During the voyage to New York I learned to understand her father's character, and when he met us on the wharf I was no longer afraid of him.
Hermione's choice in marriage seemed to be wholly left to herself. Mr. Leare told me, when I had that formidable talk with him dreaded by all aspirants to the hand of a man's daughter, that Hermione had too much good sense, self-respect and womanliness to give herself away to a man unworthy of her. "That she can love you, sir," he said, "is sufficient recommendation."
That it might be sufficient in my case I hoped with all my soul, but felt, as Hermione had expressed it early in our acquaintance, that society in America must be founded upon very different opinions than our own in regard to the relations of men and women.
No doubt it will surprise some theatre-goers who are not special students of the stage to be told that the authors of _Froufrou_ are the authors also of the _Grande Duchesse de Gérolstein_ and of _La Belle Hélène_, of _Carmen_ and of _Le Petit Duc_. There are a few, I know, who think that _Froufrou_ was written by the fertile and ingenious M. Victorien Sardou, and who, without thinking, credit M. Jacques Offenbach with the composition of the words as well as the music of the _Grande Duchesse_; and as for _Carmen_, is it not an _Italian_ opera, and is not the book, like the music, the work of some Italian? As a matter of fact, all these plays, unlike as they are to each other, and not only these, but many more--not a few of them fairly well known to the American play-goer--are due to the collaboration of M. Henri Meilhac and M. Ludovic Halévy.
Born in 1832, M. Henri Meilhac, like M. Émile Zola, dealt in books before he began to make them. He soon gave up trade for journalism, and contributed with pen and pencil to the comic _Journal pour Rire_. He began as a dramatist in 1855 with a two-act play at the Palais Royal Theatre: like the first pieces of Scribe and of M. Sardou, and of so many more who have afterward abundantly succeeded on the stage, this play of M. Meilhac's was a failure; and so also was his next, likewise in two acts. But in 1856 the _Sarabande du Cardinal_, a delightful little comedy in one act, met with favor at the Gymnase. It was followed by two or three other comediettas equally clever. In 1859, M. Meilhac made his first attempt at a comedy in five acts, but the _Petit fils de Mascarille_ had not the good fortune of his ancestor. In 1860, for the first time, he was assisted by M. Ludovic Halévy, and in the twenty years since then their names have been linked together on the title-pages of two score or more plays of all kinds--drama, comedy, farce, opera, operetta and ballet. M. Meilhac's new partner was the nephew of the Halévy who is best known out of France as the composer of the _Jewess_, and he was the son of M. Léon Halévy, poet, philosopher and playwright. Two years younger than M. Henri Meilhac, M. Ludovic Halévy held a place in the French civil service until 1858, when he resigned to devote his whole time, instead of his spare time, to the theatre. As the son of a dramatist and the nephew of a popular composer, he had easy access to the stage. He began as the librettist-in-ordinary to M. Offenbach, for whom he wrote _Ba-ta-clan_ in 1855, and later the _Chanson de Fortunio_, the _Pont des Soupirs_ and _Orphée aux Enfers_. The first very successful play which MM. Meilhac and Halévy wrote together was a book for M. Offenbach; and it was possibly the good fortune of this operetta which finally affirmed the partnership. Before the triumph of the _Belle Hélène_ in 1864 the collaboration had been tentative, as it were: after that it was as though the articles had been definitely ratified--not that either of the parties has not now and then indulged in outside speculations, trying a play alone or with an outsider, but this was without prejudice to the permanent partnership.