My sensations in approaching that great poet were indescribable! He was no longer in the dawn of life, but he was still youthful and vivacious in thought, and rich in images with which he adorned his slightest conversation. And his learning was extremely wide and varied. I found him sitting in a large armchair with three cats about him. I have always been fond of the pretty creatures, so I at once made friends with them which put me in the good graces of their master. Bergerat, who has continued to be a charming friend to me, told him that I was a musician and that a ballet over his name would open the doors of the Opéra to me. He developed on the spot two subjects for me: _Le Preneur de Rats_ (The Rat Catcher) and _La Fille du Roi des Aulnes_. The recollection of Schubert frightened me off the latter, and it was arranged that the _Rat Catcher_ should be offered to the director of the Opéra. Nothing came of it as far as I was concerned. The name of the great poet was so dazzling that the poor musician was completely lost in its brilliance. It was said, however, that I would not remain a nonentity, but that I would finally emerge from obscurity. Duquesnel, an admirable friend, then the director of the Odéon, at the instance of Hartmann, my publisher, sent for me to come to his office at the theater and asked me to write the stage music for the old tragedy _Les Erinnyes_ by Leconte de Lisle. He read several scenes to me and I became enthusiastic at once. How splendid the rehearsals were! They were under the direction of the celebrated artist Brindeau, the stage manager at the Odéon, but Leconte de Lisle managed them in person. What an Olympian attitude was that of the famous translator of Homer, Sophocles, and Theocritus, those geniuses of the past whom he almost seemed to equal! How admirable the expression of his face with his double eye-glass which seemed a part of him and through which his eyes gleamed with lightning glances! How could they pretend that he did not like music when they inflicted so much of it on him, in that work at any rate? It was ridiculous. That is the sort of legend with which they overwhelm so many poets. Théophile Gautier, who, they said, considered music the most costly of all noises, knew and liked other marvellous artists too well to disparage our art. Besides, who can forget his critical articles on music which his daughter Judith Gautier, of the Goncourt Academy, has just collected in one volume with pious care, and which are uncommonly and astonishingly just appreciations. Leconte de Lisle was a fervent admirer of Wagner and of Alphonse Daudet, of whom I shall speak later, and had a soul most sensitive to music. In spite of the snow I went to the country in December to shut myself up for a few days with my wife's good parents and I wrote the music of _Les Erinnyes_.