We started—a joyous caravan—one beautiful evening in August for the banks of the Danube, François Coppée, Léo Delibes, Georges Clairin, Doctors Pozzi and Albert Rodin, and many other comrades and charming friends. Then, some newspaper men went along. Ferdinand de Lesseps was at our head to preside over us, by right of name if not by fame. Our illustrious compatriot was nearly eighty at the time. He bore the weight of years so lightly that for a moment one would have thought he was the youngest in the lot.
We started off in uproarious gaiety. The journey was one uninterrupted flow of jests and humorous wit, intermingled with farce and endless pleasantries.
The restaurant car was reserved for us. We did not leave it all night and our sleeping car was absolutely unoccupied.
As we went through Munich, the Orient Express stopped for five minutes to let off two travelers, a man and a woman, who, we did not know how, had contrived to squeeze into a corner of the dining car and who had calmly sat through all our follies. As they left the train, they made in a foreign accent this rather sharp remark, "Those distinguished persons seem rather common." We certainly did not intend to displease that puritanical pair and we never overstepped the bounds of joviality and fun.
That fortnight's journey continued full of incidents in which jokes contended with burlesque.
Every evening, after the warmly enthusiastic receptions of the Hungarian youth, Ferdinand de Lesseps, our venerated chief, who was called in all the Hungarian speeches the "Great Frenchman," would leave us after fixing the order of the next day's receptions. As he finished arranging our program, he would add, "To-morrow morning, at four o'clock, in evening dress." And the "Great Frenchman" would be the first one up and dressed. When we congratulated him on his extraordinary youthful energy, he would apologize as follows: "Youth must wear itself out."
During the festivities of every kind which they got up in our honor, they arranged for a gala spectacle, a great performance at the Théâtre Royal in Budapest. Delibes and I were both asked to conduct an act from one of our works.
When I reached the orchestra, amid hurrahs from the audience, only in Hungary they shout, "Elyen," I found on the desk the score ... of the first act of Coppelia, when I had expected to find before me the third act of Hérodiade for me to conduct. So much the worse! There was no help for it and I had to beat time—from memory.
The plot thickened.
