I went back home all of a tremble. My family had also gone to the Cirque Napoléon 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 Prométhée, the opéra-comique Le Florentin, and the opera La Coupe du Roi de Thulé.
I got nothing.
Saint-Saëns won the prize with his Prométhée; Charles Lenepveu was crowned for his Le Florentin—I was third—and Diaz got first place with La Coupe du Roi de Thulé. It was given at the Opéra under marvellous conditions of interpretation.
Saint-Saëns 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."