. + +I left Paris (what a traveler I was then!) for Lyons, where they were +giving both _Herodiade_ and _Manon_. + +Three days after my arrival there, as I was dining at a restaurant with +my two great friends Josephin Soulary, the fine poet of _Les Deux +Corteges_, and Paul Marieton, the vibrant provincial poet, I was handed +the following telegram from Hartmann: + +"Fifth performance of _Le Cid_ postponed a month. Enormous advance sale +returned. Artists ill." + +I was nervous at the time; I fainted away and remained unconscious so +long that my friends were greatly alarmed. + +At the end of three weeks, however, _Le Cid_ reappeared on the bills, +and I realized once more that I was surrounded by deep sympathy, as the +following letter shows: + + "My dear Confrere: + + "I must congratulate you on your success and I want to applaud you + as quickly as possible. My turn for my box does not come around + until Friday, December 11th, and I beg you to arrange for _Le Cid_ + to be given on that day, _Friday, December 11._ + + "H. d'Orleans." + +How touched and proud I was at this mark of attention from his Royal +Highness the Duc d'Aumale! + +I shall always remember the delightful and inspiring days passed at the +Chateau de Chantilly with my confreres at the Institute Leon Bonnat, +Benjamin Constant, Edouard Detaille, and Gerome. Our reception by our +royal host was charming in its simplicity and his conversation was that +of an eminent man of letters, erudite but unpretentious. It was +captivating and attractive for us when we all gathered in the library +where the prince enthralled us by his perfect simplicity as he talked +to us, pipe in his mouth, as he had so often done in camp among our +soldiers. + +Only the great ones of earth know how to produce such moments of +delightful familiarity. + +And _Le Cid_ went on its way both in the provinces and abroad. + +In October, 1900, the hundredth performance was celebrated at the Opera +and on November 21, 1911, at the end of twenty-six years, I read in the +papers: + +"The performance of _Le Cid_ last night was one of the finest. A packed +house applauded enthusiastically the beautiful work by M. Massenet and +his interpreters: Mlle. Breval, Mm. Franz and Delmas, and the star of +the ballet, Mlle. Zambelli." + +I had been particularly happy in the performances of this work which had +preceded this. After the sublime Fides Devries, Chimene was sung in +Paris by the incomparable Mme. Rose Caron, the superb Mme. Adiny, the +moving Mlle. Merentie, and particularly by Louise Grandjean, the eminent +professor at the Conservatoire. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +A JOURNEY TO GERMANY + + +On Sunday, August first, Hartmann and I went to hear _Parsifal_ at the +Wagner Theater at Bayreuth. After we had heard this _miracle unique_ we +visited the capital of Upper Franconia. Some of the monuments there are +worth while seeing. I wanted especially to see the city church. It is an +example of the Gothic architecture of the middle of the Fifteenth +Century and was dedicated to Mary Magdalene. It is not hard to imagine +what memories drew me to this remarkable edifice. + +After running through various German towns and visiting different +theaters, Hartmann, who had an idea of his own, took me to Wetzler, +where he had seen Werther. We visited the house where Goethe had written +his immortal romance, _The Sorrows of Young Werther_. + +I knew Werther's letters and I had a thrilling recollection of them. I +was deeply impressed by being in the house which Goethe made famous by +having his hero live and love there. + +As we were coming out Hartmann said, "I have something to complete the +obviously deep emotion you have felt." + +As he spoke, he drew from his pocket a book with a binding yellow with +age. It was the French translation of Goethe's romance. "This +translation is perfect," said Hartmann, in spite of the aphorism +_Traduttore traditore_, that a translation utterly distorts the author's +thought. + +I scarcely had the book in my hands than I was eager to read it, so we +went into one of those immense beer halls which are everywhere in +Germany. We sat down and ordered two enormous bocks like our neighbors +had. Among the various groups were students who were easily picked out +by their scholars' caps and were playing cards or other games, nearly +all with porcelain pipes in their mouths. On the other hand there were +few women. + +It is needless to tell what I endured in that thick, foul air laden with +the bitter odor of beer. But I could not stop reading those burning +letters full of the most intense passion. Indeed what could be more +suggestive than the following lines, remembered among so many others, +where keen anguish threw Werther and Charlotte into each other's arms +after the thrilling reading of Ossian's verses? + +"Why awakest me, breath of the Spring? Thou caresseth me and sayeth I am +laden with the dew of heaven, but the tune cometh when I must wither, +the storm that must beat down my leaves is at hand. To-morrow the +traveler will come; his eye will seek me everywhere, and find me no +more...." + +And Goethe adds: + +"Unhappy Werther felt crushed by the force of these words and threw +himself before Charlotte in utter despair. It seemed to Charlotte that a +presentiment of the frightful project he had formed passed through her +soul. Her senses reeled; she clasped his hands and pressed them to her +bosom; she leaned towards him tenderly and their burning cheeks +touched." + +Such delirious, ecstatic passion brought tears to my eyes. What a moving +scene, what a passionate picture that ought to make! It was _Werther_, +my third act. + +I was now all life and happiness. I was wrapped up in work and in an +almost feverish activity. It was a task I wanted to do but into which I +had to put, if possible, the song of those moving, lively passions. + +Circumstances, however, willed that I put this project aside for the +moment. Carvalho proposed _Phoebe_ to me and chance led me to write +_Manon_. + +Then came _Le Cid_ to fill my life. At last in the summer of 1885, +without waiting for the result of that opera, Hartmann, Paul Milliet, my +great, splendid collaborator in _Herodiade_, and I came to an agreement +to take up the task of writing _Werther_. + +In order to incite me to work more ardently (as if I had need of it) my +publisher--he had improvised a scenario--engaged for me at the +Reservoirs at Versailles, a vast ground floor apartment on the level of +the gardens of our great Le Notre. + +The room in which I was installed had a lofty ceiling with Eighteenth +Century paneling and it was furnished in the same period. The table at +which I wrote was the purest Louis XV. Hartmann had chosen everything at +the most famous antiquarians. + +Hartmann had special aptitude for doing his share of the work. He spoke +German very well; he understood Goethe; he loved the German mind; he +stuck to it that I should undertake the work. + +So, when one day it was suggested that I write an opera on Murger's _La +Vie de Boheme_, he took it on himself to refuse the work without +consulting me in any way. + +I would have been greatly tempted to do the thing. I would have been +pleased to follow Henry Murger in his life and work. He was an artist in +his way. Theophile Gautier justly called him a poet, although he +excelled as a writer of prose. I feel that I could have followed him +through that peculiar world he created and which he has made it possible +for us to cross in a thousand ways in the train of the most amusing +originals we had ever seen. And such gaiety, such tears, such outbursts +of frantic laughter, and such courageous poverty, as Jules Janin said, +would, I think, have captivated me. Like Alfred de Musset--one of his +masters--he had grace and style, ineffable tenderness, gladsome smiles, +the cry of the heart, emotion. He sang songs dear to the hearts of +lovers and they charm us all. His fiddle was not a Stradivarius, they +said, but he had a soul like Hoffman's and he knew how to play so as to +bring tears. + +I knew Murger personally, in fact so well that I even saw him the night +of his death. I was present at a most affecting interview while I was +there, but even that did not lack a comic note. It could not have been +otherwise with Murger. + +I was at his bedside when they brought in M. Schaune (the Schaunardo of +_La Vie de Boheme_). Murger was eating magnificent grapes he had bought +with his last louis and Schaune said laughing, "How silly of you to +drink your wine in pills!" + +As I knew not only Murger but also Schaunard and Musette, it seemed to +me that there was no one better qualified than I to be the musician of +_La Vie de Boheme_. But all those heroes were my friends and I saw them +every day, so that I understood why Hartmann thought the moment had not +come to write that so distinctly Parisian work, to sing the romance that +had been so great a part of my life. + +As I speak of that period which is already in the distant past, I glory +in recalling that I knew Corot at Ville-d'Avray, as well as our famous +Harpignies, who despite his ninety-two years is, as I write, in all the +vigor of his immense talent. Only yesterday he climbed gaily to my +floor. Oh, the dear great friend, the marvellous artist I have known for +fifty years! + +When the work was done, I went to M. Carvalho's on the twenty-fifth of +May. I had secured Mme. Rose Caron, then at the Opera, to aid me in my +reading. The admirable artiste was beside me turning the pages of the +manuscript and showing the deepest emotion at times. I read the four +acts by myself, and when I reached the climax, I fell exhausted, +annihilated. + +Then Carvalho came to me without a word, but he finally said: + +"I had hoped you would bring me another _Manon_! This dismal subject +lacks interest. It is damned from the start." + +As I think this over to-day, I understand his impression perfectly, +especially when I reflect on the years I had to live before the work +came to be admired. + +Carvalho was kind and offered me some exquisite wine, claret, I believe, +like what I had tasted one joyous evening I read _Manon_.... My throat +was as dry as my speech; I went out without saying a word. + +The next day, _horresco referens_, yes, the next day I was again struck +down, the Opera-Comique was no more. It had been totally destroyed by +fire during the night. I hurried to Carvalho's. We fell into each +other's arms, embraced each other in tears and wept. My poor director +was ruined. Inexorable fate! The work had to wait six years in silence +and oblivion. + +Two years before the Opera at Vienna had put on _Manon_; the hundredth +performance was reached and passed in a short time. The Austrian capital +had given me a friendly and enviable reception; so much so that it +suggested to Van Dyck the idea of asking me for a work. + +Now I proposed _Werther_. The lack of good will on the part of the +French directors left me free to dispose of that score. + +The Vienna Opera was an imperial theater. The management asked the +Emperor to place an apartment at my disposal and he graciously offered +me one at the famous Hotel Sacher beside the Opera. + +My first call after my arrival was on Jahn, the director. That kindly, +eminent master took me to the foyer where the rehearsals were to be +held. It was a vast room, lighted by immense windows and provided with +great chairs. A full length portrait of Emperor Francis Joseph +ornamented one of the panels; there was a grand piano in the center of +the room. + +All the artists for _Werther_ were gathered around the piano when Jahn +and I entered the foyer. As they saw us they rose in a body and bowed in +salutation. + +At this touching manifestation of respectful sympathy--to which our +great Van Dyck added a most affectionate embrace--I responded by bowing +in my turn; and then a little nervous and trembling all over I sat down +at the piano. + +The work was absolutely in shape. All the artists could sing their parts +from memory. The hearty demonstrations they showered on me at intervals +moved me so that I felt tears in my eyes. + +At the orchestra rehearsal this emotion was renewed. The execution was +perfection; the orchestra, now soft, now loud, followed the shading of +the voice so that I could not shake off the enchantment. + +The general rehearsal took place on February fifteenth from nine o'clock +in the morning until midday and I saw (an ineffable, sweet surprise) in +the orchestra stalls my dear publisher, Henri Heugel, Paul Milliet, my +precious co-worker, and intimate friends from Paris. They had come so +far to see me in the Austrian capital amid great and lively joys, for I +had really been received there in the most exquisite and flattering +manner. + +The performances that followed confirmed the impressions of the +beautiful first performance of February 16, 1892. The work was sung by +the celebrated artists Marie Renard and Ernest Van Dyck. + +That same year, 1892, Carvalho again became the director of the +Opera-Comique, then in the Place du Chatelet. He asked me for _Werther_, +and in a tone so full of feeling that I did not hesitate to let him have +it. + +The same week Mme. Massenet and I dined with M. and Mme. Alphonse +Daudet. The other guests were Edmond de Goncourt and Charpentier, the +publisher. + +After dinner Daudet told me that he wanted me to hear a young artiste. +"Music herself," he said. This young girl was Marie Delna! At the first +bars that she sang (the aria from the great Gounod's _La Reine de Saba_) +I turned to her and took her hands. + +[Illustration: Posthumia (_Roma_) _See page 297_] + +"Be Charlotte, our Charlotte," I said, utterly carried away. + +The day after the first performance at the Opera-Comique, in January, +1893, I received this note from Gounod: + + "Dear Friend: + + "Our most hearty congratulations on this double triumph and we + regret that the French were not the first witnesses." + + The following touching and picturesque lines were sent me at the + time by the illustrious architect of the Opera. + + "Amico mio, + + Two eyes to see you, + Two ears to hear you, + Two lips to kiss you, + Two arms to enfold you, + Two hands to applaud you. + and + + "Two words to give thee all my compliments and to tell thee that + thy _Werther_ is an excellent hit--do you know?--I am proud of you, + and for your part do not blush that a poor architect is entirely + satisfied with you. + + "CARLO." + +In 1903, after nine years of ostracism, M. Albert Carre revived this +forgotten work. With his incomparable talent, his marvellous taste, and +his art, which was that of an exquisite man of letters, he knew how to +present the work to the public so as to make it a real revelation. + +Many famous artistes have sung the role since that time: Mlle. Marie de +l'Isle, who was the first Charlotte at the revival and who created the +work with her fine, individual talents; then Mlles. Lamare, Cesbron, +Wyns, Raveau, Mmes. de Nuovina, Vix, Hatto, Brohly, and ... others whose +names I will give later. + +At the revival due to M. Albert Carre, _Werther_ had the great good +fortune to have Leon Beyle as the protagonist of the part; later Edmond +Clement and Salignac were also superb and thrilling interpreters of the +work. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +A STAR + + +But to go back to the events the day after the destruction of the +Opera-Comique. + +The Opera-Comique was moved to the Place du Chatelet, in the old theater +called Des Nations, which later became the Theatre Sarah Bernhardt. M. +Paravey was appointed director. I had known him when he directed the +Grand-Theatre at Nantes with real talent. + +Hartmann offered him two works: Edouard Lalo's _Le Roi d'Ya_ and my +_Werther_ on sufferance. + +I was so discouraged that I preferred to wait before I let the work see +the light. + +I have just written about its genesis and destiny. + +One day I received a friendly invitation to dine with a great American +family. After I had declined, as I most often did--I hadn't time, in +addition to not liking that sort of distraction--they insisted, however, +so graciously that I could not persist in my refusal. It seemed to me +that perhaps my afflicted heart might meet something there which would +turn aside my discouragements. Does one ever know?... + +I was placed beside a lady who composed music and had great talent. On +the other side of my neighbor was a French diplomat whose amiable +compliments surpassed, it seemed to me, all limits. _Est modus in +rebus_, there are limits in all things, and our diplomat should have +been guided by this ancient saying together with the counsel of a +master, the illustrious Talleyrand, "_Pas de zele, surtout_!" + +I would not think of telling the exact conversation which occurred in +that charming place any more than I would think of giving the menu of +what we had to eat. What I do remember is a salad--a disconcerting +mixture of American, English, German, and French. + +But my French neighbors occupied my entire attention, which gave me the +chance to remember this delightful colloquy between the lady composer +and the diplomat. + +The Gentleman.--"So you are ever the child of the Muses, a new Orphea?" + +The Lady.--"Isn't music the consolation of souls in distress?" + +The Gentleman (insinuatingly).--"Do you not find that love is stronger +than sounds in banishing heart pain?" + +The Lady.--"Yesterday, I was consoled by writing the music to 'The +Broken Vase.'" + +The Gentleman (poetically).--"A nocturne, no doubt...." + +I heard muffled laughter. The conversation took a new turn. + +After dinner we went into the drawing room for music. I was doing my +best to obliterate myself when two ladies dressed in black, one young, +the other older, came in. + +The master of the house hastened to greet them and I was presented to +them almost at once. + +The younger was extraordinarily lovely; the other was her mother, also +beautiful, with that thoroughly American beauty which the Starry +Republic often sends to us. + +"Dear Master," said the younger woman with a slight accent, "I have been +asked to come to this friendly house this evening to have the honor of +seeing you and to let you hear my voice. I am the daughter of a supreme +court judge in America and I have lost my father. He left my mother, my +sisters, and me a fortune, but I want to go on the stage. If they blame +me for it, after I have succeeded I shall reply that success excuses +everything." + +Without further preamble I granted her desire and seated myself at the +piano. + +"You will pardon me," she added, "if I do not sing your music. That +would be too audacious before you." + +She had scarcely said this than her voice sounded magically, dazzlingly, +in the aria, "Queen of the Night," from the _Magic Flute_. + +What a fascinating voice! It ranged from low G to the counter G--three +octaves--in full strength and in pianissimo. + +I was astounded, stupefied, subjugated! When such voices occur, it is +fortunate that they have the theater in which to display themselves; the +world is their domain. I ought to say that I had recognized in that +future artiste, together with the rarity of that organ, intelligence, a +flame, a personality which were reflected luminously in her admirable +face. All these qualities are of first importance on the stage. + +The next morning I hurried to my publisher's to tell him about the +enthusiasm I had felt the previous evening. + +I found Hartmann preoccupied. "It concerns an artist, right enough," he +said. "I want to talk about something else and ask you, yes or no, +whether you will write the music for the work which has just been +brought me." And he added, "It is urgent, for the music is wanted for +the opening of the Universal Exposition which takes place two years from +now, in May, 1889." + +I took the manuscript and I had scarcely run through a scene or two than +I cried in an outburst of deep conviction, "I have the artiste for this +part. I have the artiste. I heard her yesterday! She is Mlle. Sibyl +Sanderson! She shall create Esclarmonde, the heroine of the new opera +you offer me." + +She was the ideal artiste for the romantic work in five acts by Alfred +Blau and Louis de Gramont. + +The new director of the Opera-Comique, who always showed me deference +and perfect kindness, engaged Mlle. Sibyl Sanderson and accepted without +discussion the salary we proposed. + +He left the ordering of the scenery and the costumes entirely to my +discretion, and made me the absolute master and director of the +decorators and costumers whom I was to guide in entire accordance with +my ideas. + +If I was agreeably satisfied by this state of affairs, M. Paravey for +his part could not but congratulate himself on the financial results +from _Esclarmonde_. It is but just to add that it was brought out at the +necessarily brilliant period of the Universal Exposition in 1889. The +first performance was on May 14 of that year. + +The superb artists who figured on the bill with Sibyl Sanderson were Mm. +Bouvet, Taskin, and Gibert. + +The work had been sung one hundred and one consecutive times in Paris +when I learned that sometime since the Theatre Royal de la Monnaie at +Brussels had engaged Sibyl Sanderson to create _Esclarmonde_ there. That +meant her enforced disappearance from the stage of the Opera-Comique, +where she had triumphed for several months. + +If Paris, however, must needs endure the silence of the artiste, +applauded by so many and such varied audiences during the Exposition, if +this star who had risen so brilliantly above the horizon of the artistic +heavens departed for a time to charm other hearers, the great +provincial houses echoed with the success in _Esclarmonde_ of such +famous artistes as Mme. Brejean-Silver at Bordeaux; Mme. de Nuovina at +Brussels, and Mme. Verheyden and Mlle. Vuillaume at Lyons. + +Notwithstanding all this, _Esclarmonde_ remained the living memory of +that rare and beautiful artiste whom I had chosen to create the role in +Paris; it enabled her to make her name forever famous. + +Sibyl Sanderson! I cannot remember that artiste without feeling deep +emotion, cut down as she was in her full beauty, in the glorious bloom +of her talent by pitiless Death. She was an ideal Manon at the +Opera-Comique, and a never to be forgotten Thais at the Opera. These +roles identified themselves with her temperament, the choicest spirit of +that nature which was one of the most magnificently endowed I have ever +known. + +An unconquerable vocation had driven her to the stage, where she became +the ardent interpreter of several of my works. But for our part what an +inspiring joy it is to write works and parts for artists who realize our +very dreams! + +It is in gratitude that in speaking of _Esclarmonde_ I dedicate these +lines to her. The many people who came to Paris from all parts of the +world in 1889 have also kept their memories of the artiste who was their +joy and who had so delighted them. + +A large, silent, meditative crowd gathered at the passing of the cortege +which bore Sibyl Sanderson to her last resting place. A veil of sorrow +seemed to be over them all. + +Albert Carre and I followed the coffin. We were the first behind all +that remained of her beauty, grace, goodness, and talent with all its +appeal. As we noted the universal sorrow, Albert Carre interpreted the +feeling of the crowd towards the beautiful departed, and said in these +words, eloquent in their conciseness and which will survive, "She was +loved!" + +What more simple, more touching, and more just homage could be paid to +the memory of her who was no more? + +It is a pleasure to recall in a few rapid strokes the happy memory of +the time I spent in writing _Esclarmonde_. + +During the summers of 1887 and 1888 I went to Switzerland and lived in +the Grand Hotel at Vevey. I was curious to see that pretty town at the +foot of Jorat on the shores of Lake Geneva and which was made famous by +its Fete des Vigerons. I had heard it praised for the many charming +walks in the neighborhood and the beauty and mildness of the climate. +Above all I remembered that I had read of it in the "Confessions" of +Jean Jacques Rousseau, who, at any rate, had every reason to love +it,--Mme. de Warens was born there. His love for this delightful little +city lasted through all his wanderings. + +The hotel was surrounded by a fine park which afforded the guests the +shade of its large trees and led to a small harbor where they could +embark for excursions on the lake. + +In August, 1887, I wanted to pay a visit to my master Ambroise Thomas. +He had bought a group of islands in the sea near the North Coast and I +had been there to see him. Doubtless my visit was pleasant to him, for I +received from him the next summer in Switzerland the following pages: + + ILLIEC, Monday, August 20, 1888 + + Thanks for your good letter, my dear friend. It has been forwarded + to me in this barbarous island where you came last year. You remind + me of that friendly visit of which we often speak, but we regret + that we were only able to keep you two days. + + It was too short! + + Will you be able to come again, or rather, shall I see you here + again? You say you work with pleasure and you appear content.... I + congratulate you on it, and I can say without envy that I wish I + were able to say as much for myself. At your age one is filled with + confidence and zeal; but at mine!... + + I am taking up again, not without some difficulty, a work which has + been interrupted for a long time, and what is better, I find that I + am already rested in my solitude from the excitement and fatigue of + life in Paris. + + I send you the affectionate regards of Mme. Ambroise Thomas, and I + say au revoir, dear friend, with a good grip of the hand. + + Yours with all my heart, + + AMBROISE THOMAS. + +Yes, as my master said, I did work with pleasure. + +Mlle. Sibyl Sanderson, her mother and three sisters were also living at +the Grand Hotel at Vevey and every evening from five o'clock until seven +I made our future Esclarmonde work on the scene I had written that day. + +After _Esclarmonde_ I did not wait for my mind to grow fallow. My +publisher knew my sad feelings about _Werther_ which I persisted in +being unwilling to have given to a theater (no management had then made +advances to obtain the work) and he opened negotiations with Jean +Richepin. They decided to offer me a great subject for the Opera on the +story of Zoroaster, entitled _Le Mage_. + +In the course of the summer of 1889 I already had several scenes of the +work planned out. + +My excellent friend the learned writer on history, Charles Malherbe, was +aware of the few moments I made no use of, and I found him a real +collaborator in these circumstances. Indeed, he chose among my scattered +papers a series of manuscripts which he indicated to me would serve in +the different acts of _Le Mage_. + +P. Gailhard, our director at the Opera, was as ever the most devoted of +friends. He put the work on with unheard of elaborateness. I owed to him +a magnificent cast with Mmes. Fierens and Lureau Escalais and Mm. +Vergnet and Delmas. The ballet was important and was staged in a +fairylike way and had as its star Rosita Mauri. + +Although it was knocked about a good deal by the press, the work ran for +more than forty performances. + +Some were glad of the chance to seek a quarrel with our director who had +played his last card and had arrived at the last month of his privilege. +It was useless trouble on their part. Gailhard was shortly afterwards +called upon to resume the managerial scepter of our great lyric stage. I +found him there associated with E. Bertrand when _Thais_, of which I +shall speak later, was put on. + +Apropos of this, some verses of the ever witty Ernest Reyer come to +mind. Here they are: + + _Le Mage_ est loin, _Werther_ est proche, + Et deja _Thais_ est sous roche; + Admirable fecondite ... + Moi, voila dix ans que je pioche + Sur _Le Capuchin enchante_. + +You may be astonished at never having seen this work of Reyer's played. +Here is the theme as he told it, with the most amusing seriousness, at +one of our monthly dinners of the Institute, at the excellent Champeaux +restaurant, Place de Bourse. + + First and Only Act! + +The scene represents a public square; on the left the sign of a famous +tavern. Enter from the right a Capuchin. He stares at the tavern door. +He hesitates; then, finally, he decides to cross the threshold and +closes the door. Music in the orchestra--if desired. Suddenly, the +Capuchin comes out again--enchanted, assuredly enchanted by the cooking! + +Thus the title of the work is explained; it has nothing to do with +fairies enchanting a poor monk! + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +A NEW LIFE + + +The year 1891 was marked by an event which had a profound effect on my +life. In the month of May of that year the publishing house of Hartmann +went out of business. + +How did it happen? What brought about this catastrophe? I asked myself +these questions but could get no answer. It had seemed to me that all +was going as well as could be expected with my publisher. I was utterly +stupefied at hearing that all the works published by the house of +Hartmann were to be put up at auction; that they would have to face the +ordeal of a public sale. For me this was a most disturbing uncertainty. + +I had a friend who had a vault, and I entrusted to him the orchestral +score and piano score of _Werther_ and the orchestral score of _Amadis_. +He put these valueless papers beside his valuables. The scores were in +manuscript. + +I have already written of the fortunes of _Werther_, and perhaps I +shall of _Amadis_, the text of which was by our great friend Jules +Claretie of the French Academy. + +As may be imagined, my anxiety was very great. I expected to see my +labor of many years scattered among all the publishers. Where would +_Manon_ go? Where would _Herodiade_ bring up? Who would get _Marie +Magdeleine_? Who would have my _Suites d'Orchestra_? All this disturbed +my muddled brain and made me anxious. + +Hartmann had always shown me so much friendliness and sensitiveness in +my interests, and he was, I am sure, as sorrowful as I was about this +painful situation. + +Henri Heugel and his nephew Paul-Emile Chevalier, owners of the great +firm Le Menestrel, were my saviors. They were the pilots who kept all +the works of my past life from shipwreck, prevented their being +scattered, and running the risks of adventure and chance. + +They acquired all of Hartmann's assets and paid a considerable price for +them. + +In May, 1911, I congratulated them on the twentieth anniversary of the +good and friendly relations which had existed between us and at the +same time I expressed the deep gratitude I cherish towards them. + +How many times I had passed by Le Menestrel, and envied without +hostility those masters, those published, all those favored by that +great house! + +My entrance to Le Menestrel began a glorious era for me, and every time +I go there I feel the same deep happiness. All the satisfactions I enjoy +as well as the disappointments I experience find a faithful echo in the +hearts of my publishers. + + * * * * * + +Some years later Leon Carvalho again became the manager at the +Opera-Comique. M. Paravey's privilege had expired. + +I recall this card from Carvalho the day after he left in 1887. He had +erased his title of "directeur." It expressed perfectly his sorrowful +resignation: + + "_My dear Master_, + + "I scratch out the title, but I retain the memory of my great + artistic joys where _Manon_ holds a first place.... + + "What a fine diamond! + + "LEON CARVALHO." + +His first thought was to revive _Manon_ which had disappeared from the +bills since the fire of mournful memory. This revival was in October, +1892. + +Sibyl Sanderson, as I have said, had been engaged for a year at the +Theatre de la Monnaie at Brussels. She played _Esclarmonde_ and _Manon_. +Carvalho took her from the Monnaie to revive _Manon_ in Paris. The work +has never left the bills since and, as I write it, has reached its 763rd +performance. + +At the beginning of the same year _Werther_ was given at Vienna as well +as a ballet: _Le Carillon_. The applauded collaborators were our Des +Grieux and our German Werther: Ernest Van Dyck and de Roddaz. + +It was on my return from another visit to Vienna that my faithful and +precious collaborator Louis Gallet paid me a visit one day at Le +Menestrel. My publishers had arranged a superb study where I could +rehearse my artists from Paris and elsewhere in their parts. Louis +Gallet and Heugel proposed to me a work on Anatole France's admirable +romance _Thais_. + +I was immediately carried away by the idea. I could see Sanderson in the +role of Thais. She belonged to the Opera-Comique so I would do the work +for that house. + +Spring at last permitted me to go to the seashore where I have always +liked to live and I left Paris with my wife and daughter, taking with me +all that I had composed of the work with so much happiness. + +I took with me a friend who never left me day or night--an enormous gray +Angora cat with long silky hair. + +I worked at a large table placed on a veranda against which the waves of +the sea sometimes broke heavily and scattered their foam. The cat lay on +the table, sleeping almost on my pages with an unceremoniousness which +delighted me. He could not stand such strange noises and every time it +happened he pushed out his paws and showed his claws as if to drive the +sea away. + +I know some one else who loves cats, not more but as much as I do, the +gracious Countess Marie de Yourkevitch, who won the grand gold medal for +piano playing at the Imperial Conservatoire of Music at St. Petersburg. +She has lived in Paris for some years in a luxurious apartment where she +is surrounded by dogs and cats, her great friends. + +"Who loves animals, loves people," and we know that the Countess is a +true Maecenas to artists. + +The exquisite poet Jeanne Dortzal is also a friend of these felines with +the deep-green enigmatic eyes; they are the companions of her working +hours. + +I finished _Thais_ at the Rue du General Foy, in my bedroom where +nothing broke the silence except the crackling of the Yule logs which +burned in the fireplace. + +At that time I did not have a mass of letters which I must answer, as is +the case now; I did not receive a quantity of books which I must run +over so that I could thank the authors; neither was I absorbed in +incessant rehearsals, in short, I did not lead the sort of a life I +would willingly qualify as infernal, if it were not my rule _not_ to go +out in the evening. + +At six in the morning I received a call from my masseur. His cares were +made necessary by rheumatism in my right hand, and I had some trouble +with it. + +Even at this early morning hour I had been at work for some time, and +this practitioner, Imbert, who was in high good standing with his +clients, brought me morning greetings from Alexander Dumas the Younger +from whose house he had just come. As he came, he said, "I left the +master with his candles lighted, his beard trimmed, and comfortably +installed in his white dressing gown." + +One morning he brought me these words--a reply to a reproach I had +allowed myself to make to him: + + "Confess that you thought that I had forgotten you, man of little + faith. + + "A. DUMAS." + +Between whiles, and it was a delightful distraction, I had written _Le +Portrait de Manon_, a delightful act by Georges Boyer, to whom I already +owed the text of _Les Enfants_. + +Some good friends of mine, Auguste Cain, the famous sculptor of animals, +and his dear wife, had been generous and useful to me in difficult +circumstances, and I was delighted to applaud the first dramatic work of +their son Henri Cain. His success with _La Vivandiere_ affirmed his +talent still more. The music of this work in three acts was the swan +song of the genial Benjamin Godard. Ah! the dear great musician who was +a real poet from his youth up, in the first bars he wrote. Who does not +remember his masterpiece _Le Tasse_? + +As I was strolling one day in the gardens of the dismal palace of the +dukes d'Este at Ferrare, I picked a branch of oleander which was just in +blossom and sent it to my friend. My gift recalled the incomparable duet +in the first act of _Le Tasse_. + +During the summer of 1893 my wife and I went to Avignon. This city of +the popes, the _terre papale_, as Rabelais called it, attracted me +almost as much as that other city of the popes, ancient Rome. + +We lived at the excellent Hotel de l'Europe, Place Grillon. Our hosts, +M. and Mme. Ville, were worthy and obliging persons and were full of +attention for us. That was imperative for I needed quiet to write _La +Navarraise_, the act which Jules Claretie had entrusted to me and my new +librettist Henri Cain. + +Every evening at five o'clock our hosts, who had forbidden our door all +day with jealous care, served us a delicious lunch. My friends, the +Provencal poets, used to gather around, and among them was Felix Gras, +one of my dearest friends. + +One day we decided to pay a visit to Frederic Mistral, the immortal poet +of Provence who played a large part in the renaissance of the poetic +language of the South. + +He received us with Mme. Mistral at his home--which his presence made +ideal--at Millane. He showed when he talked that he knew not only the +science of Form but also that general knowledge which makes great +writers and makes a poet of an artist. As we saw him we recalled that +_Belle d'aout_, the poetical story full of tears and terrors, then the +great epic of _Mirelle_, and so many other famous works besides. + +By his walk and vigor one recognized him as the child of the country, +but he was a gentleman farmer, as the English say; although he is not +any more a peasant on that account, as he wrote to Lamartine, than +Paul-Louis Courier, the brilliant and witty pamphleteer, was a +cultivator of vineyards. + +We returned to Avignon full of the inexpressible enveloping charm of the +hours we had passed in the house of this great, illustrious poet. + +The following winter was entirely devoted to the rehearsals of _Thais_ +at the Opera. I say at the Opera in spite of the fact that I wrote the +work for the Opera-Comique where Sanderson was engaged. She triumphed +there in _Manon_ three times a week. + +What made me change the theater? Sanderson was dazzled by the idea of +entering the Opera, and she signed a contract with Gailhard without even +taking the mere trouble of informing Carvalho first. + +Heugel and I were greatly surprised when Gailhard told us that he was +going to give _Thais_ at the Opera with Sibyl Sanderson. "You've got the +artist; the work will follow her!" There was nothing else for me to say. +I remember, however, how bitterly Carvalho reproached me. He almost +accused me of ingratitude, and God knows that I did not deserve that. + +_Thais_ was interpreted by Sibyl Sanderson; J. F. Delmas, who made the +role of Athanael one of his most important creations; Alvarez, who +consented to play the role of Nicias, and Mme. Heglon, who also acted in +the part which devolved upon her. + +As I listened to the final rehearsals in the depths of the empty +theater, I lived over again my ecstatic moments before the remains of +Thais of Antinoe, beside the anchorite, who had been bewitched by her +grace and charm. We owed this impressive spectacle which was so well +calculated to impress the imagination to a glass case in the Guimet +Museum. + +The evening of the dress rehearsal of _Thais_ I escaped from Paris and +went to Dieppe and Pourville, with the sole purpose of being alone and +free from the excitements of the great city. I have said already that I +always tear myself away in this fashion from the feverish uncertainties +which hover over every work when it faces the public for the first time. +No one can tell beforehand the feeling that will move the public, +whether its prejudices or sympathies will draw it towards a work or turn +it against it. I feel weak before the baffling enigma, and had I a +conscience a thousand times more tranquil, I would not want to attempt +to pierce the mystery! + +The day after my return to Paris Bertrand and Cailhard, the two +directors of the Opera, called on me. They appeared to be down at the +mouth. I could only get sighs from them or a word or two, which in their +laconicism spoke volumes, "The press! Immoral subject! It's done for!" +These words were so many indications of what the performance must have +been. + +So I told myself. Nevertheless seventeen years have gone and the piece +is still on the bills, and has been played in the provinces and abroad, +while at the Opera itself _Thais_ has long since passed its hundredth +performance. + +Never have I so regretted letting myself go in a moment of +disappointment. It is true that it was only a passing one. Could I +foresee that I should see again this same score of _Thais_, dated 1894, +in the salon of Sibyl Sanderson's mother, on the music rest of the very +piano at which that fine artiste, long since no more, studied? + +To accustom the public to the work, the directors of the Opera +associated with it a ballet from the repertoire. Subsequently Gailhard +saw that the work pleased, and in order to make it the only performance +of the evening he asked me to add a tableau, the Oasis, and a ballet to +the third act. Mlle. Berthet created this new tableau and Zambelli +incarnated the new ballet. + +Later, the title role was sung in Paris by Mlles. Alice Verlet and Mary +Garden and Mme. Kousnezoff. I owe some superb nights at the Opera to +them. Genevieve Vix and Mastio sang it in other cities. I wait to speak +of Lina Cavalieri for she was to be the creator of the work at Milan, +October, 1903. This creation was the occasion for my last journey to +Italy up to now. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +MILAN--LONDON--BAYREUTH + + +I regret all the more that I have given up traveling, for I seem to have +become lazy in this regard, since my visits to Milan were always so +delightful--I was going to say adorable--thanks to the friendly Edouard +Sonzogno, who constantly paid me the most delicate and kindly +attentions. + +What delightful receptions, and perfectly arranged and elaborate +dinners, we had at the fine mansion at 11 Via Goito! What bursts of +laughter and gay sallies there were; what truly enchanted hours I passed +there, with my Italian confreres, invited to the same love-feast as I, +at the house of the most gracious of hosts: Umberto Giordano, Cilea and +many others! + +In this great city I had excellent friends and illustrious ones as well, +as Mascagni and Leoncavallo, whom I had known before and had had as +friends in Paris. They did not then foresee the magnificent situation +they would create for themselves one day at the theater. + +In Milan my old friend and publisher Giulio Ricordi also invited me to +his table. I was sincerely moved at finding myself again in the bosom of +the Ricordi family to whom I was attached by so many charming memories. +It is unnecessary to add that we drank to the health of the illustrious +Puccini. + +Among my memories of Milan I have kept the recollection of being present +at Caruso's debut. The now famous tenor was very modest then; and when, +a year afterwards, I saw him wrapped in an ample fur-coat, it was +obvious that the figures of his salary must have mounted _crescendo_. As +I saw him I did not envy him his brilliant fortune or his undoubted +talent, but I did regret--that winter especially--that I could not put +his rich warm coat on my back.... It snowed, indeed, in Milan, in large +and seemingly endless flakes. It was a hard winter. I remember that once +I hadn't enough bread from my breakfast to satisfy the appetite of some +thirty pigeons which, shivering and trembling with cold, came to my +balcony for shelter. Poor dear little creatures! I regretted that I +could not do more for them. And involuntarily I thought of their +sisters in the Piazza Saint Marc, so pretty, so friendly, who at that +instant must be just as cold. + +I have to confess to a flagrant but entirely innocent joke that I played +at a dinner of Sonzogno's, the publisher. Everyone knew of the strained +relations between him and Ricordi. I slipped into the dining room before +any of the guests had gone in and placed under Sonzogno's napkin an +Orsini bomb, which I had bought and which was really awe inspiring--be +reassured, it was only of cardboard and from the confectioner's. Beside +this inoffensive explosive I placed Ricordi's card. The joke was a great +success. The diners laughed so much that during the whole meal nothing +else was talked about and little attention was paid to the menu, in +spite of the fact that we knew that it must inevitably be appetizing, +like all those to which we had to do honor in that opulent house. + +I always had the glorious good fortune to have as my interpreter of +_Sapho_ in Italy La Bellincioni, the Duse of opera. In 1911 she +continued her triumphal career at the Opera in Paris. + +I have mentioned that Cavalieri was to create _Thais_ in Milan. Sonzogno +insisted strongly that I should let her see the part before I left. I +remember the considerable success she had in the work--_al teatro +lirico_ of Milan. Her beauty, her admirable plasticity, the warmth and +color of her voice, her passionate outbursts simply gripped the public +which praised her to the skies. + +She invited me to a farewell dinner at the Hotel de Milan. The table was +covered with flowers and it was laid in a large room adjoining the +bedroom where Verdi had died two years before. The room was still +furnished just as it had been when the illustrious composer lived there. +The great master's grand piano was still there, and on the table where +he had worked were the inkstand, the pen and the blotting paper which +still bore the marks of the notes he had traced. The dress shirt--the +last one he wore--hung on the wall and one could still see the lines of +the body it had covered.... A detail which hurt my feelings and which +only the greedy curiosity of strangers can account for, was that bits of +the linen had been boldly cut off and carried away as relics. + +Verdi! The name signifies the whole of victorious Italy from Victor +Emanuel II down to our own times. Bellini, on the other hand, is the +image of unhappy Italy under the yoke of the past. + +A little while after the death of Bellini in 1835--that never to be +forgotten author of _La Somnanbula_ and _La Norma_--Verdi, the immortal +creator of so many masterpieces, came on the scene and with rare +fertility never ceased to produce his marvellous works which are in the +repertoire of all the theaters in the world. + +About two weeks before Verdi's death I found at my hotel the great man's +card with his regards and best wishes. + +In a remarkable study of Verdi Camille Bellaigue uses the following +words about the great master. They are as just as they are beautiful. + +"He died on January 27, 1901, in his eighty-eighth year. In him music +lost some of its strength, light and joy. Henceforth a great, necessary +voice will be missing from the balance of the European 'concert.' A +splendid bower has fallen from the chaplet of Latin genius. I cannot +think of Verdi without recalling that famous phrase of Nietzsche, who +had come back from Wagnerism and had already turned against the +composer: 'Music must be Mediterraneanized.' Certainly not all music. +But to-day as the old master has departed, that glorious host of the +Doria palace, from which each winter his deep gaze soared over the azure +of the Ligurian sea, one may well ask who is to preserve the rights and +influence of the Mediterranean in music?" + + * * * * * + +To add another of my memories of _Thais_ I recall two letters which must +have touched me deeply. + + August 1, 1892 + +...I brought a little doll Thais to the Institute for you, and as I + was going to the country after the session and you were not there, + I left it with Bonvalot and begged him to handle her carefully.... + + I return in a day or so, for on Saturday we receive Fremiet who + wishes me to thank you for voting for him. + + GEROME. + +I wanted this colored statuette by my illustrious colleague to place on +my table as I wrote _Thais_. I have always liked to have before my eyes +an image or a symbol of the work on which I am engaged. + +The second letter I received the day after the first performance of +_Thais_ at the Opera. + + _Dear Master_: + + You have lifted my poor _Thais_ to the first rank of operatic + heroines. You are my sweetest glory. I am delighted. "Assieds-toi + pres de nous," the aria to Love, the final duet, is charmingly + beautiful. + + I am happy and proud at having furnished you with the theme on + which you have developed the most inspiring phrases. I grasp your + hand with joy. + + ANATOLE FRANCE.> + +I had already been to Covent Garden twice. First, for _Le Roi de +Lahore_, and then for _Manon_ which was sung by Sanderson and Van Dyck. + +I went back again for the rehearsals of _La Navarraise_. Our principal +artists were Emma Calve, Alvarez and Plancon. + +The rehearsals with Emma Calve were a great honor for me and a great joy +as well, which I was to renew later in the rehearsals for _Sapho_ in +Paris. + +The Prince of Wales, later Edward VII, attended the first performance of +_La Navarraise_. + +The recalls of the artists were so numerous and enthusiastic that +finally they called for me. As I did not appear, for the good reason +that I was not there, and could not be presented to the Prince of Wales +who wanted to congratulate me, the manager could find only this way to +excuse me both to the prince and to the public. He came on the stage and +said, "M. Massenet is outside smoking a cigarette and won't come." + +Doubtless this was true, but "the whole truth should not always be +spoken." + +I returned on board the boat with my wife, Heugel, my dear publisher, +and Adrien Bernheim, the Governmental Commissary General of the +subsidized theaters, who had honored the performance with his presence. +Ever since he has been one of my most charming and dearest friends. + +I learned that her Majesty Queen Victoria summoned Emma Calve to Windsor +to sing _La Navarraise_, and I was told that they improvised a stage +setting in the queen's own drawing room, which was most picturesque but +primitive. The Barricade was represented by a pile of pillows and down +quilts. + +Have I said that in the month of May preceding _La Navarraise_ in London +(June 20, 1894), the Opera-Comique gave _Le Portrait de Manon_, an +exquisite act by Georges Boyer, which was delightfully interpreted by +Fugere, Grivot and Mlle. Laine? + +Many of the phrases of _Manon_ reappeared in the work. The subject +prompted me to this, for it is concerned with Des Grieux at forty, a +poetical souvenir of Manon long since dead. + +Between whiles I again visited Bayreuth. I went to applaud the +_Meistersingers of Nuremburg_. + +Richard Wagner had not been there for many a long year, but his titanic +soul ruled over all the performances. As I strolled in the gardens about +the theater at Bayreuth, I recalled that I had known him in 1861. I had +lived for ten days in a small room near him in the Chateau de +Plessis-Trevise, which belonged to the celebrated tenor Gustave Roger. +Roger knew German and offered to do the French translation of +_Tannhauser_. So Richard Wagner came to live with him properly to set +the French words to music. + +I still remember his vigorous interpretation when he played on the piano +fragments of that masterpiece, then so clumsily misunderstood and now so +much admired by the whole world of art and music. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +A VISIT TO VERDI FAREWELL TO AMBROISE THOMAS + + +Henri Cain had accompanied us to London and came to see me at the +Cavendish Hotel, Jermyn Street, where I was staying. + +We remained in conference for several hours reviewing different subjects +which were suitable for works to occupy me in the future. Finally we +agreed on the fairy story of Cinderella: _Cendrillon_. + +I returned to Pont de l'Arche--a new home for my wife and me--to work +during the summer. + +Our home was most interesting and even had a historical value. A massive +door hung on enormous hinges gave access on the street side to an old +mansion. It was bordered by a terrace which looked down on the valley of +the Seine and the Andelle. La Belle Normandie indeed offered us the +delightful spectacle of her smiling, magnificent plains and her rich +pastures stretching to the horizon and beyond. + +The Duchess of Longueville, the famous heroine of La Fronde, had lived +in this house--it was the place of her loves. The seductive Duchess with +her pleasant address and gestures, together with the expression of her +face and the tone of her voice, made a marvellous harmony. So much so +that a Jansenist writer of the period said, "She was the most perfect +actress in the world." This splendid woman here sheltered her charms and +rare beauty. One must believe that they have not exaggerated about her +for Victor Cousin became her posthumous lover (along with the Duc de +Coligny, Marcillac, the Duc de la Rochefoucauld, and the great Turenne; +he might have been in less brilliant company); but as we said, the +illustrious eclectic philosopher dedicated to her a work which was no +doubt admirable in style but which is still considered one of the most +complete examples of modern learning. + +She was born a Bourbon Conde, the daughter of the Prince of Orleans, and +the fleurs de lys which were hers by right were still visible on the +keystones of the window arches of our little chateau. + +There was a large white salon with delicately carved woodwork, which was +lighted by three windows overlooking the terrace. It was a perfectly +preserved masterpiece of the Seventeenth Century. + +The room where I worked was also lighted by three windows and here one +could admire a mantel, a real marvel of art in Louis XIV style. I found +a large table of the same period at Rouen. I was at ease at it because I +could arrange the leaves of my orchestral score on it. + +It was at Pont de l'Arche that I learned one morning of Mme. Carvalho's +death. This was bound to plunge the art of singing and the stage in deep +mourning for she had been with her masterly talent the incarnation of +both for long years. Here too I received the visit of my director, Leon +Carvalho, who was terribly stricken by her death. He was overcome by +this irreparable loss. + +Carvalho came to ask me to finish the music of _La Vivandiere_, a work +on which Benjamin Godard was working, but which the state of his health +led them to fear he would never finish. + +I refused this request curtly. I knew Benjamin Godard and his +strong-mindedness as well as the wealth and liveliness of his +inspiration. I asked Carvalho not to tell of his visit and to let +Benjamin Godard finish his own work. + +That day ended with a rather drole incident. I set out to get a large +carriage to take my guests to the station. At the appointed time an open +landau appeared at my door. It had at least sixteen springs, was lined +with blue satin, and one got in by a triple step-ladder arrangement +which folded up when the door was closed. Two thin, lanky white horses, +real Rossinantes, were harnessed to it. + +My guests at once recognized this historic looking coach for they had +often met its owners riding in it on the Bois de Boulogne. Public malice +had found these people so ridiculous that they had given them a nickname +which in the interests of decorum I must refrain from mentioning. I will +only say that it was borrowed from the vocabulary of zoology. + +Never had the streets of that little town, usually so calm and peaceful, +echoed with such shouts of laughter. They did not stop till the station +was reached, and I will not swear that they were not prolonged after +that. + + * * * * * + +Carvalho decided to give _La Navarraise_ at the Opera-Comique in May, +1895. + +I went to Nice to finish _Cendrillon_ at the Hotel de Suede. We were +absolutely spoiled by our charming hosts M. and Mme. Roubion. When I was +settled at Nice, I got away to Milan for ten days to give hints to the +artists of the admirable La Scala Theatre who were rehearsing _La +Navarraise_. The protagonist was Lison Frandin, an artist known and +loved by all Italy. + +As I knew that Verdi was at Genoa, I took advantage of passing through +that city on the way to Milan to pay him a visit. + +When I arrived at the first floor of the old palace of the Dorias, where +he lived, I was able to decipher on a card nailed to the door in a dark +passage the name which radiates so many memories of enthusiasm and +glory: Verdi. + +He opened the door himself. I stood nonplussed. His sincerity, +graciousness and the nobility which his tall stature gave his whole +person soon drew us together. + +I passed unutterably charming moments in his presence, as we talked with +the most delightful simplicity in his bedroom and then on the terrace of +his sitting room from which we looked over the port of Genoa and beyond +on the deep sea as far as the eye could reach. I had the illusion +that he was one of the Dorias proudly showing me his victorious +fleets. + +[Illustration: Lucy Arbell] + +As I was leaving, I was drawn to remark that "now I had visited him, I +was in Italy." + +As I was about to pick up the valise I had left in a dark corner of the +large reception room, where I had noticed tall gilt chairs which were in +the Italian taste of the Eighteenth Century, I told him that it +contained manuscripts which never left me on my travels. Verdi seized my +luggage, briskly, and said he did exactly as I did, for he never wanted +to be parted from his work on a journey. + +How much I would have preferred to have had his music in my valise +instead of my own! The master even accompanied me across the garden of +his lordly dwelling to my carriage. + + * * * * * + +When I got back to Paris in February, I learned with the keenest emotion +that my master Ambroise Thomas was dangerously ill. + +Although far from well he had dared the cold to attend a festival at the +Opera where they had played the whole of that terrible, superb prelude +to _Francoise de Rimini_. + +They encored the prelude and applauded Ambroise Thomas. + +My master was the more moved by this reception, as he had not forgotten +how cruelly severe they had shown themselves toward this fine work at +the Opera. + +He went from the theater to the apartment he occupied at the +Conservatoire and went to bed. He never got up again. + +The sky was clear and cloudless that day, and the sun shone with its +softest brilliance in my venerated master's room and caressed the +curtains of his bed of pain. The last words he said were a salutation to +gladsome nature which smiled upon him for the last time. "To die in +weather so beautiful," he said, and that was all. + +He laid in state in the columned vestibule of which I have spoken, at +the foot of the great staircase leading to the president's loge which he +had honored with his presence for twenty-five years. + +The third day after his death, I delivered his funeral oration in the +name of the Societe des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques. I began as +follows. + +"It is said that a king of France in the presence of the body of a +powerful seigneur of his court could not help saying, 'How tall he +was!' So he who rests here before us seemed tall to us, being of those +whose height is only realized after death. + +"To see him pass in life so simple and calm, in his dream of art, who of +us, accustomed to feel him kindly and forbearing always at our sides, +has seen that he was so tall that we had to raise our eyes to look him +fairly in the face." + +Here my eyes filled with tears and my voice seemed to die away strangled +with emotion. Nevertheless I contained myself, mastered my grief, and +continued my discourse. I knew that I should have time enough for +weeping. + +It was very painful to me on that occasion to see the envious looks of +those who already saw in me my master's successor at the Conservatoire. +And as a matter of fact, this is exactly what happened, for a little +afterwards I was summoned to the Ministry of Public Instruction. At the +time the Minister was my confrere at the Institute, Rambaud the eminent +historian, and at the head of the Beaux-Arts as director was Henri +Roujon, since a member of the Academie des Beaux-Arts and the permanent +secretary. + +The directorship of the Conservatoire was offered me. I declined the +honor as I did not want to interrupt my life at the theater which took +my whole time. + +In 1905 the directorship was offered me again, but I refused for the +same reason. + +Naturally, I tendered my resignation as professor of composition at the +Conservatoire. I had only accepted and held the situation because it +brought me in touch with my Director whom I loved so much. + +Free at last and loosed from my chains forever, during the first days of +summer my wife and I started for the mountains of Auvergne. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +WORK! ALWAYS WORK! + + +At the beginning of the preceding winter, Henri Cain proposed to Henri +Heugel a text for an opera based on Alphonse Daudet's famous romance +_Sapho_. He went to Heugel in order that I might the more certainly +accept it, for he knew the influence my publisher had with me. + +I had gone to the mountains with a light heart. There was to be no +directing the Conservatoire and no more classes; I felt twenty years +younger. I wrote _Sapho_ with an enthusiasm I had rarely felt up to that +time. + +We lived in a villa, and I felt far removed from everything, the noise, +the tumult, the incessant movement and feverish activity of the city. We +went for walks and excursions through the beautiful country which has +been praised so much for the variety of its scenery, but which was still +too much unknown. The only accompaniment of our thoughts was the murmur +of the waters which flowed along the roadside; their freshness rose up +to us, and often it was from a bubbling spring which broke the quiet of +luxuriant nature. Eagles, too, came down from their steep rocks, +"Thunder's abode," as Lamartine said, and surprised us by their bold +flights as they made the air echo with their shrill, piercing cries. + +Even while I journeyed, my mind was working and on my return the pages +accumulated. + +I became enamored with this work and I rejoiced in advance at letting +Alphonse Daudet hear it, for he was a very dear friend whom I had known +when we were both young. + +If I insist somewhat of speaking of that time, it is because four works +above all others in my long career gave me such joy in the doing that I +freely describe it as exquisite: _Marie Magdeleine_, _Werther_, _Sapho_, +and _Therese_. + +At the beginning of September of that year an amusing incident happened. +The Emperor of Russia came to Paris. The entire population--this is no +exaggeration--was out of doors to see the procession pass through the +avenues and boulevards. The people drawn by curiosity had come from +everywhere; the estimate of a million people does not seem exaggerated. + +We did what everyone else did, and our servants went at the same time; +our apartment was empty. We were at the house of friends at a window +overlooking the Parc Monceau. The procession had scarcely passed when we +were suddenly seized with anxiety at the idea that the time was +particularly propitious for burglarizing deserted apartments and we +rushed home. + +When we reached our threshold whispers were coming from inside, which +put us in a lively flutter. We knew our servants were out. It had +happened! Burglars had broken in! + +We were shocked at the idea, but we went in ... and saw in the salon +Emma Calve and Henri Cain who were waiting for us and talking together +in the meantime. We were struck in a heap. Tableau! We all burst out +laughing at this curious adventure. Our servants had come back before we +had, and naturally opened the door for our friendly callers who had so +thoroughly frightened us for a moment. Oh power of imagination, how +manifold are thy fantastic creations! + + * * * * * + +Carvalho had already prepared the model of the scenery and the costumes +for _Cendrillon_, when he learned that Emma Calve was in Paris and put +on _Sapho_. In addition to the admirable protagonist of _La Navarraise_ +in London and in Paris, our interpreters were the charming artiste Mlle. +Julia Guiraudon (later the wife of my collaborator Henri Cain) and M. +Lepreste who has since died. + +I have spoken of the extreme joy I experienced in writing _Sapho_, an +opera in five acts. Henri Cain and dear Arthur Bernede had ably +contrived the libretto. + +Never before had the rehearsals of a work seemed more enrapturing. The +task was both easy and agreeable with such excellent artists. + +While the rehearsals were going on so well, my wife and I went to dine +one evening at Alphonse Daudet's. He was very fond of us. The first +proofs had been laid on the piano. I can still see Daudet seated on a +cushion and almost brushing the keyboard with his handsome head so +delightfully framed in his beautiful thick hair. It seemed to me that he +was deeply moved. The vagueness of his short sightedness made his eyes +still more admirable. His soul with all its pure, tender poetry spoke +through them. + +It would be difficult to experience again such moments as my wife and I +knew then. + +As they were about to begin the first rehearsals of _Sapho_, Danbe, who +had been my friend since childhood, told the musicians in the orchestra +what an emotional work they were to play. + +Finally, the first performance came on November 27, 1897. + +The evening must have been very fine, for the next day the first mail +brought me the following note: + + _My dear Massenet:_ + + I am happy at your great success. With Massenet and Bizet, _non + omnis moriar_. + + Tenderly yours, ALPHONSE DAUDET. + +I learned that my beloved friend and famous collaborator had been +present at the first performance, at the back of a box, although he had +stopped going out save on rare occasions. + +His appearance at the performance touched me all the more. + +One evening I decided to go to the playhouse, in the wings, and I was +shocked at Carvalho's appearance. He was always so alert and carried +himself so well, but now he was bent and his eyes were bloodshot behind +his blue glasses. Nevertheless his good humor and gentleness toward me +were the same as ever. + +His condition could but cause me anxiety. + +How true my sad presentiments were! + +My poor director was to die on the third day. + +Almost at the same time I learned that Daudet, whose life had been so +admirably rounded out, had heard his last hour strike on the clock of +time. Oh mysterious, implacable Timepiece! I felt one of its sharpest +strokes. + +Carvalho's funeral was followed by a considerable crowd. His son burst +into sobs behind his funeral car and could scarcely see. Everything in +that sad, impressive procession was painful and heartrending. + +Daudet's obsequies were celebrated with great pomp at Sainte Clotilde. +_La Solitude_ from _Sapho_ (the entr'acte from the fifth act) was played +during the service after the chanting of the _Dies Irae_. + +I was obliged to make my way almost by main force through the great +crowd to get into the church. It was like a hungry, eager reflection of +that long line of admirers and friends he had during his lifetime. + +As I sprinkled holy water on the casket, I recalled my last visit to the +Rue de Bellechasse where Daudet lived. I had gone to give him news of +the theater and carried him sprays of eucalyptus, one of the trees of +the South he adored. I knew what intense pleasure that would give him. + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile _Sapho_ went on its way. I went to Saint Raphael, the country +where Carvalho had liked to live. + +I relied on an apartment which I had engaged in advance, but the +landlord told me that he had let it to two ladies who seemed very busy. +I started to hunt another lodging when I was called back. I learned that +the two who had taken my rooms were Emma Calve and one of her friends. +The two ladies doubtless heard my name mentioned and changed their +itinerary. However, their presence in that place so far from Paris +showed me that our _Sapho_ had necessarily suspended her run of +performances. + +What whims will not one pardon in such an artiste? + +I learned that in two days everything was in order again at the theater +in Paris. Would that I had been there to embrace our adorable fugitive! + +Two weeks later I learned from the papers in Nice that Albert Carre had +been made manager of the Opera-Comique. Until then the house had been +temporarily under the direction of the Beaux-Arts. + +Who would have thought that it would have been our new manager who would +revive _Sapho_ considerably later with that beautiful artiste who became +his wife. But it was she who incarnated the Sapho of Daudet with an +unusually appealing interpretation. + +Salignac, the tenor, had a considerable success in the role of Jean +Gaussin. + +At the revival Carre asked me to interweave a new act, the act of the +Letters, and I carried out the idea with enthusiasm. + +_Sapho_ was also sung by that unusual artiste Mme. Georgette Leblanc, +later the wife of that great man of letters Maeterlinck. + +Mme. Brejean-Silver also made this role an astonishingly lifelike +figure. + +How many other artists have sung this work! + +The first opera put on under the new management was Reynaldo Hahn's +_L'Ile de Reve_. He dedicated that exquisite score to me. That music is +pervading for it was written by a real master. What a gift he has of +wrapping us in warm caresses! + +That was not the case with the music of some of our confreres. Reyer +found it unbearable and made this image-raising remark about it: + +"I just met Gretry's statue on the stairs; he had enough and fled." + +That brings to mind another equally witty sally which du Locle made to +Reyer the day after Berlioz's death, + +"Well, my dear fellow, Berlioz has got ahead of you." + +Du Locle could permit himself this inoffensive joke for he was Reyer's +oldest friend. + +I find this word from the author of _Louise_ whom I knew as a child in +my classes at the Conservatoire and who always felt a family affection +for me: + + Midnight, New Year's Eve. + + _Dear Master_: + + Faithful remembrance from your affectionate on the last day which + ends with _Sapho_ and the first hour of the year which will close + with _Cendrillon_. + + GUSTAVE CHARPENTIER. + +_Cendrillon_ did not appear until May 24, 1899. These works presented +one after another, at more than a year's interval however, brought me +the following note from Gounod: + +"A thousand congratulations, my dear friend, on your latest fine +success. The devil! Well, you go at such a pace one can scarcely keep up +with you." + +As I have said, the score of _Cendrillon_, written on a pearl from that +casket of jewels "Les Contes de Perrault," had been finished a long +time. It had yielded its turn to _Sapho_ at the Opera-Comique. Our new +director Albert Carre told me that he intended to give _Cendrillon_ at +the first possible chance, but that was six months away. + +I was staying at Aix-les-Bains in remembrance of my father who had lived +there, and I was deep in work on _La Terre Promise_. The Bible furnished +a text and I got out an oratorio of three acts. As I said, I was deep in +the work when my wife and I were overcome by the terrible news of the +fire at the Charity Bazaar. My dear daughter was a salesgirl. + +We had to wait until evening before a telegram arrived and ended our +intense alarm. + +A curious coincidence which I did not learn until long afterwards was +that the heroine (Lucy Arbell) of _Persephone_ and _Therese_, as well as +the beautiful Dulcinee (in _Don Quichotte_) was also among the +salesgirls. She was only twelve or thirteen at the time, but in the +midst of the general panic she found an exit behind the Hotel du Palais +and succeeded in saving her mother and several others. This showed rare +decision and courage for a child. + +Since I have spoken of _La Terre Promise_, I may add that I had an +entirely unexpected "hearing." Eugene d'Harcourt, who was so well +thought of as a musician and a critic, the greatly applauded composer of +_Tasse_ which was put on at Monte Carlo, proposed to me that he direct a +performance at the church of Sainte Eustache with an immense orchestra +and chorus. + +The second part was devoted to the taking of Jericho. A march--seven +times interrupted by the resounding outbursts from seven great +trumpets--ended with the collapse of the walls of that famous city which +the Jews had to take and destroy. The resounding clamor of all the +voices together was joined to the formidable thunder of the great organ +of Saint Eustache. + +With my wife I attended the final rehearsal in a large pulpit to which +the venerable cure had done us the honor of inviting us. + +That was the fifteenth of March, 1900. + + * * * * * + +I return to _Cendrillon_. Albert Carre put on this opera with a stage +setting which was as novel as it was marvellous. + +Julia Guiraudon was exquisite in the role of Cendrillon. Mme. Deschamps +Jehin was astonishing as a singer and as a comedienne, pretty Mlle. +Emelen was our Prince Charming and the great Fugere showed himself an +indescribable artist in the role of Pandolphe. He sent me the news of +"victory" which I received the next morning at Enghien-les-Bains, which +with my wife I had chosen as a refuge near Paris from the dress +rehearsal and the first performance. + +More than sixty continuous performances, including matinees, followed +the Premiere. The Isola brothers, managers of the Gaite, later gave a +large number of performances, and a curious thing for so Parisian a work +was that Italy gave _Cendrillon_ a fine reception. This lyric work was +given at Rome thirty times--a rare number. The following cablegram came +to me from America: + +_Cendrillon hier, success pheno menal_. + +The last word was too long and the sending office had cut it in two. + + * * * * * + +It was now 1900, the memorable time of the Great Exposition. + +I had scarcely recovered from the fine emotion of _La Terre Promise_ at +Saint Eustache than I fell seriously ill. They were then going on with +the rehearsals of _Le Cid_ at the Opera which they intended to revive. +The hundredth performance was reached in October of the same year. + +All Paris was en fete. The capital, one of the most frequented places in +the world, became even more and better than that: it was the world +itself, for all people met there. All nations jostled one another; all +tongues were heard and all costumes were set off against each other. + +Though the Exposition sent its million of joyful notes skyward and could +not fail to obtain a place of honor in history, at nightfall the immense +crowd sought rest from the emotions of the day by swarming to the +theaters which were everywhere open, and it invaded the magnificent +palace which our dear great Charles Gamier had raised for the +manifestations of Lyric Art and the religion of the Dance. + +Gailhard had come to call on me in May when I was so ill and had made me +promise to be present in his box at the hundredth performance which he +more than hoped to give and which as a matter of fact took place in +October. That day I yielded to his invitation. + +Mlle. Lucienne Breval and Mm. Saleza and Frederic Delmas were applauded +with delirious enthusiasm on the night of the hundredth performance. At +the recall at the end of the third act, Gailhard, in spite of my +resistance, pushed me to the front of his box.... + +It is easy to imagine what happened on the stage, in the Opera's superb +orchestra, and in the audience packed to the roof. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +IN THE MIDST OF THE MIDDLE AGES + + +I became very ill at Paris. I felt that the path from life to death was +so easy, the way seemed so gentle, so restful, that I was sorry to find +myself back in the harsh, cutting troubles of life. + +I had escaped the sharp cold of winter; it was now spring, and I went to +my old home at Egreville to find nature, the great consoler, in her +solitude and peace. + +I brought with me a voluminous correspondence, letters, pamphlets and +rolls of manuscript which I had never opened. I intended doing so on the +way as a distraction from the boredom of the journey. I had opened +several letters and was about to unroll a manuscript, "Oh, no," I said, +"that's enough." As a matter of fact I had happened on a work for the +stage. + +Must the stage follow me everywhere, I thought. I longed to have nothing +more to do with it. So I put the importunate thing aside. Yet as I +journeyed along, to kill time, as they say, I took it up again and +settled myself to run through that famous manuscript notwithstanding +whatever desire I may have had to the contrary. + +My attention was at first superficial and inattentive, but gradually it +became fixed. Insensibly I began to read with interest; so much so that +I ended by feeling real surprise--I must confess that it even became +stupefaction. + +"What," I exclaimed, "a play without a part for a woman except for the +speechless apparition of the Virgin!" + +If I was surprised and stupefied, what would be the feelings of those +who were used to seeing me put on the stage Manon, Sapho, Thais and +other lovable ladies. That was true, but in that they would forget that +the most sublime of women, the Virgin, was bound to sustain me in my +work, even as she showed herself charitable to the repentant Juggler. + +I had scarcely run through the first scenes, when I felt that I was face +to face with the work of a true poet who was familiar with the archaism +of the literature of the Middle Ages. The manuscript bore no author's +name. + +I wrote to my concierge to find out the origin of this mysterious +package, and he told me that the author had left his name and address +with explicit instructions not to divulge them to me unless and until I +had agreed to write the music for the work. + +The title _Le Jongleur de Notre Dame_ followed by the sub-title "Miracle +in Three Acts" enchanted me. + +The character of my home, a relic of the same Middle Ages, the +surroundings in which I found myself at Egreville, were exactly suited +to give me the desired atmosphere for my work. + +The score was finished and the time came to communicate with my unknown. + +At last I learned his name and address and wrote to him. + +There is no doubt about the joy with which I did so, for the author was +none other than Maurice Lena, the devoted friend I had known at Lyons +where he held the chair of Philosophy. + +My dear Lena then came to Egreville on August 14, 1900. We hurried to my +place from the little station. We found in my room spread out on the +large table (I flatter myself it was a famous table for it had belonged +to the illustrious Diderot) the engraved piano and vocal score for _Le +Jongleur de Notre Dame_. + +Lena was dumbfounded at sight of it. He was choked by the most +delightful of emotions. + +Both of us had been happy in the work. Now the unknown faced us. Where +and in what theater were we to be played? + +It was a radiant day. Nature with her intoxicating odors, the fair +season of the fields, the flowers in the meadows, the agreeable union +which had grown up between us in producing the work, everything in fact +spoke of happiness. Such fleeting happiness, as the poetess Mme. Daniel +Lesaeur has told us, is worth all eternity. + +The fields recalled to us that we were on the eve of the fifteenth of +August, the Feast of the Virgin, whom we had sung in our work. + +As I never had a piano at home, especially at Egreville, I was unable to +satisfy my dear Lena's curiosity and let him hear the music of this or +that scene. + +We were strolling together near the hour of vespers towards the old, +venerable church, and we could hear from a distance the chords of its +little harmonium. A mad idea struck me. "Hey! What if I should suggest +to you," I said to my friend, "what if I propose to you something which +would be impossible in that sacred place in any other way, but +certainly very tempting! Suppose we go into the church as soon as it is +deserted and returned to holy obscurity. What if I should let you hear +fragments of our _Le Jongleur de Notre Dame?_ Wouldn't it be a divine +moment which would leave its impression on us forever?" And we continued +our stroll, the complacent shade of the great trees protecting the paths +and roads from the sting of a too ardent sun. + +On the morrow--sad morrow--we parted. + +The following autumn, the winter, and finally the spring of the +succeeding year passed without any one coming to me from anywhere with +an offer to produce the work. + +When I least thought of it, I had a visit as unexpected as it was +flattering from M. Raoul Gunsbourg. + +I delight in recalling here the great worth of that close friend, his +individuality as a manager, and his talent as a musician, whose works +triumph on the stage. + +Raoul Gunsbourg brought me the news that on his advice H. S. H. the +Prince of Monaco had designated me for a work to be put on the stage of +the theater at Monte Carlo. + +_Le Jongleur de Notre Dame_ was ready and I offered it. It was arranged +that his Serene Highness should deign to come to Paris and hear the work +in person. That hearing occurred, as a matter of fact, in the beautiful, +artistic home of my publisher Henri Heugel. The Prince was entirely +satisfied; he did me the honor to express several times his sincere +pleasure. The work was put in study and the later rehearsals were in +Paris under Raoul Gunsbourg's direction. + +In January, 1902, my wife and I left Paris for the Palace of Monaco, +where his Serene Highness had most cordially invited us to be his +guests. What a contrast it was to the life we had left behind! + +One evening we left Paris buried in glacial cold beneath the snow, and, +behold, some hours later we found ourselves in an entirely different +atmosphere. It was the South, La Belle Provence, the Azure Coast. It was +ideal! For me it was the East almost at the gates of Paris! + +The dream began. It is hardly necessary for me to tell of all the +marvelous days which went like a dream in that Dantesque Paradise, amid +that splendid scenery, in that luxurious, sumptuous palace, all balmy +with the vegetation of the Tropics. + +The first performance of _Le Jongleur de Notre Dame_ was given at the +Monte Carlo Opera on Tuesday, February 18, 1902. The superb protagonists +were Mm. Renaud, of the Opera, and Marechal, of the Opera-Comique. + +A detail which shows the favor with which the work was received is that +it was given four times in succession during the same season. + +Two years later my dear director Albert Carre gave the first performance +of _Le Jongleur de Notre Dame_ at the Opera-Comique with this ideal +cast: Lucien Fugere, Marechal, the creator of the part, and Allard. + +The work long ago passed its hundredth performance at Paris, and as I +write these lines _Le Jongleur de Notre Dame_ has had a place in the +repertoire of the American houses for several years. + +It is interesting to note that the Juggler was created at the +Metropolitan Opera House by Mary Garden, the dazzling artist who is +admired as much in Paris as in the United States. + +My feelings are somewhat bewildered, I confess, at seeing the monk +discard his frock after the performance and resume an elegant costume +from the Rue de la Paix. However, in the face of the artist's triumph I +bow and applaud.[1] + + [1] The transposition of the tenor part to the soprano register + seems an intolerable musical solecism, and a woman playing a + serious and inevitably male character grotesquely absurd. The terms + in which Massenet here expresses his objections to this + indefensible procedure are gentle and but mildly ironical compared + with those he used to the translator. Massenet was simply furious. + With flaming eyes--and how his wonderful eyes could flame!--and + voice vehement with indignation and unutterable scorn, he said to + me, "When I wrote that work I little thought the monk's habit would + ever be disguised in a petticoat from the Rue de la Paix."] + +As I have said, this work had to wait its turn, and as Carvalho had +previously engaged me to write the music for _Griseldis_, a work by +Eugene Morand and Armand Silvestre, which was much applauded at the +Theatre-Francais. I wrote the score at intervals between my journeys to +the South and to Cap d'Antibes. Ah, that hotel on the Cap d'Antibes! +That was an unusual stay. It was an old property built by Villemessant, +who had christened it correctly and happily "Villa Soliel," and which he +planned for journalists overtaken by poverty and old age. + +Imagine, if you can, a large villa with white walls all purple from the +fires of the bright sun of the South and surrounded by a grove of +eucalyptus trees, myrtles and laurels. It was reached by shady paths, +suffused with the most fragrant perfumes, and faced the sea--that sea +which rolls its clear waters from the Azure Coast and the Riviera along +the indented shores of Italy as far as ancient Hellas, as if to carry +thither on its azured waves which bathe Provence the far off salutation +of the Phocean city. + +How pleased I was with my sun-flooded room, where I worked in peace and +quiet and in the enjoyment of perfect health! + +As I have spoken of _Griseldis_, I will add that as I had two works +free, that and _Le Jongleur de Notre Dame_, my publisher offered Albert +Carre his choice and he took _Griseldis_. That is why, as I have said, +_Le Jongleur de Notre Dame_ was put on at Monte Carlo in 1902. + +So _Griseldis_ got the first start and was given at the Opera-Comique +November 20, 1901. + +Mlle. Lucienne Breval made a superb creation of it. The baritone, +Dufranne, made his first appearance in the role of the marquis, +Griseldis's husband, and made a brilliant success from the moment he +came on the stage; Fugere was extraordinary in the role of the Devil, +and Marechal was a tender lover in the part of Alain. + +I was very fond of this piece. Everything about it pleased me. + +It brought together so many touching sentiments: the proud chivalric +appearance of the great, powerful seigneur going on the Crusades, the +fantastic appearance of the Green Devil who might be said to have come +from a window of a medieval cathedral, the simplicity of young Alain, +and the delightful little figure of the child of Griseldis! For that +part we had a tiny girl of three who was the very spirit of the theater. +As in the second act the child on Griseldis's knees should give the +illusion of falling asleep, the little artiste discovered all by herself +the proper gesture which would be understood by the distant audience; +she let her arms fall as if overcome with weariness. Delightful little +mummer! + +Albert Carre had found an archaic and historic oratory which was +artistically perfect, and when the curtain rose on Griseldis's garden, +it was a delight. What a contrast between the lilies blooming in the +foreground and the dismal castle on the horizon! + +And the scene of the prologue with its living background was a fortunate +discovery. + +What joys I promised myself in being able to work at the theater with my +old friend Armand Silvestre. A year before he had written me, "Are you +going to let me die without seeing _Griseldis_ at the Opera-Comique?" +Alas, that was the case, and my dear collaborator, Eugene Morland, +helped with his poetical and artistic advice. + +As I was working on _Griseldis_, a scholar who was entirely wrapped up +in the literature of the Middle Ages and was interested in a subject on +that period, entrusted me with a work which he had written on that time, +a very labored work of which I was not able to make much use. + +I had shown it to Gerome, whose mind was curious about everything, and +as Gerome, the author and I were together, our great painter whose +remarks were always so apropos, ready and amusing said to the author who +was waiting for his opinion, "How pleasantly I fell asleep reading your +book yesterday." + +And the author bowed entirely satisfied. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +FROM CHERUBIN TO THERESE + + +I happened to see played at the Theatre-Francais three entirely novel +acts which interested me very much. It was _Le Cherubin_ by Francis de +Croisset. Two days later I was at the author's house and asked him for +the work. His talent, which was so marked then, has never ceased highly +to confirm itself. + +I remember that it was a rainy day, as we were coming back by the Champs +Elysees from the glorious ceremony at the unveiling of the statue of +Alphonse Daudet, that we settled the terms of our agreement. + +Title, subject, action, everything in that delightful _Cherubin_ charmed +me. I wrote the music at Egreville. + +His Serene Highness the Prince of Monaco heard that _Le Cherubin_ was +set to music, and he remembered _Le Jongleur de Notre Dame_ which he had +welcomed so splendidly and which I had respectfully dedicated to him. He +had M. Raoul Gunsbourg propose to me that the first performance be +given at Monte Carlo. It is not difficult to imagine with what +enthusiasm I accepted this offer. Mme. Massenet and I went again to that +ideal country in that fairy-like palace of which we have retained such +imperishable memories. + +_Le Cherubin_ was created by Mary Garden, the tender Nina by Marguerite +Carre, the bewitching Ensoleillad by Cavalieri, and the part of the +philosopher was filled by Maurice Renaud. + +It was a really delightful interpretation. The evening was much drawn +out by the applause and the constant encores which the audience demanded +of the artists. It literally held them in an atmosphere of the wildest +enthusiasm. + +Our stay at the palace was one continual series of inexpressible +delights which we were to experience again as the guests of that +high-souled prince of science. + +Henri Cain, who had been my collaborator with Francis de Croisset in _Le +Cherubin_, amused me between times by making me write the music for a +pretty, picturesque ballet in one act, _Cigale_. The Opera-Comique gave +it February 4, 1904. The bewitching, talented Mlle. Chasle was our +Cigale, and Messmaecker, of the Opera-Comique, clowned the role of Mme. +Fourmi, Rentiere, in a mirth provoking manner! + +I was by far the most entertained of those who attended the rehearsals +of _Cigale_. At the end was a scene which was very touching and +exquisitely poetical, where an angel with a divine voice appears and +sings in the distance. The angel's voice was Mlle. Guiraudon who became +Mme. Henri Cain. + +A year later, as I have said, on February 14, 1905, _Le Cherubin_ was +sung at Monte Carlo and on the twenty-third of the following May the +Opera-Comique in Paris closed its season with the same piece. The only +changes at the latter were that Lucien Fugere took the role of the +philosopher and added a new success to the many that artist had already +achieved and that the role of Ensoleillad was given to the charming +Mlle. Vallandri. + +[Illustration: Persephone in _Ariane_] + + * * * * * + +You will perhaps observe that I have said nothing about _Ariane_. The +reason for this is that I never talk about a work until it is finished +and engraved. I have said nothing about _Ariane_ or about _Roma_, the +first scenes of which I wrote in 1902, enraptured by the sublime +tragedy, _Rome_ _Vaincue_ by Alexandre Parodi. As I write these words +the five acts of _Roma_ are in rehearsal at Monte Carlo and the Opera, +but I have already said too much. + +So I resume the current of my life. + +_Ariane! Ariane!_ The work which made me live in such lofty spheres! How +could it have been otherwise with the superb, inspired collaboration of +Catulle Mendes, the poet of ethereal hopes and dreams! + +It was a memorable day in my life when my friend Heugel told me that +Catulle Mendes was ready to read the text of _Ariane_ to me. + +For a long time I had wanted to weep the tears of Ariane. I was thrilled +with all the strength of mind and heart before I even knew the first +word of the first scene. + +We engaged to meet for this reading at Catulle Mendes's house, in the +artistic lodging of that great scholar and his exquisite wife who was +also a most talented and real poet. + +I came away actually feverish with excitement. The libretto was in my +pocket, against my heart, as if to make it feel the throbs, as I got +into a victoria to go home. Rain fell in torrents but I did not notice +it. Surely Ariane's tears permeated my whole being with delight. + +Dear, good tears, with what gladness you must have fallen during the +rehearsals! I was overwhelmed with esteem and attention by my dear +director, Gailhard, as well as by my remarkable interpreters. + +In August, 1905, I was walking pensively under the pergola of our house +at Egreville, when suddenly an automobile horn woke the echoes of that +peaceful country. + +Was not Jupiter thundering in the heavens, _Caelo tonantem Jovem_, as +Horace says in the Odes. For a moment I could believe that such was the +case, but what was my surprise--my very agreeable surprise--when I saw +get down from that thundering sixty miles an hour two travelers, who, if +they did not come from heaven, nevertheless let me hear the accents of +Paradise in their friendly voices. + +One was Gailhard, the director of the Opera, and the other the learned +architect of the Garnier monument. My director had come to ask me how I +was getting on with _Ariane_ and if I were willing to let the Opera have +it. + +We went up to my large room which with its yellow hangings of the period +might have easily been taken for that of a general of the First Empire. +I at once pointed out a heap of pages on a large black marble table--the +whole of the finished score. + +At lunch, between the sardines of the hors d'oeuvre and the cheese of +the dessert, I declaimed several situations in the work. Then my guests, +put in a charming humor, were good enough to accept my invitation to +make a tour of the property. + +It was while we paced under the pergola of which I have spoken, in the +delightfully fresh, thick shade of the vines whose leaves formed a +verdant network that we settled on the cast. + +Lucienne Breval was to have the role of Ariane; Louise Grandjean that of +the dramatic Phedre, and by common consent, in view of her talent for +tragedy and her established success at the Opera, we decided on Lucy +Arbell for the role of the somber, beautiful Queen of Hell. + +Muratore and Delmas were plainly indicated for Thesee and Pirithoues. + +As he was going away, Gailhard, remembering the simple, confiding +formula by which our fathers made contracts in the good old days, +plucked a branch from a eucalyptus in the garden and said, waving it at +me: + +"This is the token of the promises we have exchanged to-day. I carry it +with me." + +Then my guests got into their auto and disappeared in the whirling dust +of the road. Did they carry away to the great city the near realization +of my dearest hopes, was what I asked myself as I climbed to my room. I +was tired and worn out by the emotions of the day and I went to bed. The +sun still shone on the horizon in all the glory of its fire. It +crimsoned my bed with its dazzling rays. I dreamt as I slept the most +beautiful dream that can delude us when a task has been fulfilled. + + * * * * * + +I now record a detail which is of some importance. + +My little Marie Magdeleine came to Egreville to spend a few days with +her grandparents. I yielded to her curiosity and told her the story of +the piece. I had reached the place where Ariane is drawn into Hell to +find the wandering soul of her sister Phedre, and as I stopped, my +grand-child exclaimed at once: + +"And now grandpapa we are going to be in Hell!" + +The silvery wheedling voice of the dear child, her sudden, natural +question produced a strange, almost magical, effect on me. I had had the +intention of asking them to suppress that act, but now I suddenly +decided to keep it, and I answered the child's fair question, "Yes, we +are going into Hell." And I added, "We shall see there the affecting +figure of Persephone finding again with delight the roses, the divine +roses which remind her of the beloved earth where she lived of old, ere +she became the Queen of that terrible place with a black lily in her +hand for a scepter." + +That visit to Avernus necessitates a stage setting and an interpretation +which I will deliberately designate as intensive. I had to go to Turin +(my last journey to that beautiful country) in pretty cold weather, +December 14, 1907, accompanied by my dear Henri Heugel to be present at +the last rehearsals at the Regio, the royal theater, where they were +putting on _Ariane_ for the first time in Italy. The work had a +luxurious stage setting and remarkable interpreters. The great artiste +Maria Farneti had the role of Ariane. I noticed particularly the special +care with which Serafin, the eminent conductor who was acting as stage +manager, staged the act in Hell. Our Persephone was as tragic as one +possibly could be; the aria of the Roses, however, seemed to me to be +lacking in emotion. I remember that I told her at the rehearsal, +throwing an armful of roses into her wide open arms, to press them to +her heart ardently, as she would do, I added, with a husband or a +beloved sweetheart whom she had not seen for twenty years! "From the +roses which disappeared so long ago to the dear adored one who is at +last found again is not so far! Think of that, Signorina, and the effect +will be sure!" The charming artiste smiled, but had she understood? + +So _Ariane_ was finished. My illustrious friend, Jules Claretie, learned +of this and recalled to me the promise I had made him of writing +_Therese_, a lyric drama in three acts. He added: + +"The work will be short, for the emotion it lets loose cannot be +prolonged." + +I went to work on it, but I will deal with that presently. + +I have alluded to the pleasure I felt at every rehearsal at the constant +happy discoveries in scenery or in feeling. Ah, with what constantly +alert and devoted intelligence our artists followed the precious advice +of Gailhard! + +The month of June was, however, marked by dark days. One of our artistes +fell seriously ill and they fought with death for thirty-six hours in +order to save her. The work was all ready for the stage and as that +artiste was necessarily missing for several weeks, they suspended the +rehearsals during the summer. They were resumed at the end of September +when our artists were all well and together again. These rehearsals were +in a general way to go on during the month of October and we were to +appear at the end of the month. + +What was said was done; rare promptness for the stage. The first +performance was on October 31, 1906. + +Catulle Mendes, who had often been severe on me in his criticisms in the +press, had become my ardent collaborator, and, something worth noting, +he appreciated joyfully the reverence I had brought to the delivery of +his verses. + +In our common toil, as well as in our studies with the artists at the +playhouse, I delighted in his outbursts of devotion and affection and in +the esteem in which he held me. + +The performances followed each other ten times a month, a unique fact in +the annals of the theater for a new work, and this went on up to the +sixtieth performance. + +Apropos of this, they asked Lucy Arbell, our Persephone, how many times +she had sung the work, feeling sure that her answer would be wrong. + +"Why," she exclaimed, "sixty times!" + +"No," replied her questioner, "you have sung it one hundred and twenty +times, for you are always encored in the aria of the Roses." + +I owed that sixtieth performance to the new directors, Mm. Messager and +Broussan, and that seems to be the last of a work which started off so +brilliantly. + +What a difference, I say again, between the manner in which my works +have been mounted for some years and the way they were put on when I was +beginning! + +My first works were put on in the provinces with old scenery, and I was +compelled to hear the stage manager say things like this: + +"For the first act we have found an old background from _La Favorita_; +for the second two sets from _Rigoletto_," etc., etc. + +I recall an obliging director who on the eve of a first performance, +knowing that I lacked a tenor, offered me one, but warning me, "This +artist knows the part, but I ought to tell you that he is always flat in +the third act." + +Which reminds me that in the same house I knew a basso who had a strange +pretension, still more strangely expressed, "My voice," said our basso, +"goes down so far that they can't find the note on the piano." + +Oh, well, they were all valiant and honest artists. They did me service +and had their years of success. + +But I see that I am loitering on the way in telling of these old times. +I have to tell of the new work which was in rehearsal in Monte Carlo--I +mean _Therese_. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +SPEAKING OF 1793 + + +One summer morning in 1905 my great friend, Georges Cain, the eminent +and eloquent historian of Old Paris, got together the beautiful, +charming Mme. Georges Cain, Mlle. Lucy Arbell, of the Opera, and a few +others to visit what had once been the convent of the Carmelites in the +Rue de Vaugirard. + +We had gone through the cells of the ancient cloister, seen the wells +into which the blood stained horde of Septembrists had thrown the bodies +of the slaughtered priests, and we had come to the gardens which remain +so mournfully famous for those frightful butcheries. Georges Cain +stopped in the middle of his recital of these dismal events, and pointed +out to us a white figure wandering alone in the distance. + +"It is the ghost of Lucile Desmoulins," he said. Poor Lucile Desmoulins +so strong and courageous beside her husband on his way to the scaffold +where she was so soon to follow him! + +It was neither shade nor phantom. The white figure was very much alive! +It was Lucy Arbell who had been overcome by deep emotion and who had +turned away to hide the tears. + +_Therese was already revealed_.... + +A few days afterwards I was lunching at the Italian Embassy. At dessert +the kindly Comtessa Tornielli told us, with that charming grace and +delightful eloquence which were so characteristic of her, the story of +the ambassdorial palace, Rue de Grenelle. + +In 1793 the palace belonged to the Gallifet family. Some of the members +of that illustrious house were guillotined, while others went abroad. It +was determined to sell the building as the property of the people, but +this was opposed by a servant of firm and decided character. "I am the +people," he said, "and you shall not take from the people what belongs +to it. I am in my own place here!" + +When one of the surviving Gallifet emigres returned to Paris in 1798, +his first thought was to go and see the family home. He was greatly +surprised when the faithful servant whose vigorous speech had prevented +its destruction received him and said, falling at his master's feet, +"Monseigneur, I have taken care of your property. I give it back to +you." + +The text of _Therese_ was foretold. That revelation was its +presentiment. + +I had the first vision of the music of the work at Brussels in the Bois +de la Cambre in November of that year. + +It was a beautiful afternoon under a dim autumnal sun. One knew that the +beneficent sap was slowly running down in the beautiful trees. The gay +green foliage which had crowned their tops had disappeared. One by one +at the caprice of the wind the leaves fell, dried up, reddened and +yellowed by the cold, taking in the gold, irony of Nature! its very +brilliance, and shadings and most varied tints. + +Nothing resembled less the poor sorry trees of our Bois de Boulogne. In +the mighty spread of their branches those magnificent trees remind one +of those which are so much admired in the parks at Windsor and Richmond. +I walked on the dead leaves, scuffling them with my feet. Their rustling +pleased me and were a delightful accompaniment to my thoughts. + +I was closer to the heart of my work, "in the bowels of the subject," +for among the four or five people with me was the future heroine of +_Therese_. + +I searched everywhere, greedily, for all that had to do with the +horrible period of the Terror, in all the engravings which would give me +the sinister dark story of that epoch, in order to make the scenes in +the second act as true as possible, and I confess that I like it. + +I returned to Paris to my room Rue de Vaugirard, and wrote the music of +_Therese_ during the winter and spring (I finished it in the summer at +the seashore). + +I remember that one morning the work on one situation demanded the +immediate assistance of my collaborator, Jules Claretie, and that it +unnerved me a good deal. I decided forthwith to write to the Minister of +Posts, Telegraphs and Telephones and ask him to grant me an almost +impossible thing: to place a telephone in my room before four o'clock. + +Naturally the tone of my letter reflected that of a deferential +petition. + +How could I have hoped for it? When I returned from my affairs, I found +on my mantel a pretty telephone apparatus which was quite new. + +The Minister, M. Berard, one of our most distinguished men of letters, +had felt bound to interest himself in my capricious wish on the spot. He +had sent a crew of twenty men with everything required for a rapid +installation. + +Dear, charming minister! I love him the more for his kindly word one +day. "I was happy," he said, "to give you such pleasure, to you who have +given me so much pleasure at the theater with your works." + +_Pari pari refertur_, yes, it was returning like for like, but done with +a grace and kindness which I appreciated highly. + +Hello!... Hello! At the first attempt I was very clumsy of course. All +the same I managed to hold a conversation. + +I also learned, another useful kindness, that my number would not appear +in the Annuaire. Consequently nobody could call me up. I was the only +one who could use the marvellous instrument. + +I did not wait long to call up Claretie and he was much surprised by the +call from the Rue Vaugirard. I told him my ideas about the difficult +scene which had brought about the installation of the telephone. + +The difficulty was in the final scene. + +I telephoned to him, + +"Cut Therese's throat and it will be all right." + +I heard an unknown voice crying excitedly (our wire was crossed): + +"Oh, if I only knew who you were, you scoundrel, I would denounce you to +the police. A crime like that! Who is to be the victim?" + +Suddenly Claretie's voice: + +"Once her throat is cut she will be put in the cart with her husband. I +prefer that to poison." + +The other man's voice: + +"Oh, that's too much! Now the rascals want to poison her. I'll call the +superintendent. I want an inquiry!" + +A terrible buzzing ensued; then a blissful calm. + +It was time; with a subscriber roused to such a pitch, Claretie and I +ran the chance of a bad quarter of an hour! I still tremble at the +thought of it. + +After that I often worked with Claretie over the wire. The Ariane thread +also took my voice to Persephone, I should say ... Therese, whom I let +hear in this way this or that vocal ending, so as to have her opinion +before I wrote down the notes. + +One beautiful spring day I went to revisit the Garden at Bagatelle and +its pretty pavilion, then still abandoned, which the Comte d'Artois had +built under Louis XVI. I fixed thoroughly in my memory that delightful +little chateau which the triumphant Revolution allowed to be exploited +for picnic parties after despoiling its oldtime owner of it. When he got +it back under the Restoration, the Comte d'Artois called it Babiole, +Bagatelle or Babiole it's all the same; and this same pavilion was +occupied almost to our own time by Sir Richard Wallace, the famous +millionaire, philanthropist and collector. + +Later on I wanted the scenery of the first act of _Therese_ to reproduce +it exactly. Our artiste (Lucy Arbell) was especially impressed with the +idea. It is well known that her ancestry makes her one of the +descendants of the Marquis of Hertford. + +When the score was finished and we knew the intentions of Raoul +Gunsbourg, who wanted the work for the Monte Carlo Opera, Mme. Massenet +and I were informed that H. S. H. the Prince of Monaco would honor our +modest home with his presence, and with the chief of his household, the +Comte de Lamotte d'Allogny, would lunch with us. We immediately invited +my collaborator and Mme. Claretie and my excellent publisher and Mme. +Heugel. + +The Prince of Monaco with his deep simplicity was good enough to sit +near a piano I had got in for the occasion and listen to passages from +_Therese_. He learned the following detail from us. During the first +reading Lucy Arbell, a true artist, stopped me as I was singing the last +scene, where Therese gasps with horror as she sees the awful cart +bringing her husband, Andre Thorel, to the scaffold and cries with all +her might, _"Vive le Roi_!" so as to ensure that she shall be reunited +with her husband in death. Just then, our interpreter, who was deeply +affected, stopped me and said in a burst of rapture, "I can never sing +that scene through, for when I recognize my husband who has given me his +name and saved Armand de Clerval, I ought to lose my voice. So I ask you +to _declaim_ all of the ending of the piece." + +Only great artists have such inborn gifts of instinctive emotion. +Witness Mme. Fides Devries who asked me to re-write the aria of Chimene, +_"Pleurez mes yeux_." She found that while she was singing it she +thought only of her dead father and almost forgot her friend, +Rodriguez. + +A sincere touch was suggested by the tenor, Talazac, the creator of Des +Grieux. He wanted to add _toi_ before _vous_ which he uttered on finding +Manon in the seminaire of Saint Sulpice. Does not that _toi_ indicate +the first cry of the old lover on seeing his mistress again? + +The preliminary rehearsals of _Therese_ took place in the fine +apartment, richly decorated with old pictures and work of art, which +Raoul Gunsbourg had in the Rue de Rivoli. + +It was New Year's and we celebrated by working in the salon from eight +o'clock in the evening until midnight. + +Outside it was cold, but a good fire made us forget that, as we drank in +that fine exquisite atmosphere champagne to the speedy realization of +our common hopes. + +How exciting and impressive those rehearsals were as they brought +together such fine artists as Lucy Arbell, Edmond Clement and Dufranne! + +The first performance of _Therese_ came the next month, February 7, +1907, at the Monte Carlo Opera. + +That year my dear wife and I were again the guests of the Prince in +that magnificent palace my admiration for which I have already told. + +His Highness invited us to his box--the one where I had been called at +the end of the premiere of _Le Jongleur de Notre Dame_ and where the +Prince of Monaco himself had publicly invested me with the Grand Cordon +of the Order of St. Charles. + +It is a fine thing to go to the theater, but it is an entirely different +thing to be present at a performance and listen to it. So the evening of +_Therese_ I again took my accustomed place in the Prince's salon. +Tapestries and doors separated it from the box. I was alone there in +silence, at least I might expect to be. + +Silence? The roar of applause which greeted our artists was so great +that neither doors nor hangings could muffle it. + +At the official dinner given at the palace the next day our applauded +creators were invited and feted. My celebrated confrere Louis Diemer, +the marvellous virtuoso, who had consented to play the harpsichord in +the first act of _Therese_, Mme. Louise Diemer, Mme. Massent and I were +there. To reach the banquet hall my wife and I had to go up the Stairs +of Honor. It was near our apartment--that ideally beautiful apartment, +truly a place of dreams. + +For two consecutive years _Therese_ was played at Monte Carlo and with +Lucy Arbell, the creator, we had the brilliant tenor, Rousseliere and +the master professor, Bouvet. + +In March, 1910, fetes of unusual and unheard of splendor were given at +Monaco at the opening of the colossal palace of the Oceanographic +Museum. + +_Therese_ was given at the gala performance before an audience which +included members of the Institute, confreres of his Serene Highness, a +member of the Academie des Sciences. Many illustrious persons, savants +from the whole world, representatives of the Diplomatic Corps, as well +as M. Loubet, ex-president of the Republic, were there. + +The morning of the formal inauguration the Prince delivered an admirable +address, to which the presidents of the foreign academies replied. + +I was already much indisposed and I could not take my place at the +banquet at the palace, after which the guests attended the gala +performance of which I have spoken. + +Henry Roujon, my confrere at the Institute, was good enough at the +banquet the following day, to read the speech I would have delivered +myself had I not been obliged to stay in bed. + +To be read by Henri Roujon is both honor and success. + +Saint-Saens was also invited to the fetes and he too stayed in the +palace. He lavished the most affectionate care on me constantly. The +Prince himself deigned to visit me in my sick room and both told me of +the success of the performance and of our Therese, Lucy Arbell. + +The doctor had left me quieter in the evening and he too opened my door +about midnight. He doubtless did so to see how I was, but he also told +me of the fine performance. He knew it would be balm of certain efficacy +for me. + +Here is a detail which gave me great satisfaction. + +They had given _Le Vieil Aigle_ by Raoul Gunsbourg in which Mme. +Marguerite Carre, the wife of the manager of the Opera-Comique, was +highly applauded. Albert Carre had been present at the performance and +he met one of his friends from Paris and told him that he was going to +put on _Therese_ at the Opera-Comique with its dramatic creatrix. + +As a matter of fact four years after the premiere at Monte Carlo and +after many other houses had performed the work, the first performance of +_Therese_ was given at the Opera-Comique on May 28, 1911. _L'Echo de +Paris_ was so kind as to publish for the occasion a wonderfully got up +supplement. + +As I write these lines, I read that the second act of _Therese_ is a +part of that rare program of the fete offered to me at the Opera on +Sunday, December 10, 1911, by the organizers of the pious French popular +charity, "Trente Ans de Theatre," the useful creation of my friend, +Adrian Bernheim, whose mind is as generous as his soul is great and +good. + +A dear friend said to me recently, "If you wrote _Le Jongleur de Notre +Dame_ with faith, you wrote _Therese_ with all your heart." + +Nothing could be said more simply, and nothing could touch me more. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +FROM ARIANE TO DON QUICHOTTE + + +I never deliver a work until I have kept it by me for months, even for +years. + +I had finished _Therese_--long before it was produced--when my friend +Heugel told me that he had already made arrangements with Catulle Mendes +to write a sequel to _Ariane_. + +Although to our way of thinking _Bacchus_ was a distinct work, it should +form a whole with _Ariane_. + +The text for it was written in a few months and I took great interest in +it. + +And yet--and this is entire accord with my character--hesitation and +doubt often bothered me. + +Of all the fabulous stories of the gods and demigods of antiquity those +which relate to the Hindu heroes are perhaps the least known. + +The study of the fables of mythology, which has had until recently only +the interest of curiosity in even the most classical learning, has, +thanks to the work of modern scholars, acquired a higher import as they +have discovered its role in the history of religion. + +To allow the inspiration of his poetic muse, which was always so ardent +and finely colored, wander at will in such a region was bound to delight +the well informed mind of Catulle Mendes. + +Palmiki's Sanscrit poem, the Ramayana, is at once religious and epic. +For those who have read that sublime poem it is more curious and greater +than even the Nibelungen, Germany's epic of the Middle Ages, which +traces the struggle between the family of the Nibelungen with Etzel or +Attila and their consequent destruction. There is nothing exaggerated in +calling the Ramayana the Iliad or Odyssey of India. It is as divinely +beautiful as the immortal work of old Homer which has come down through +the centuries. + +I knew the legend through reading and rereading it, but what I had to do +in my work was to add to my thought what the words, the verses, and the +situations even could not explain clearly enough to the often +inattentive public. + +My work this time was intense, obstinate, implacable. I literally +fought; I cut out, and I replaced. At last I finished _Bacchus_--after +devoting many days and months to it. + +[Illustration: Queen Amahelly (_Bacchus_)] + +The cast selected by the new management at the Opera, Mm. Messager and +Broussan, was as follows: Lucienne Breval reappeared as Ariane; Lucy +Arbell, in memory of her success as Persephone was Queen Amahelly in +love with Bacchus; Muratore, our Thesus, doubled in the part of Bacchus, +and Gresse accepted the role of the fanatical priest. + +The new management was not yet firmly in the saddle and wanted to give +our work a magnificent setting. + +Even as they had been previously cruel to _Le Mage_ and to our excellent +director, Gailhard (which did not prevent his going back there soon +afterwards, better liked than ever) now they were hard on _Bacchus_. + +When _Bacchus_ went on both the press and the public were undecided +about the real worth of the new management. + +Giving a work under such conditions was running a danger a second time. +I saw it, but too late; for the work, in spite of its faults, did not +seem to warrant such an amount of abuse. + +The public, however, which lets itself go in the sincerity of its +feelings, showed a very comforting enthusiasm in certain parts of the +work. It received the first scene of the third act, especially, with +applause and numerous recalls. The ballet in the forests of India was +highly appreciated. The entrance of Bacchus in his car (admirably +staged) was a great success. + +With a little patience the good public would have triumphed over the ill +will of which I had been forewarned. + +One day in February, 1909, I had finished an act of _Don Quichotte_ (I +will speak of that later on)--it was four o'clock in the afternoon--and +I rushed to my publishers to keep an appointment with Catulle Mendes. I +thought I was late, and as I went in I expressed my regret at keeping my +collaborator waiting. An employee answered me in these words: + +"He will not come. He is dead." + +My brain reeled at the terrible news. I would not have been more knocked +out if some one had hit me over the head with a club. In an instant I +learned the details of the appalling catastrophe. + +When I came to myself I could only say, "We are lost as far as _Bacchus_ +is concerned at the Opera. Our most precious support is gone." + +The anger his keen, fine criticism aroused against Catulle Mendes was a +pretext for revenge on the part of the slaughtered. + +These fears were only too well justified by the doubts of which I have +spoken and if, in the sequel, Catulle Mendes had been present at our +rehearsals he would have been of great assistance. + +My gratitude to those great artists--Breval, Arbell, Muratore, +Gresse--is very great. They fought brilliantly and their talents +inspired faith in a fine work. It was often planned to try to counteract +the ill feeling. I thank Mm. Messager and Broussan for the thought +although it came to nothing. + +I wrote an important bit of orchestration (with the curtain down) to +accompany the victorious fight of the apes in the Indian forests with +the heroic army of Bacchus. I managed to make real--at least I think I +did--in the midst of the symphonic developments the cries of the +terrible chimpanzees armed with stones which they hurled from the tops +of the rocks. + +Mountain passes certainly don't bring good luck. Thermopylae and +Ronceval as Roland and Leonidas learned to their cost. All their valor +was in vain. + +While I was writing this music I went many times to the Jardin des +Plantes to study the habits of these mammals. I loved these friends of +which Schopenhauer spoke so evilly when he said that if Asia has her +monkeys Europe has her French. The German Schopenhauer was not very +friendly to us. + +Long before they decided, after many discussions, to start rehearsing +_Bacchus_ (it did not appear until the end of the season of 1909) it was +my good fortune to begin work on the music in three acts for _Don +Quichotte_. Raoul Gunsbourg was exceedingly anxious to have both the +subject and the cast at the Monte Carlo Opera. + +I was in very bad humor when I thought of the tribulations _Bacchus_ had +brought on me without there being anything with which I could reproach +myself either as a man or as a musician. + +So _Don Quichotte_ came into my life as a soothing balm. I had great +need of it. Since the preceding September I had suffered acute rheumatic +pains and I had passed much more of my existence in bed than out of it. +I had found a device which enabled me to write in bed. + +I put _Bacchus_ and its uncertain future out of my thoughts, and day by +day I advanced the composition of _Don Quichotte_. + +Henri Cain, as is his way, built up very cleverly a scenario out of the +heroic play by Le Loraine, the poet whose fine future was killed by the +poverty which preceded his death. I salute that hero to art whose +physiognomy resembled so much that of our "Knight of the Doleful +Countenance." + +What charmed me and decided me to write this work was Le Loraine's +stroke of genius in substituting for the coarse wench at the inn, +Cervantes's Dulcinee, the original and picturesque La Belle Dulcinee. +The most renowned French authors had not had that idea. + +It brought to our piece an element of deep beauty in the woman's role +and a potent poetical touch to our Don Quixote dying of love--real love +this time--for a Belle Dulcinee who justified the passion. + +So it was with infinite delight that I waited for the day of the +performance which came in February, 1910. Oh beautiful, magnificent +premiere! + +They welcomed our marvellous artists with great enthusiasm. Lucy Arbell +was dazzling and extraordinary as La Belle Dulcinee and Gresse was an +extremely comical Sancho. + +In thinking over this work which they gave five times in the same season +at Monte Carlo--a unique record in the annals of that house--I feel my +whole being thrill with happiness at the thought of seeing again that +dreamland, the Palace of Monaco, and his Serene Highness on the +approaching occasion of _Roma_. + +New joys were realized at the rehearsals of _Don Quichotte_ at the +Theatre Lyrique de la Gaite, where I knew I should receive the frankest, +most open and affectionate welcome from the directors, the Isola +brothers. + +The cast we had at Monte Carlo was changed and at Paris we had for Don +Quixote that superb artist Vanni Narcoux and for Sancho that masterly +comedian Lucien Fugere. Lucy Arbell owed to her triumph at Monte Carlo +her engagement as La Belle Dulcinee at the Theatre Lyrique de la Gaite. + +But was there ever unalloyed bliss? + +I certainly do not make that bitter reflection in regard to the +brilliant success of our artists or about the staging of the Isola +brothers which was so well seconded by the stage manager Labis. + +But judge for yourselves. The rehearsals had to be postponed for three +weeks on account of the severe and successive illnesses of our three +artists. A curious thing, however, and worthy of remark was that our +three interpreters all got well at almost the same time, and left their +rooms on the very morning of the general rehearsal. + +The frantic applause of the audience must have been a sweet and +altogether exquisite recompense for them when it broke out at the dress +rehearsal, December 28, 1910, which lasted from one till five in the +afternoon. + +My New Year's Day was very festive. I was ill and was on my bed of pain +when they brought me the visiting cards of my faithful pupils, happy at +my success, beautiful flowers for my wife, and a delightful bronze +statuette, a gift from Raoul Gunsbourg, which recalled to me all that I +owed him for _Don Quichotte_ at Monte Carlo, for the first performances +and the revivals of the same house. + +The first year of _Don Quichotte_ at the Theatre Lyrique de la Gaite +there were eighty consecutive performances of the work. + +It is a pleasure to recall certain picturesque details which interested +me intensely during the preliminary rehearsals. + +First of all, the curious audacity of Lucy Arbell, our La Belle +Dulcinee, in wanting to accompany herself on the guitar in the song in +the fourth act. In a remarkably short time, she made herself a virtuoso +on the instrument with which they accompany popular songs in Spain, +Italy, and even in Russia. It was a charming innovation. She relieved us +of that banality of the artist pretending to play a guitar, while a real +instrumentalist plays in the wings, thus making a discord between the +gestures of the singer and the music. None of the other Dulcinees have +been able to achieve this tour de force of the creatrix. I recall, too, +that knowing her vocal abilities I brightened the role with daring +vocalizations which afterwards surprised more than one interpreter; and +yet a contralto ought to know how to vocalize as well as a soprano. _Le +Prophete_ and _The Barber of Seville_ prove this. + +The staging of the windmill scene, so ingeniously invented by Raoul +Gunsbourg, was more complicated at the Gaite, although they kept the +effect produced at Monte Carlo. + +A change of horses, cleverly hidden from the audience, made them think +that Don Quixote and the dummy were one and the same man! + +Gunsbourg's inspiration in staging the fifth act was also a happy +chance. Any artist, even though he is the first in the world, in a scene +of agony wants to die lying on the ground. With a flash of genius +Gunsbourg cried, "A knight should die standing!" And our Don Quixote +(then Chaliapine) leaned against a great tree in the forest and so gave +up his proud and love lorn soul. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +A SOIREE + + +In the spring of 1910 my health was somewhat uncertain. _Roma_ had been +engraved long before and was available material; _Panurge_ was finished +and I felt--a rare thing for me--the imperative need of resting for some +months. + +But it was impossible for me to do absolutely nothing, to give myself up +completely to _dolce farniente_, delightful as that might be. I looked +around and found an occupation which would weary neither my mind nor +heart. + +I have told you that in May, 1891, when the house of Hartmann went +under, I entrusted to a friend the scores of _Werther_ and _Amadis_. I +am speaking now only of _Amadis_. I went to my friend who opened his +strong box and brought out, not banknotes, but seven hundred pages (the +rough draft of the orchestration) which formed the score of _Amadis_ and +which had been composed at the end of 1889 and during 1890. The work had +waited there in silence for twenty-one years! + +Amadis! What a pretty libretto I had in _Amadis_! What a really novel +viewpoint! The Knight of the Lily is poetically and emotionally +attractive and still remains the type of the constant, respectful lover. +The situations are enchanting. In short what resurrection could be more +pleasing than that of the noble heroes of the Middle Ages--those +doughty, valiant, courageous knights. + +I took this score from the safe and left in its place a work for a +quartet and two choruses for male voices. _Amadis_ was to be my work for +that summer. I began to copy it cheerfully at Paris and went to +Egreville to continue on it. + +In spite of the fact that this work was easy and seemed to me such a +soothing and perfect sedative for the discomfort I felt, I found that I +was really very ill. I said to myself that I had done well in giving up +composing in my precarious state of health. + +I went to Paris to consult my physician. He listened to my heart, and +then, without hiding from me what his diagnosis had revealed, said, + +"You are very sick." + +"What," I exclaimed, "it is impossible. I was still copying when you +came." + +"You are seriously ill," he insisted. + +The next morning the doctors and surgeons made me leave my dear quiet +home and my beloved room. + +A motor ambulance took me to the hospital in the Rue de la Chaise. It +was some consolation not to leave my quarter! I was entered on the +hospital records under an assumed name for the physicians feared +interviews, however friendly, which would have been demanded and which I +was absolutely forbidden to grant. + +My bed, through a most gracious care, was in the best room in the place +and I was much moved by this attention. + +Surgeon Professor Pierre Duval and Drs. Richardiere and Laffitte gave me +the most admirable and devoted care. And there I was in a quiet which +wrapped me in a tranquillity the value of which I appreciated. + +My dearest friends came to see me whenever they were allowed. My wife +was much upset and had hurried from Egreville bringing me her tender +affection. + +I was better in a few days, but the compulsory rest imposed on my body +did not prevent my mind working. + +I did not wait for my condition to improve before I busied myself with +the speeches I would have to deliver as president of the Institute and +of the Academie des Beaux-Arts (the double presidency fell to me that +year) and though I was in bed packed in ice, I sent directions for the +scenery of _Don Quichotte_. + +Finally I got back home. + +What a joy it was to see my home again, my furniture, to find the books +whose pages I loved to turn, all the objects that delighted my eyes and +to which I was accustomed, to see again those who were dear to me, and +the servants overflowing with attentions. My joy was so intense that I +burst into tears. + +How happy I was to take up again my walks, although I was still +uncertain from weakness and had to lean on the arm of my kind brother +and on that of a dear lady! How happy I was during my convalescence to +walk through the shady paths of the Luxembourg amid the joyous laughter +of children gamboling there in all their youthfulness, the bright +singing of the birds hopping from branch to branch, content to live in +that beautiful garden, their delightful kingdom.... + +Egreville, which I had deserted when I so little dreamed of what was to +happen to me, resumed its ordinary life as soon as my beloved wife, now +tranquil about my fate, was able to return. + +The summer which had been so sad came to an end and autumn came with its +two public sessions of the Institute and the Academie des Beaux-Arts, as +well as the rehearsals of _Don Quichotte_. + +An idea of real interest was submitted to me between times by the +artiste to whom the mission of making it triumph was to fall later. I +turned the idea to account and wrote a set of compositions with the +title proposed by the interpretess, _Les Expressions Lyriques_. This +combination of two forces of expression, singing and speaking, +interested me greatly; especially in making them vibrate in one and the +same voice. + +Moreover, the Greeks did the same thing in the interpretation of their +hymns, alternating the chant with declamation. + +And as there is nothing new under the sun, what we deemed a modern +invention was merely a revival from the Greeks. Nevertheless we honored +ourselves in doing so. + +[Illustration: Dulcinee (_Don Quichotte_)] + +Since then and ever since I have seen audiences greatly captivated by +these compositions and deeply affected by the admirable personal +expression of the interpretess. + + * * * * * + +As I was correcting the last proofs of _Panurge_ one morning, I received +a kindly visit from O. de Lagoanere, the general manager of the Theatre +Lyrique de la Gaite. The libretto of _Panurge_ had been entrusted to me +by my friend Heugel and its authors were Maurice Boukay, the pseudonym +of Couyba, later Minister of Commerce, and Georges Spitzmuller. De +Lagoanere came in behalf of the Isola brothers to ask me to let them +have _Panurge_. + +I answered to this proceeding, which was as spontaneous as it was +flattering, that the gentlemen's interest in me was very kind but that +they did not know the work. + +"That is true," the amiable M. Lagoanere answered at once, "but it is a +work of yours." + +We fixed on a date and before we separated the agreement was signed, +including the names of the artists proposed by the directors. + +Some weeks ago my good friend Adrien Bernheim came to see me and between +two sugar plums (he is as much of a gourmand as I am) proposed that I +should take part in a great performance he was organizing in my honor +to celebrate the tenth anniversary of that French popular charity +"Trente Ans de Theatre." "In my honor!" I cried in the greatest +confusion. + +No artist, even the greatest, could help being delighted at lending his +presence at such an evening. + +After that, day by day, and always at my house, in the sitting room in +the Rue de Vaugirard, I saw gathered together, animated by an equal +devotion of making a success, the general secretaries of the Opera and +the Opera-Comique, Mm. Stuart and Carbonne, and the manager of the +Theatre Lyrique de la Gaite, M. O. de Lagoanere. My dear Paul Vidal, +leader of the orchestra at the Opera and professor of composition at the +Conservatoire, was also there. + +The program was settled out of hand. The private rehearsals began at +once. Nevertheless the fear that I felt and that I have always had when +I make a promise, that I may be ill when the moment for fulfilment +comes, caused me more than one sleepless night. + +"All's well that ends well," says the wisdom of the nations. I was +wrong, as you will see, to torture myself through so many nights. + +As I have said, no artist would have felt happy, if he had not shared in +that evening by giving his generous assistance. Our valiant president, +Adrian Bernheim, by a few words of patriotism induced all the professors +of the Opera orchestra to come and rehearse the various acts +interspersed through the program at six twenty-five in the evening. +Nobody dined; everyone kept the appointment. + +To you all, my friends and confreres, my sincere thanks. + +I cannot properly appraise this celebration in which I played so +personal a part.... + +There is no circumstance in life, however beautiful or serious, without +some incident to mar it or to provide a contrast. + +All my friends wanted to give evidence of their enthusiasm by being +present at the soiree at the Opera. Among them was a faithful frequenter +of the theaters who made a point of coming to express his regret at not +being able to be present at this celebration. He had recently lost his +uncle, who was a millionaire and whose heir he was. + +I offered my condolences and he went. + +What is funnier is that I was obliged to hear fortuitously the strange +conversation about his uncle's funeral he had with the head undertaker. + +"If," said the latter, "Monsieur wants a first class funeral, he will +have the entire church hung in black and with the arms of the deceased, +the Opera orchestra, the leading singers, the most imposing catafalque, +according to the price." + +The heir hesitated. + +"Then, sir, it will be second class; the orchestra from the +Opera-Comique, second rate singers--according to the amount." + +Further hesitation. + +Whereupon the undertaker added in a sad tone, + +"Then it will be third class; but I warn you, Monsieur, it will not be +gay!" (sic). + +As I am on this topic I will add that I have received a letter of +congratulations from Italy which concludes with the usual salutations, +but this time conceived as follows: + +"Believe, dear sir, in my most sincere _obsequies_." (Free translation +of _ossequiosita_.) + +Sometimes death has as amusing sides as life has sad ones. + +Which brings to mind the fidelity with which the Lionnet brothers +attended burials. + +Was it sympathy for the departed or ambition to see their names among +those distinguished persons mentioned as having been present? We shall +never know. + +One day in a funeral procession Victorien Sardou heard one of the +Lionnets say to one of his neighbors, with a broken-hearted air, while +giving the sad news about a friend's health, "Well, it will be his turn +soon." + +These words aroused Sardou's attention, and he exclaimed, pointing to +the brothers, + +"They not only go to all the burials; they announce them!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +DEAR EMOTIONS + + +During the summer of 1902 I left Paris and went to my home in Egreville. +Among the books and pamphlets I took with me was _Rome Vaincue_ by +Alexandre Parodi. That magnificent tragedy had had a never to be +forgotten success when it was played on the stage of the +Comedie-Francaise in 1876. + +Sarah Bernhardt and Mounet-Sully, then in their youth, were the +protagonists in the two most impressive acts of the work; Sarah +Bernhardt incarnated the blind grandmother, Posthumia, and Mounet-Sully +interpreted the Gallic slave Vestapor. + +Sarah in all the flower of her radiant beauty had demanded the role of +the old woman, so true is it that the real artiste does not think of +herself, but knows when it is necessary to abstract from self, to +sacrifice her charms, her grace and the light of her allurements to the +higher exigencies of art. + +The same remark could be applied at the Opera thirty years later. + +I remember those tall bay windows through which the sunshine came into +my great room at Egreville. + +After dinner I read the engaging brochure, _Rome Vaincue_, until the +last beams of daylight. I could not get away from it I became so +enthusiastic. My reading was stopped only by + + ... l'obscure clarte qui tombe des etoiles + Bientot avec la nuit.... + +as our great Corneille said. + +Need I add that I was unable to resist the desire to go to work +immediately and that during the following days I wrote the whole scene +for Posthumia in the fourth act? One might say that in this way I worked +by chance, as I had not yet distributed the scenes in accord with the +necessities of an opera. All the same I had already decided on a title: +_Roma_. + +The complete concentration with which I threw myself into this work did +not prevent my realizing that in default of Alexandre Parodi who died in +1901, I needed the authority of the heirs. I wrote, but my letter +brought no response. + +I owed this contretemps to a wrong address. Indeed the widow of the +illustrious poet of tragedy told me afterwards that my request never +reached its destination. + +Parodi! Truly he was the _vir probus dicendi peritus_ of the ancients. +What memories I have of our strolls along the Boulevard des Batignolles! +How eloquently he narrated the life of the Vestals which he had read in +Ovid, their great historian! + +I listened eagerly to his colorful talk, so enthusiastic about things of +the past. Ah, his outbursts against all that was not elevated in +thought, his noble pride in his intentions, dignified and simple in +form--how superb, I say, these outbursts were, and how one felt that his +soul thrilled in the Beyond! It was as if a flame burned in him searing +on his cheeks the signs of his inward tortures. + +I admired him and loved him deeply. It seems to me that our work +together is not finished, but that some day we shall be able to take it +up again in that mysterious realm whither we go but from which none ever +returns. + +I was entirely led astray by the silence which followed the sending of +my letter and I was going to abandon the project of writing _Roma_, +when a master poet came into my life. He offered me five +acts--_Ariane_--for the Opera, as I have said already. + +Five years later, in 1907, my friend Henri Cain asked me if I intended +to resume my faithful collaboration with him. + +As he chatted with me, he remarked that my thoughts were elsewhere and +that I was preoccupied with another idea. That was it exactly. I was +drawn to confess my adventure with _Roma_. + +My desire to find in that work the text of my dreams was immediately +shared by Henri Cain; forty-eight hours afterwards he brought me the +authorization of the heirs. They had signed an agreement which gave me +five years in which to write and put on the work. + +It is an agreeable thing to thank again Mme. Parodi, a woman of unusual +and real distinction, and her sons, one of whom holds a high place in +the Department of Public Instruction. + +As I have already said, I found myself in February, 1910, at Monte Carlo +for the rehearsals and first performance of _Don Quichotte_. I again +lived as before in that apartment in the Hotel du Prince de Galles which +has always pleased me so much. I always returned to it with joy. How +could it be otherwise? + +The room in which I worked looked out on the level of the boulevards of +the city and I had an incomparable view from my windows. + +In the foreground were orange, lemon, and olive trees; on the horizon +the great rock rising out of the azure waves, and on the rock the old +palace modernized by the Prince of Monaco. + +In this quiet peaceful home--an exceptional thing for a hotel--in spite +of the foreign families installed there, I was stirred to work. During +my hours of freedom from rehearsals I busied myself in writing an +overture for _Roma_. I had brought with me the eight hundred pages of +orchestration in finished manuscript. + +The second month of my stay at Monte Carlo I spent at the Palace of +Monaco. I finished the composition there amidst enchantment, in its +deeply poetic splendor. + +When I was present at the rehearsals of _Roma_ two years later and first +heard the work played at sight by the artists of the Opera conducted +with an extraordinary art by that master Leon Jehin, I thought of the +coincidence that these pages had been written on the spot so near where +they were to be played. + +When I returned to Paris in April, after the sumptuous fetes with which +the Oceanographic Museum was opened, I received a call from Raoul +Gunsbourg. He came in the name of his Serene Highness to learn whether I +had a work I could let him have for 1912. _Roma_ had been finished for +some time; the material for it was all ready, and in consequence I could +promise it to him and wait two years more. I offered it to him. + +My custom, as I have said, is never to speak of a work until it is +entirely finished, and the materials which are always important are +engraved and corrected. It is a considerable task, for which I want to +thank my dear publishers, Henri Heugel and Paul-Emile Chevalier, as well +as my rigid correctors at the head of whom I love to place Ed. Laurens, +a master musician. If I insist on this, it is because up to now, nothing +has been able to prevent the persistence of this formula, "M. Massenet +is hurrying to finish his score in order to be ready for the first +performance." Let us record it and get on! + +It was not until December, 1911, that the rehearsals of the artists in +_Roma_ began at Raoul Gunsbourg's, Rue de Rivoli. + +It was fine to see our great artists enamored of the teachings of +Gunsbourg who lived the roles and put his life into it in putting them +on the stage. + +Alas for me! An accident put me in bed at the beginning of those +impassioned studies. However, every evening from five to seven I +followed from my bed, thanks to the telephone, the progress of the +rehearsals of _Roma_. + +The idea of not being able, perhaps, to go to Monte Carlo bothered me, +but finally my excellent friend, the eminent Dr. Richardiere, authorized +my departure. On January 29 my wife and I started for that country of +dreams. + +At the station in Lyons, an excellent dinner! A good sign. Things look +well. + +The night, always fatiguing in a train, was endured by means of the joy +of the future rehearsals. Things looked better! + +The arrival in my beloved room at the Prince de Galles. An intoxication. +Things look better still! + +What an incomparable health bulletin, is it not? + +Finally, the reading of _Roma_, in Italian with the orchestra, artists +and chorus. There were so many fine, kindly manifestations, that I paid +for my warm emotions by catching cold. + +What a contrast; what irony! However why be surprised? Are not all +contrasts of that kind? + +Happily my cold did not last long. Two days later I was up again, better +than ever. I profited by this by going with my wife, always curious and +eager to see picturesque places, to wander in an abandoned park. We were +there in the solitude of that rich, luxuriant nature, in the olive +groves, which let us see through their grayish green leaves, so tender +and sweet, the sea in its changeless blue, when I discovered ... a cat! + +Yes, a cat, a real cat, and a very friendly one! Knowing without a doubt +that I had always been friendly with his kind, he honored me with his +society and his insistent and affectionate mewings never left me. I +poured out my anxious heart to this companion. Indeed, it was during my +hours of isolation that the dress rehearsal of _Roma_ was at its height. +Yes, I said to myself, just now Lentulus has arrived. Now Junia. Behold +Fausta in the arms of Fabius. At this very moment Posthumia drags +herself to the feet of the cruel senators. For we, we others, have, and +it is a strange fact, an intuition of the exact moment when this or that +scene is played, a sort of divination of the mathematical division of +time applied to the action of the theater. It was the fourteenth of +February. The sun of that splendid day could not but brighten the joy of +all my fine artists. + + Monte Carlo, + + Feb. 29, 1912. + + Dear great friend, + + You do me the honor to ask me for these lines for reproduction in + America. + + In America!... + + It will be my glory to send thither my thought, full of admiration + for that great country, for its choice public, for its theaters in + which my works have been given. You honor my artists and myself so + much by speaking of _Roma_, and I am the prouder of your words + because they will present that _tragic opera_ with your talent's + high authority. + + MASSENET. + +[Illustration: Facsimile of Massenet's Reply to an Invitation to Visit +America] + +I cannot speak of the superb first performance of _Roma_ without a +certain natural embarrassment. I leave that task to others, but I permit +myself to reproduce what anyone could read in the next day's papers. + + * * * * * + +The interpretation--one of the most beautiful that it has been our lot +to applaud--was in every way worthy of this new masterpiece of +Massenet's. + +A remarkable thing which must be noted in the first place is that all +the parts are what are termed in theatrical parlance "good roles." Every +one of them gives its interpreter chances for effects in singing and +acting which are calculated to win the admiration and applause of the +audience. + +Having said this much in praise of the work, let us congratulate the +marvellous interpreters in their order on the program. + +Mlle. Kousnezoff with her youth, fresh beauty and superb dramatic +soprano voice was a feast to the eyes and the ears and she will continue +to be for a long time the prettiest and most seductive Fausta that one +might wish for. + +The particularly dramatic part of the blind Posthumia was the occasion +of a creation which will rank among the most extraordinary in the +brilliant career of that great operatic tragedienne Lucy Arbell. +Costumed with perfect esthetic appreciation in a beautiful dark robe of +iron gray silk, with her face artificially aged but beautiful along +classic lines, Lucy Arbell moved and stirred the audience profoundly, as +much by her impressive acting as by the deep velvety notes of her +contralto voice. + +Mme. Guiraudon in her scene in the second act achieved a great personal +success, and never so much as yesterday did the Paris critic regret that +this young, exquisite artist had abandoned prematurely her career as an +artist and consents to appear hereafter but rarely and ... at Monte +Carlo. + +Mme. Eliane Peltier (the High Priestess) and Mlle. Doussot (Galla) +completed excellently a female cast of the first order. + +Furthermore the male parts were no less remarkable or less applauded. + +M. Muratore, a grand opera tenor of superb appearance and generous +voice, invested the role of Lentulus with a vigor and manly beauty which +won all hearts, and which, in Paris as at Monte Carlo, will ensure him a +brilliant and memorable triumph. + +M. J. F. Delmas with his clear diction and lyrical declamation, which is +so properly theatrical, was an incomparable Fabius and was no less +applauded than his comrades from the Opera, Muratore and Note. The +latter in fact was marvellous in the part of the slave Vestapor whose +wild imprecations resounded to the utmost in his great sonorous +baritone. + +Finally, M. Clauzure, whose Roman mask was perfect, achieved a +creation--the first in his career--which places this young Premier Prix +of the Conservatoire on an equal footing with the famous veterans of the +Paris Opera beside whom last night he fought the good fight of art. + +The chorus, both men and women, patiently trained by their devoted +master M. Louis Vialet, and the artists of the Opera, who anew affirmed +their mastery and homogeneity, were irreproachable under the supreme +direction of the master Leon Jehin. All the composers whose works he +conducts justly load him down with thanks and felicitations, and his +talent and indefatigable power are acclaimed constantly by all the +dilettanti of Monte Carlo. + +M. Visconti, who in his way is one of the indispensable artistic +mainsprings of the Theatre de Monte Carlo, painted five scenes of +_Roma_, better five masterly paintings, which were greatly admired and +which won great admiration and prolonged applause. His "Forum" and +"Sacred Grove" are among the most beautiful theatrical paintings ever +seen here. + +As for M. Raoul Gunsbourg, the stage manager in whose praise it is +henceforth superfluous to speak, it is sufficient to say that _Roma_ is +one of the scores he has put on with the most pleasure and the most +sincere veneration. That is to say that he brought to bear on it all his +care, and all his dictatorial and artistic mind. + +With such a combination of the elements of success put into _Roma_, +victory was certain. Last night's triumph was one of the most complete +that we have had to chronicle here for fifteen years. And it is with joy +that we affirm this to the glory of the Master, Massenet, and of the +Monte Carlo Opera. + + * * * * * + +That year the days passed at the Palace were all the sweeter to my heart +as the Prince showed me an even more touching affection, if that were +possible. + +I was honored by the duty of attending in the salon adjoining the +Prince's box (everyone knows that I do not attend first performances) +and I recall that his Serene Highness at the end of the first act, in +front of the attentive assemblage, said to me, "I have given you all I +could; I have not yet embraced you." And as he said this his Highness +embraced me with keen emotion. + + * * * * * + +Here I am in Paris, on the eve of the rehearsals and first performance +of _Roma_ at the Opera. I have hope ... I have such admirable artists. +They have already won the first battle for me. Will they not be able to +triumph in the second? + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +THOUGHTS AFTER DEATH + + +I have departed from this planet and I have left behind my poor earthly +ones with their occupations which are as many as they are useless; at +last I am living in the scintillating splendor of the stars, each of +which used to seem to me as large as millions of suns. Of old I was +never able to get such lighting for my scenery on the great stage at the +Opera where the backdrops were too often in darkness. Henceforth there +will be no letters to answer; I have bade farewell to first performances +and the literary and other discussions which come from them. + +Here there are no newspapers, no dinners, no sleepless nights. Ah! if I +could but counsel my friends to join me here, I would not hesitate to +call them to me. But would they come? + +Before I came to this distant place where I now sojourn, I wrote out my +last wishes (an unhappy husband would have taken advantage of the +occasion to write with joy, "my first wishes"). + +I had indicated that above all I wanted to be buried at Egreville, near +the family abode in which I had lived so long. Oh, the good cemetery in +the open fields, silent as befits those who live there! + +I asked that they should refrain from hanging black draperies on my +door, ornaments worn threadbare by use. I expressed the wish that a +suitable carriage should take me from Paris, the journey, with my +consent, to begin at eight in the morning. + +An evening paper (perhaps two) felt it to be its duty to inform its +readers of my decease. A few friends--I still had some the day +before--came and asked my concierge if the news were true, and he +replied, "Alas, Monsieur went without leaving his address." And his +reply was true for he did not know where that obliging carriage was +taking me. + +At lunch acquaintances honored me among themselves with their +condolences, and during the day here and there in the theaters they +spoke of the adventure, + +"Now that he is dead, they'll play him less, won't they?" + +"Do you know he left still another work?" + +"Ah, believe me, I loved him well! I have always had such great success +in his works." + +A woman's lovely voice said that. + +They wept at my publishers, for there they loved me dearly. + +At home, Rue de Vaugirard, my wife, daughter, grandchildren and +great-grandchildren gathered and almost found consolation in their sobs. + +The family was to reach Egreville the same evening, the night before my +burial. + +And my soul (the soul survives the body) listened to all these sounds +from the city left behind. As the carriage took me farther and farther +away, the talking and the noises grew fainter and fainter, and I knew, +for I had my vault built long ago, that the heavy stone once sealed +would be a few hours later the portal of oblivion. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of My Recollections, by Jules Massenet + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY RECOLLECTIONS *** + +***** This file should be named 36728.txt or 36728.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/7/2/36728/ + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was +produced from scanned images at The Internet Archive.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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