It was spring. My room was scented with bunches of carnations which my friends in Marseilles sent me every day. When I say friends, the word is too weak; perhaps it is necessary to go to mathematics to get the word, and even then?
The friends in Marseilles heaped upon me consideration, attention and endless kindness. That is the country where they sweeten the coffee by placing it outside on the balcony, for the sea is made of honey!
Before I left the kind hospitality of this Phocean city, I received the following letter from the directors of the Opéra, Ritt and Gailhard:
"My dear Friend,
"Can you set the day and hour for your reading of Le Cid?
"In friendship,
"E. Ritt."
But I had brought from Paris keen anguish about the distribution of the parts. I wanted the sublime Mme. Fidès Devriès to create the part of Chimène, but they said that since her marriage she no longer wanted to appear on the stage. I also depended on my friends Jean and Edouard de Reszke, who came to Paris especially to talk about Le Cid. They were aware of my plans for them. How many times I climbed the stairs of the Hotel Scribe where they lived!
At last the contracts were signed and finally the reading took place as the Opéra requested.
As I speak of the ballet in Le Cid I remember I heard the motif, which begins the ballet, in Spain. I was in the very country of Le Cid at the time, living in a modest inn. It chanced that they were celebrating a wedding and they danced all night in the lower room of the hotel. Several guitars and two flutes repeated a dance tune until they wore it out. I noted it down. It became the motif I am writing about, a bit of local color which I seized. I did not let it get away. I intended this ballet for Mlle. Rosita Mauri who had already done some wonderful dances at the Opéra. I even owed several interesting rhythms to the famous dancer.
The land of the Magyars and France have been joined at all times by bonds of keen, cordial sympathy. It was not a surprise, therefore, when the Hungarian students invited forty Frenchmen—I was one—to go to Hungary for festivities which they intended to give in our honor.