The opera “Manon” has a curious history which Massenet related to me one day. Everybody knows in what singular circumstances the author of “Manon Lescaut” (Abbé Prévost) took refuge at The Hague. It was in that city that he wrote his “Mémoires d’un Homme de Qualité” to which “Manon Lescaut” seems to belong as a species of postscript or sequel. In a like manner, and in that Dutch town, Massenet, owing to certain circumstances, chanced to write the score of “Manon” the substance of which is taken from the Abbé Prévost’s romance. Wishing to remain apart from the rest of the world, in order to be quite undisturbed, he took lodgings as a boarder under an assumed name at a house in The Hague. To prevent all suspicion as to identity, he did not send for a piano, for, unlike some composers, Massenet does not need a piano to enable him to compose. He thinks out his music, which he hears inwardly, already arranged for the orchestra. Absorbed in his work, the composer labored unceasingly. He never went forth to take necessary exercise until after nightfall, that he might run no risk of being recognized. After his walk, which lasted about an hour, he returned home with coat collar turned up to conceal his face. He was accustomed to write at a large table littered with music-paper, each sheet bearing thirty staves. When not actually engaged in composing he amused himself by reading the Abbé Prévost’s romance, written by the French author in that same foreign town, possibly even in that same house, more than a century before. And Massenet’s artistic imagination saw in this fact a happy prognostic. “Why,” thought he, “should not my score of ‘Manon’ be as successful as was Prévost’s immortal novel? Grant, O, Sovereign God of Inspiration, that I may cause the sweet and loving Manon to sing, after a lapse of a hundred years, under the same sky, far away from Paris, and in the same happy strain as that in which the most worldly of abbés made her speak!” The existence of the mysterious foreigner who was always writing music but who never played any instrument, greatly exercised Massenet’s landlord. The inmates of the house were not less mystified than was he. The gossips agreed that this French musician was a choir-master—and a very original one. At last the composer was recognized, and the next day the newspapers informed the public that Massenet had been for some time at The Hague. People flocked to see him, and his apartments were speedily crowded with friends or with persons who came from mere curiosity. Happily, however, the score of “Manon” was completed.