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 Léo 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. Émile Réty 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 François Bazin who had died some months before. He advised me at the same time to become a candidate for the Académie 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.