One day we decided to pay a visit to Frédéric Mistral, the immortal poet of Provence who played a large part in the renaissance of the poetic language of the South.
He received us with Mme. Mistral at his home—which his presence made ideal—at Millane. He showed when he talked that he knew not only the science of Form but also that general knowledge which makes great writers and makes a poet of an artist. As we saw him we recalled that Belle d'aout, the poetical story full of tears and terrors, then the great epic of Mirelle, and so many other famous works besides.
By his walk and vigor one recognized him as the child of the country, but he was a gentleman farmer, as the English say; although he is not any more a peasant on that account, as he wrote to Lamartine, than Paul-Louis Courier, the brilliant and witty pamphleteer, was a cultivator of vineyards.
We returned to Avignon full of the inexpressible enveloping charm of the hours we had passed in the house of this great, illustrious poet.
The following winter was entirely devoted to the rehearsals of Thaïs at the Opéra. I say at the Opéra in spite of the fact that I wrote the work for the Opéra-Comique where Sanderson was engaged. She triumphed there in Manon three times a week.
What made me change the theater? Sanderson was dazzled by the idea of entering the Opéra, and she signed a contract with Gailhard without even taking the mere trouble of informing Carvalho first.
Heugel and I were greatly surprised when Gailhard told us that he was going to give Thaïs at the Opéra with Sibyl Sanderson. "You've got the artist; the work will follow her!" There was nothing else for me to say. I remember, however, how bitterly Carvalho reproached me. He almost accused me of ingratitude, and God knows that I did not deserve that.
Thaïs was interpreted by Sibyl Sanderson; J. F. Delmas, who made the rôle of Athanaël one of his most important creations; Alvarez, who consented to play the rôle of Nicias, and Mme. Heglon, who also acted in the part which devolved upon her.
As I listened to the final rehearsals in the depths of the empty theater, I lived over again my ecstatic moments before the remains of Thaïs of Antinoë, beside the anchorite, who had been bewitched by her grace and charm. We owed this impressive spectacle which was so well calculated to impress the imagination to a glass case in the Guimet Museum.
The evening of the dress rehearsal of Thaïs I escaped from Paris and went to Dieppe and Pourville, with the sole purpose of being alone and free from the excitements of the great city. I have said already that I always tear myself away in this fashion from the feverish uncertainties which hover over every work when it faces the public for the first time. No one can tell beforehand the feeling that will move the public, whether its prejudices or sympathies will draw it towards a work or turn it against it. I feel weak before the baffling enigma, and had I a conscience a thousand times more tranquil, I would not want to attempt to pierce the mystery!