My Recollections Part 5

During this journey it seemed to me that I had never acc.u.mulated 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 mec.u.m_, 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 ent.i.tled 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 compet.i.tion.

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 surpa.s.sed 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 ma.n.u.script. 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 pa.s.se 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 pa.s.s a week at the seash.o.r.e, 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 Boeldieu, Herold, M. Auber, Ambroise Thomas, Victor Ma.s.se, 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 cla.s.s in harmony a month after I joined it. I went into the cla.s.s of Henri Reber of the Inst.i.tute. 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 G.o.d.

To-day that seems a little exaggerated, rather childish.