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 Hôtel de la Minerve when there arrived a gracious invitation to lunch from the director of the Académie de France, a member of the Institute, the illustrious painter Ernest Hébert.
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 Hébert 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 Mercié 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 Opéra 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 Carré put the work on at the Opéra-Comique. It was my good fortune to have as my interpreters Mme. Marguerite Carré, Mme. Aïno Ackté, and Salignac.