During the summer of 1879 I lived at the seashore at Pourville near Dieppe. Hartmann, my publisher, and Paul Milliet, my collaborator, spent the Sundays with me. When I say with me, I abuse the words for I kept company but little with these excellent friends. I was accustomed to work fifteen or sixteen hours a day, sleep six hours, and my meals and dressing took the rest of the time. It is only through such tireless labor continued without ceasing for years that works of great power and scope can be produced. Alexander Dumas, the Younger, whose modest contemporary I had been at the Institute for a year, lived in a superb property at Puys near Dieppe. His being near often furnished me with delightful pleasures. I was never so happy as when he came for me at seven o'clock in the evening to take me to dinner. He brought me back at nine o'clock so as not to take up my time. He wanted me to have a friendly rest, and indeed it was a rest which was both exquisite and altogether delightful. It is easy to imagine what a treat the vivacious, sparkling, alluring conversation of the celebrated Academician was to me. How I envied him then for those artistic joys which he had tasted and which I was to know later! He received and kept his interpreters at his home and made them work on their parts. At this time Mme. Pasca, the superb comedienne, was his guest. The score of _Hérodiade_ was finished at the beginning of 1881. Hartmann and Paul Milliet advised me to inform the directorate of the Opéra. The three years I had given to _Hérodiade_ had been one uninterrupted joy to me. They were marked by a never to be forgotten and unexpected concentration. In spite of the dislike I have always had for knocking at the doors of a theater, I had, nevertheless, to decide to speak of this work and I went to the Opéra and had an interview with M. Vaucorbeil, the Director of the National Academy of Music. Here is the conversation I was honored with: "My dear Director, as the Opéra has been in a small way my house with _Le Roi de Lahore_, permit me to speak of a new work, _Hérodiade_." "Who is your librettist?" "Paul Milliet, a man of considerable talent whom I like immensely." "I like him immensely too; but with him one needs ... (thinking of a word) ... a _carcassier_." "_A carcassier!_" I replied in utter astonishment; "_a carcassier!_ What kind of an animal is that?" "A _carcassier_," added the eminent director, sententiously, "a _carcassier_ is one who knows how to fix up in solid fashion the carcass of a piece, and I may add that you are not enough of a _carcassier_ in the strictest sense of the word. Bring me another work and the National Theater of the Opéra will be open to you." I understood. The Opéra was closed to me, and some days after this painful interview I learned that the scenery of _Le Roi de Lahore_ had been relegated irrevocably to the storehouse in the Rue Richer--which meant the final abandonment.