I lived at the Hotel de la Poste, Rue Fossé-aux-Loups, beside the theater. In the same room, on the ground floor on the corner of the hotel overlooking the Rue d'Argent, I wrote, the following autumn, the rough draft of the Seminaire act of Manon. Later on I preferred to live in the dear kindly Hotel du Grand-Monarque, Rue des Fripiers, and I continued to do so until 1910.
This hotel plays a part in my deepest memories. I lived there often with Reyer, the author of Sigurd and of Salammbo, my colleague at the Académie des Beaux-Arts. There, we both lost our collaborator and friend Ernest Blau. He died here, and in spite of the custom that no funeral black shall be hung in front of a hotel, Mlle. Wanters, the proprietress, insisted that the obsequies should be public and should not be concealed from the people who lived there. In the salon among strangers we said the tender words of farewell to the collaborator on Sigurd and Esclarmonde.
A grim detail! Our poor friend Blau dined the evening of his death at the house of Stoumon, the director. As he was early, he stopped in the Rue des Sablons to look at some luxurious coffins displayed in an undertaker's shop. As we had just paid our last farewell and had placed the mortal remains of Blau in a temporary vault beside the casket of a young girl, which was covered with white roses, one of the bearers observed that if he had been consulted the deceased could not have chosen a better neighborhood. The head undertaker reflected: "We have done things well. M. Blau noticed a fine coffin and we let him have it cheap."
As we came from that vast cemetery, comparatively empty at that time, we were all impressed by the poignant grief of Mme. Jeanne Raunay, the great artiste. She walked slowly by the side of the great master Gevaert.
Oh, mournful winter day!
The rehearsals of Hérodiade went on at the Monnaie. They were full of delirious joy and surprises for me. Its success was considerable. Here is what I find in the papers of the times.
At last the great night came.
From the night before—Sunday—the public formed lines at the entrance to the theater (the cheaper seats were not sold in advance at that time). The ticket sellers spent the whole night in this way, and while some sold their places in line at a high price on Monday morning, others held on and sold places in the pit for sixty francs on the average. A stall cost one hundred and fifty francs.
That evening the auditorium was taken by storm.
Before the curtain rose, the Queen entered her stage box accompanied by two ladies of honor and Captain Chrétien, the King's orderly.