I went home and got the score. Half-past four had struck when I sang the final bars of Manon's death.
During my rendering Heilbronn was moved to tears. I heard her sigh through her sobs, "It is my life ... that is my life."
This time, as ever has been the case, the sequel showed that I was right to wait, to take time in choosing an artist who would have to live my work.
The day after he heard _Manon_, Carvalho signed the contract.
The following year, after more than eighty consecutive performances, I learned of Marie Heilbronn's death!...
I preferred to stop the performances rather than to see it sung by another. Some time afterwards the Opéra-Comique went up in flames. _Manon_ was not given again for ten years. Dear unique Sybil Sanderson took up the work at the Opéra-Comique and she played in the two-hundredth performance.
A glory was reserved for me on the five hundredth performance. _Manon_ was sung by Marguerite Carré. A few months ago this captivating, exquisite artist was applauded on the evening of the 740th performance.
In passing I want to pay tribute to the beautiful artistes who have taken the part. I will mention Mlles. Mary Garden, Geraldine Farrar, Lina Cavalieri, Mme. Bréjean-Silver, Mlles. Courtenay, Geneviève Vix, Mmes. Edvina and Nicot-Vauchelet, and still other dear artistes. They will pardon me if all their names do not come to my grateful pen at the moment.
The Italian Theatre (Maurel's Season), as I have already said, put on _Hérodiade_ two weeks after the first performance of _Manon_, with the following admirable artists: Fidès Devriès, Jean de Reszke, Victor Maurel, Edouard de Reszke.
As I write these lines in 1911, _Hérodiade_ continues its career at the Théâtre-Lyrique de la Gaîté (under the management of the Isola brothers) who put on the work in 1903 with the famous Emma Calvé. The day after the first performance of _Hérodiade_ in Paris I received these lines from our illustrious master, Gounod:
The noise of your success with _Hérodiade_ reaches me; but I lack that of the work itself, and I shall go to hear it as soon as possible, probably Saturday. Again new congratulations, and
Meanwhile _Marie Magdeleine_ went on its career in the great festivals abroad. I recall the following letter which Bizet wrote me some years before with deep pride.