TITJIENS had smelled smoke and she had been told that it was nothing but shavings that were being burned. Luckily, nobody was hurt and, although some of our costumes were lost, we artists did not suffer so very much after all. But of course our season was summarily put an end to and we all scattered for work and play until the spring season when Mapleson would want us back.

My mother and I went across to Paris without delay. I had wanted to see "the Continent" since I was a child and I must say that, in my heart of hearts, I almost welcomed the fire that set me free to go sightseeing and adventuring after the slavery of dressing-rooms and rehearsals. Crossing the Channel I was the heroine of the boat because, while I was just a little seasick, I was not enough so to give in to it. I can remember forcing myself to sit up and walk about and even talk with a grim and savage feeling that I would die rather than admit myself beaten by a silly and disgusting malaise like that; and after crossing the ocean with impunity too. Everyone else on board was abjectly ill and I expect it was partly pride that kept me well.

In Paris we went first to the Louvre Hotel where we were nearly frozen to death. As soon as we could, we moved into rooms where we might thaw out and become almost warm, although we never found the temperature really comfortable the whole time we lived in French houses. We saw any number of plays, visited cathedrals and picture galleries, and bought clothes. In fact we did all the regulation things, for we were determined to make the most of every minute of our holiday. Rather oddly, one of the entertainments I remember most distinctly was a production of Gulliver's Travels at the ThÉÂtre ChÂtelet. It was the dullest play in the world; but the scenery and effects were splendid.

I was not particularly enthusiastic over the French theatres. Indeed, I found them very limited and disappointing. I had gone to France expecting every theatrical performance in Paris to be a revelation. Probably I respect French art as much as any one; but I believe it is looked up to a great deal more than is justified. Consider Mme. Carvalho's wig for example, and, as for that, her costume as well. Yet we all turned to the Parisians as authority for the theatre. The pictures of the first distinguished Marguerite give a fine idea of the French stage effects in the sixties. A few years ago I heard TannhÄuser in Paris. The manner in which the pilgrims wandered in convinced me in my opinion. The whole management was inefficient and Wagner's injunctions were disregarded at every few bars. The French Gallicise everything. They simply cannot get inside the mental point of view of any other country. Though they are popularly considered to be so facile and adaptable, they are in truth the most obstinate, one-idead, single-sided race on earth barring none except, possibly, the Italians. Gounod's Faust is a good example—a Ger man story treated by Frenchmen. Remarkably little that is Teutonic has been left in it. Goethe has been eliminated so far as possible. The French were held by the drama, but the poetry and the symbolism meant nothing at all to them. Being German, they had no use for its poetry and its symbolism. The French colour and alter foreign thought just as they colour and alter foreign phraseology. They do it in a way more subtle than any usual difficulties of translation from one tongue to another. The process is more a form of transmuting than of translating—words, thoughts, actions—into another element entirely. How idiotic it sounds when Hamlet sings:

Être—ou n'Être pas!

Perhaps this, however, is not entirely the fault of the French. Shakespeare should never be set to music.

There is also the question of traditions. I may seem to be contradicting myself when I find fault with a certain French school for its blind and bigoted adherence to traditions; but there should be moderation in all things and a hidebound rigidity in stupid old forms is just as inartistic as a free-and-easy elasticity in flighty new ones. It is possible to put some old wine in new bottles, but it must be poured in very gently. French artists learn most when once they get away from France. Maurel is a good example. Look at the way he grew and developed when he went to England and America and was allowed to work problems and ideas out by himself.

Once when in Paris I wanted to vary and freshen my costume of Marguerite, give it a new yet consistent touch here and there. I was not planning to renovate the rÔle, only the girl's clothes. Having always felt that the Grand Opera was a Mecca to us artists from afar, I hastened there and climbed up the huge stairway to pay my respects to the Director. Monsieur had never heard of me. Frenchmen make a point never to have heard of any one outside of France. The fact that I was merely the first and the most famous Marguerite across the sea did not count. He was, however, very polite. He brought out his wonderful costume books that were full of new ideas to me and delighted me with numberless fresh possibilities. I saw unexplored fields in the direction of correct costuming and exclaimed over the designs, Monsieur watching my enthusiasm with bored civility. There was one particularly enchanting design for a silver chatelaine, heavy and mediÆval in character. I could see it with my mind's eye hanging from Marguerite's bodice. This I said to M. le Directeur: but he shook his dignified head with a frown.

"Too rich. Marguerite was too poor," he said with weary brevity.

"Oh, no!" I explained volubly and eagerly, "she was of the well-to-do class—the burghers—don't you remember? Marguerite and Valentine owned their house and, though they were of course of peasant blood, this sort of chatelaine seems to me just the thing that any German girl might possess."

"Too rich," Monsieur put in imperturbably.

"But," I protested, "it might be an heirloom, you know, and——"

"Too rich," he repeated politely; and he added in a calm, dreamy voice as he shut up the book, "I think that Mademoiselle will make a mistake if she ever tries anything new!"

As for sightseeing in France, my mother and I did any amount of it on that first visit. Sometimes I was charmed but more often I was disillusioned. There have been few "sights" in my life that have come up to my "great expectations" or been half as wonderful as my dreams. This is the penalty of a too vivid imagination; nothing can ever be as perfect as one's fancy paints it. The view of Mont Blanc from the terrace of Voltaire's house near the borderland of France and Switzerland is one of the few in my experience that I have found more lovely than I could have dreamed it to be. Of all the palaces that I have been in—and they have numbered several—the only one that ever seemed to me like a real palace was Fontainebleau. Small but exquisite, it looked like a haven of rest and loveliness, as though its motto might well be: "How to be happy though a crowned head!"

Speaking of crowned heads reminds me that while we were in Paris Mr. McHenry, our English friend from Holland Park, made an appointment for me to be presented to the ex-Queen of Spain, the Bourbon princess, Christina, so beloved by many Spaniards. I was delighted because I had never been presented to royalty and a Spanish queen seemed a very splendid sort of personage even if she did not happen to be ruling at the moment. Christina had withdrawn from Spain and had married the Duke de Rienzares. They lived in a beautiful palace on the Champs ÉlysÉes. There are nothing but shops on the site now but it used to be very imposing, especially the formal entrance which, if I remember correctly, was off the Rue St. HonorÉ. Mrs. and Mr. McHenry went with me and, after being admitted, we were shown up a marble staircase into what was called the Cameo Room, a small, austere apartment filled with cameos of the Bourbons. Queen Christina liked to live in small and unpretentious rooms; they seemed less suggestive of a palace.

I found that "royalty at home" was about as simple as anything could conceivably be; not quite as plain as the old Dowager Duchess of Somerset to be sure but quite plain enough. The Queen and the Duke de Rienzares entered without ceremony. The Queen wore a severe and simple black gown that cleared the floor by an inch or two. It was a perfectly practical and useful dress, admirably suited for housekeeping or tidying up a room. Around the royal lady's shoulders hung a little red plaid shawl such as no American would wear. She was Spanishly dark and her black hair was pulled into a knot about the size of a silver dollar in the middle of the back of her head. I have never seen her en grande toilette and so do not know whether or not she ever looked any less like a respectable housekeeper. She had a delightful manner and was most gracious. She had, with all the Bourbon pride, also the Bourbon gift of making herself pleasant and of putting people at their ease. Of course she was immensely accomplished and spoke Italian as perfectly as she did Spanish. The Duke seemed harmless and amiable. He had little to say, was thoroughly subordinate, and seemed entirely acclimated to his position in life as the ordinarily born husband of a Queen.

Our visit was not much of an ordeal after all. It was really quite instinctively that I courtesied and backed out of the room and observed the other points of etiquette that are correct when one is introduced to royalty. As it was a private presentation, it had not been thought necessary to coach me, and as I backed myself out of the august presence, keeping myself as nearly as possible in a courtesying attitude, I caught Mr. McHenry looking at me with amused approval.

"Well," said he, when we were safe in the hall and I had straightened up, "I should say that you had been accustomed to courts and crowned heads all your life! You acted as if you had been brought up on it!"

"Ah," I replied, "that comes from my opera training. We learn on the stage how to treat kings and queens."

Not more than a fortnight after this I had an offer for an engagement at the Madrid Opera for $400.00 a night, very good for Spain in those days. I suppose that it came indirectly through the influence of Queen Christina. I wanted to go to Spain, but my mother would not let me accept. We were almost pioneers of travel in the modern sense and had no one to give us authoritative ideas of other countries. People alarmed us about the climate, declaring it unhealthy; and about the public, which they said was capricious and rude. The warning about the public particularly frightened me. I should never object to my efforts being received in silence in case of disapproval, but I felt that I could not survive what I had been told was the Spanish custom of hissing. I was also told that Spanish audiences were very mercurial and difficult to win. So we refused the Madrid Opera offer, and I have never sung in either Spain or Italy principally because of my dread of the hissing habit.

That same year I heard Christine Nilsson for the first time, in Martha at the ThÉÂtre Lyrique and, later, in Hamlet at the same theatre with Faure. Shortly after both Nilsson and Faure were taken over by the Grand Opera. OphÉlie had been written for Nilsson and composed entirely around her voice. She created the part, singing it exquisitely, and Ambrose Thomas paid her the compliment of taking his two principal soprano melodies from old Swedish folk-songs. Nilsson could sing Swedish melodies in a way to drive one crazy or break one's heart. I have been quite carried away with them again and again. There was one delicious song that she called Le Bal in which a young fellow asks a girl to dance and she is very shy. It was slight, but ever so pretty, and it had a minor melody that was typically northern. These were the good days before her voice became impaired. In this connection I may mention that it was Christine Nilsson who, having heard the Goodwin girls sing Way Down upon the Swanee River, first introduced it on the stage as an encore.

While speaking of Nilsson, I want to record that I was present on the night, much later, when she practically murdered the high register of her voice. She had five upper notes the quality of which was unlike any other I ever heard and that possessed a peculiar charm. The tragedy happened during a performance of The Magic Flute in London and I was in the Newcastles' box, which was near the stage. Nilsson was the Queen of the Night, one of her most successful early rÔles. The second aria in The Magic Flute is more famous and less difficult than the first aria and, also, more effective. Nilsson knew well the ineffectiveness of the ending of the first aria in the two weakest notes of a soprano's voice, A natural and B flat. I never could understand why a master like Mozart should have chosen to use them as he did. There is no climax to the song. One has to climb up hard and fast and then stop short in the middle. It is an appalling thing to do: and that night Nilsson took those two notes at the last in chest tones.

Christine Nilsson as Queen of the Night From a photograph by Pierre Petit
Christine Nilsson as Queen of the Night
From a photograph by Pierre Petit

"Great heavens!" I gasped, "what is she doing? What is the woman thinking of!"

Of course I knew she was doing it to get volume and vibration and to give that trying climax some character. But to say that it was a fatal attempt is to put it mildly. She absolutely killed a certain quality in her voice there and then and she never recovered it. Even that night she had to cut out the second great aria. Her beautiful high notes were gone for ever. Probably the fatality was the result of the last stroke to a continued strain which she had put upon her voice. After that she, like Mario, began to be dramatic to make up for what she had lost. She, the classical and cold artist, became full of expression and animation. But the later Nilsson was very different from the Nilsson whom I first heard in Paris during the winter of 1868, when, besides singing the music perfectly, she was, with her blond hair and broad brow, a living OphÉlie. As I have said, Faure, the baritone, was her Hamlet in that early performance. He was a great artist, a great actor in whatever rÔle he took. His voice was not wonderful, but he was saved, and more than saved, by his style and his art. He was a particularly cultivated, musicianly man whose dignity of carriage and elegance of manner could easily make people forget a certain ungrateful quality in his voice. It was Faure who had the brains and perseverance to learn how to sing a particular note from a really bad singer. The bad singer had only one good note in his voice and that happened to be the worst one in Faure's. So, night after night, the great artist went to hear and to study the inferior one to try and learn how he got that note. And he succeeded, too. This is a fair sample of his careful and finished way of doing anything. He was a big artist, and to big artists, especially in singing, music is almost mathematical in its exactness.

Adelina Patti, who had also left London for the winter, was singing at the Italiens in Paris. I went to hear her give an indifferent performance of Ernani. It was never one of her advantageous rÔles. Adelina had a most extraordinary charm and a great power over men of very diverse sorts. De Caux, Nicolini, Maurice Strakosch, who married Adelina's sister Amelia, all adored her and felt that whatever she did must be right because she did it. Nicolini, who had been a star tenor singing all over Italy before she captured him, was willing to forget that he ever had a wife or children. Maurice was for years her "manager and representative," and as such put up with incredible complexities in the situation. There is a long and lurid tale about Nicolini's wife appearing in Italy when Nicolini, Maurice, and Adelina were all there. The story ended with Nicolini being kicked downstairs and the press commented upon the episode with an apt couplet from Schiller to the effect that "life is hard, but merry is art!"

The names of Paris and of Maurice Strakosch in conjunction conjure up the thought of Napoleon III, who, in his young days of exile, used to be very intimate with Maurice. Louis Napoleon, after he had escaped from the fortress of Ham, spent some time in London, and he and Maurice frequently lunched or dined together. By the way, some years later, at a dinner at the McHenrys' in Holland Park, I was told by Chevalier Wyckoff that it was he who rescued Napoleon from the prison of Ham by smuggling clothes in to him and by having a boat waiting for him. Maurice used to tell of one rather amusing incident that occurred during the London period. Louis Napoleon's dress clothes were usually in pawn, and one night when he wanted to go to some party, he presented himself at Maurice's rooms to borrow his. Maurice was out; but nevertheless Louis Napoleon took the dress clothes anyway, adding all of Maurice's orders and decorations. When he was decked out to his satisfaction he went to the party. Shortly after, in came Maurice, to dress for the same party, and called to his valet to bring him his evening clothes.

"Mr. Bonaparte's got 'em on, sir," said the man: and Maurice stayed at home!

Napoleon III was a man of many weaknesses. Yet he kept his promises and remembered his friends—when he could. As soon as he became Emperor he sent for Maurice Strakosch and offered him the management of the Italiens; but Maurice declined the honour. He was too busy "representing" Patti in those days to care for any other engagement. He did give singing lessons to the Empress EugÉnie however, and was always on good terms with her and with the Emperor.

When I was in Paris in '68 Napoleon and EugÉnie were in power at the Tuileries and day after day I saw them driving behind their splendid horses. Paris was extremely gay and yet somewhat ominous, for there was a wide-spread feeling that clouds were gathering about the throne. When thinking of that period I sometimes quote to myself Owen Meredith's poem, Aux Italiens,

The Tuileries court was a very brilliant one and we were accustomed to splendid costumes and gorgeous turnouts in the Bois, but one day I came home with a particularly excited description of the "foreign princess" I had seen. Her clothes, her horses (she drove postilion), her carriage, her liveries, her servants, all, to my innocent and still ignorant mind, proclaimed her some distinguished visiting royalty. How chagrined I was and how I was laughed at when my "princess" turned out to be one of the best known demi-mondaines in Paris! Even then it was difficult to tell the two mondes apart.

A unique character in Paris was Dr. Evans, dentist to the Emperor and Empress. He was an American and a witty, talented man. I remember hearing him laughingly boast:

"I have looked down the mouth of every crowned head of Europe!"

When disaster overtook the Bonapartes, he proved that he could serve crowned heads in other ways besides filling their teeth. It was he who helped the Empress to escape, and the fact made him an exile from Paris. He came to see me in London years afterwards and told me something of that dark and dramatic time of flight. He felt very homesick for Paris, which had been his home for so long, but the dear man was as merry and charming as ever.

We spent in all only a short time in Paris. Two months were taken out of the middle of that winter for travelling on the Continent, after which we returned to the French city for March. When we first started from Paris on our trip we were headed for Nice. It was Christmas Day, and cold as charity. Why did we choose that day of all others on which to begin a journey? Our Christmas dinner consisted of cold soup swallowed at a station. Christmas!—I could have wept!