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 première 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 Thérèse 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 fêted. My celebrated confrère Louis Diémer, the marvellous virtuoso, who had consented to play the harpsichord in the first act of Thérèse, Mme. Louise Diemér, 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 Thérèse was played at Monte Carlo and with Lucy Arbell, the creator, we had the brilliant tenor, Rousselière and the master professor, Bouvet.
In March, 1910, fêtes of unusual and unheard of splendor were given at Monaco at the opening of the colossal palace of the Oceanographic Museum.
Thérèse was given at the gala performance before an audience which included members of the Institute, confrères of his Serene Highness, a member of the Académie 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.