Part 2

“On my departure from Grandchamp came the question, What was I to do? I was religious, in spite of my wayward and passionate temperament. The patron saint of the convent, St. Augustin, whose portrait was displayed in every room, was my first passion, which he shared with the Virgin. I was strongly inclined to become a nun, but my ideas in this direction underwent a change soon after my departure from the convent. My mother provided me with a finishing governess, Mlle. de Brabander--a very superior woman, who had educated the Grand Duchess Marie of Russia. Mlle. de Brabander adored me. My mother had considerable difficulty in deciding what to do with me. In spite of my youth I was asked in marriage by a neighbouring glover, then by a tanner, and finally by a chemist, from whom I used to buy medicines. I refused them all! One of my mother’s friends was the Duc de Morny, and he suggested that I should try the stage as a profession. My mother thought I was not sufficiently pretty; I was too thin, she considered. Nevertheless, she decided to adopt the duke’s suggestion. The story of my admission to the Conservatoire has often been told. I came with a letter of recommendation from the Duc de Morny, and I had scarcely recited two verses of La Fontaine’s fable of _The Two Pigeons_, when Auber signed to me to stop and come to him.

“‘Is your name Sarah?’ he asked.

“‘Yes, sir.’

“‘Are you a Jewess?’

“‘By birth, sir, but I have been baptized.’

“‘She has been baptized,’ said Auber to the jury, ‘and it would have been a pity for such a pretty child not to be.’ Turning to me, he added, ‘You said your fable very well and you have passed.’

“Consequently I entered the Conservatoire. The next question was, in which class was I to study? Beauvallet said, ‘She will be a tragedienne.’ Regnier maintained, ‘She will be a comedienne,’ and Provost put them in agreement by declaring ‘She will be both.’ I joined Provost’s class.

“I began my studies without the slightest enthusiasm. I set to work because I had been brought to the Conservatoire for that purpose, but I had neither taste nor inclination for the profession I was to enter. I went to the theatre for the first time in my life two or three days before the entrance examination. I was taken to the Théâtre Français to see _Amphitryon_. It made me cry! The stage had really no attraction for me. I often felt very unhappy at the prospect, and wept bitterly. Moreover I was horribly timid. When I discussed my real inclinations with my dear governess, Mlle. de Brabander, I felt more disposed to study painting than anything else, but I had to give way. Mlle. de Brabander used to take me to the Conservatoire every day. My mother gave me the omnibus fare for both of us. I pocketed it and we walked, because we both hated coming into contact with all sorts of people in the omnibus. When we had enough money, that is to say, every alternate day, we took a cab, so that we could make sure of being alone. I have always had a horror of being obliged to rub shoulders with people I don’t know. If I can help it, I never stay in a waiting-room or any public place where I am obliged to inhale other people’s breath. In this respect I have always been ferociously unsociable.

“At the commencement of my studies at the Conservatoire, I had considerable difficulties to overcome. I inherited from my mother a serious defect in pronunciation--speaking with clenched teeth. In all the imitations of my style this point is seized upon. In my early days the defect was ten times more pronounced than it is now, and it clung to me all the time, whereas now it is only noticeable when I am nervous, generally in the first act. To cure me of the habit, the Conservatoire teachers gave me little rubber balls, which prevented me from closing my mouth. My fellow-pupils included Croizette, Lloyd, Rousseil, Dica-Petit, Léontine Massin, and Mme. Provost-Poncin. Among the men was Coquelin, who was always very nice to me.

“At my first competitive examination I took the second prize for tragedy, and Rousseil the first. In my last year I took the second prize for comedy, and Lloyd the first. I could never manage to get a first. After taking my second prize for tragedy, I stayed a year at the Conservatoire, in receipt of a salary of £75, paid by the Comédie Française, which had views concerning me. Finally it was arranged that I should make my _début_ at the Comédie in _Iphigénie_, with Mme. Devoyod as Clytemnestre. I knew no one in the company except Coquelin, who had just entered it, and was as good to me as he had been at the Conservatoire. I do not remember experiencing any strong emotions except a real fear; but I do remember that when I lifted my long, thin arms--and they were thin!--for the sacrifice, the whole audience laughed. After that I played in Scribe’s _Valérie_, with Coquelin as Ambroise. Theatrical life was still uninteresting to me. I never went inside a theatre except to act. Even now, paradoxical as it may seem, I know scarcely any plays, and scarcely any artistes except such as I have encountered at the various theatres in which I have played.

“I was far from resting at the Théâtre Français. Less than a year after my _début_, my sister Regina one evening accidentally trod on Mme. Nathalie’s train. Mme. Nathalie, who was one of the leading ladies, pushed the poor girl so roughly that she knocked her head against a corner and the blood came. I immediately ‘went for’ Mme. Nathalie, gave her a resounding smack, and called her a great stupid! The men were delighted, but the affair created a terrible scandal. The manager told me I must apologize to Mme. Nathalie. I replied--

“‘I will apologize to Mme. Nathalie if she will do the same to my little sister.’

“No arrangement could be made, and I left the House of Molière for the first time.

“Owing to this very pronounced feature in my character, no manager would have anything to do with me. A fairy extravaganza, the _Biche au Bois_, was being played at the Porte St. Martin, then managed by Marc Fournier, and I learnt that Mlle. Debay, a former Odéon star, who was playing the Princesse Désirée, had been taken ill. As the part was in verse, I said to myself, ‘Here’s my chance,’ and went to see Fournier, who engaged me on the spot. As I was very young, I was asked who I was, and I replied that I was an orphan. I rehearsed twice, and the date of my _début_ was fixed. I sang a duet with Ugalde, who was kind enough to take the trouble of teaching me how to sing it. On the very first night it happened that my guardian was amongst the audience. He immediately recognized me and came to see me, horrified, after the first act. I implored him to say nothing to my mother, but he rushed off and brought her to the theatre. At first she would not let me finish, but finally she yielded to reason, and I played my part to the end, but that was my first and last appearance in extravaganza.

“After the Porte St. Martin came the Gymnase. In May 1863 I was engaged by Montigny to replace Victoria, Lafontaine’s wife. The piece was a vaudeville in rhymes, and I remember having to sing--

‘Un baiser? Non, non!’

“It was too absurd!

“I was very useful to Montigny. I had a marvellous memory, and shrank from no part, however difficult. I never really loved the stage, but as it was my profession I did not mean to let the grass grow under my feet. I was determined to get to the front. One after another I played in _Le Père de la Débutante_, _Le Démon du Jeu_ by Theodore Barrière, _La Maison sans Enfants_ by Dumanoir, _L’Etourneau_ by Bayard and Laya, _Le Premier Pas_ by Labiche and Delacour, and _Un Mari qui lance sa Femme_ by Raymond Deslandes. In this last piece (April 28, 1864) I was a Russian princess, with nothing to do but eat and dance all the time. This idiotic part disgusted me to such an extent that I vowed not to play it a second time. The day after the first performance I went off to Spain! In the morning I locked my mother in her room so that she could not interfere with me, and off I set with my accomplice, a maid who had been discharged by my mother. We went to Marseilles and got on board a steamer. The only other passenger was a rich wine-merchant from the south of France. You see how practical we were! My great object was to go to Madrid--I was mad to see Spain and its museums--and after encountering a fearful storm we landed at Alicante. I was dreadfully sick, but fortunately I had brought my little golden Virgin, and she gave me hope and consolation.

“My mother had set the police on my track, but in vain. At last, however, we were starved out. At the end of two months I had seen all I wanted to see in Spain, and as all my money was gone I was obliged to write to my mother for supplies. She made me wait some little time, but finally sent them, and I returned to Paris.

“One day I encountered Camille Doucet, who, as I told you before, was a friend of our family.

“‘Well, are you as naughty as ever?’ he asked. ‘Have you been slapping any more of your confrères lately?’

“I explained that I had had no opportunity, and he advised me to apply to the Odéon, then managed by Chilly and Duquesnel. Chilly was not much inclined to engage me, but Duquesnel seemed anxious to do so. Finally he had his way, and it was decided that I should appear as Junie in _Britannicus_ (January 14, 1867). Taillade, who played Nero, insisted at rehearsal that I should kiss the hem of his garment. I imagine he must have set about obtaining this act of superfluous civility from me rather badly; at any rate, I gave him a sound box on the ear. Camille Doucet must have thought there was no doubt about my vocation.

“My second appearance was in _Le Jeu de l’Amour et du Hasard_. It was a hideous ‘frost’! I remember wearing a dress with white, blue, and red stripes to give me a Louis XV. appearance! Moreover I was as thin as a lath and absolutely unsuited to the part of Sylvia. Her airs and graces were never meant for me.

“My first success at the Odéon was as Zacharie in _Athalie_. I recited the chorus of women, and this was the first occasion on which I really impressed the public. My reception was, I venture to say, really a triumph. In _Le Marquis de Villemer_ I next played a wretched part--a thirty-five-year-old baroness. I wept all the time. George Sand, who had noticed me, consoled me and promised that I should appear in _L’Autre_, which she had just finished; and she kept her word. Next came _Le Passant_. Chilly had been induced with great difficulty to have this piece played as a benefit performance. He had no faith in it, and thought it tiresome and without a future. He had so little confidence in its success that he absolutely refused to pay for the costumes, and Agar and I were obliged to order our own and settle the bills out of our own pockets. You know how popular Coppée’s little piece became. Agar and I played it twice before the Court, with immense success![1]

[1] Mme. Bernhardt afterwards appeared as Armande in _Les Femmes Savantes_, in _Les Arrêts_ (a one-act piece by M. de Boissières), in _François le Champi_, _Le Testament de César Girodot_, _King Lear_, _Le Legs_, _Le Drame de la Rue de la Paix_, by Adolphe Belot (1869), and _La Loterie du Mariage_.

“_Kean_ was being prepared at the Odéon. Chilly wanted the part of Anne Damby to be given to Jane Essler, and Dumas had already promised it to Antonine. Duquesnel advised me to go and see Dumas, and not to leave the house without a written authority to at least rehearse the part. I well remember going to see Dumas. The door was opened by his daughter, and I found Dumas in his shirt-sleeves, with a woman leaning on his shoulder--Oceana I believe she was. I timidly explained the object of my visit. He listened, looked at me, and said--

“‘You would do very nicely, but I have promised the part to Jane Essler.’

“I persisted in my request, and he confessed that he had also undertaken to give the _rôle_ to Antonine.

“Then, I said, ‘As you have promised it to two you may just as well promise it to three.’

“Fortunately I had learnt the part, and I began to recite it to him, inwardly repeating Duquesnel’s words: ‘Don’t leave him before you get a letter.’ Then I urged him again to let me rehearse the part, if only for a week.

“Finally Dumas had enough of it, and gave me a letter for Chilly, to this effect: ‘Jane Essler is to play Anne Damby, but you can let the bearer rehearse for a few days.’

“When the others saw me rehearsing for the part, there was a sensation. The end of it was that I kept the part and played it with very, very great success. A well-known incident happened at the _première_. Dumas came into his box accompanied by Oceana, and for three-quarters of an hour the students shouted ‘A la porte!’ to such purpose that Dumas was obliged to take the woman out, put her in a cab, and return to his box, wildly cheered by the students. Their hostility was solely against the woman who had forced this great man to make such a scandalous exhibition of himself.

“Next came _Le Bâtard_ by Alphonse Touroude, and _L’Autre_ by George Sand (September 1869), neither of which has any interesting souvenirs connected with it.”

The war broke out, and ambulances were soon being established everywhere. Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt decided to fit one up at the Odéon at her own expense, and on September 30 she set to work. Twenty-two beds were erected, long white curtains were hung at the windows and _portières_ over the doors, linen was neatly piled in cupboards, the dispensary was provided with bottles and drugs, and the cellars were filled with wood and coal. All the arrangements having been planned beforehand and carried out without delay, everything was completed in forty-eight hours, and there was nothing more to do but wait for the patients. They came soon enough! Day and night Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt and her aides-de-camp were kept at work. One of her first patients was M. Porel (now the manager of the Vaudeville theatre, and the husband of Mme. Réjane), who was slightly wounded by a fragment of shell. Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt busied herself not only with the infirmary but with the office. The ambulance being a military one, and having to supply daily reports to the central establishment at the Val-de-Grâce hospital, Mlle. Bernhardt carefully noted all particulars of the patients admitted and discharged, and kept all her accounts with remarkable exactitude.

The war and the Commune over, the theatres re-opened their doors, and M. André Theuriet entrusted Mlle. Bernhardt with the principal _rôle_ in _Jean Marie_, which had just been accepted at the Odéon. Her success was striking, and she has kept this little piece in her _répertoire_, reviving it time after time in her tours, just as she has done with _Phèdre_.

Nothing is more curious and instructive than to note the opinions of the theatrical critics on Sarah Bernhardt from this period onward. Sometimes she was lauded to the skies; at other times attempts were made to crush her by severe and often unjust condemnation. To begin with, let us take this expression of opinion given by the late M. Francisque Sarcey on October 14, 1871--

If I experienced great pleasure in seeing _Jean Marie_, it was because the principal part was taken by Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt. No one could be more innocently poetic than this young lady. She will become a great comedienne, and she is already an admirable artiste. Everything she does has a special savour of its own. It is impossible to say whether she is pretty. She is thin, and her expression is sad, but she has queenly grace, charm, and the inexpressible _je ne sais quoi_. She is an artiste by nature, and an incomparable one. There is no one like her at the Comédie Française.

Ten days afterwards came the first performance of _Fais ce que dois_, a one-act piece in verse, by M. François Coppée. The same critic dismissed the matter by saying--“The two sisters Bernhardt, Sarah and Jeanne, have two such insignificant parts that they can make nothing out of them.” On November 4, M. Sarcey wrote, in reference to the impending departure of Mlle. Favart from the Comédie Française--“Her place should most certainly be taken by Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt. Any other choice would be a monstrous injustice.” In spite of this impassioned declaration, the Odéon kept its prey. In the same month she appeared in _La Baronne_, by MM. Charles Edmond and Edouard Foussier. By this time it was generally recognized that the antique peplum suited her better than modern dress. Two months afterwards (January 1872) the indefatigable young actress created the part of Mlle. Aïssé in Louis Bouilhet’s four-act play of that name. The critic Paul de Saint-Victor treated her with considerable severity.

Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt, he wrote, played Aïssé very indifferently. She was weak and despondent, with no energy and no voice. In passages requiring the utmost fire and passion she did not rise above a monotonous sing-song. She cannot be said to have killed the piece, for it had no life in it, but another actress could perhaps have given it a more tragical and impressive ending. Mlle. Bernhardt makes it die of languor and inanition.

Mlle. Bernhardt now arrived at one of the turning-points in her life. Victor Hugo, who had returned to France on the downfall of the Empire, was superintending the revival of his dramas, and MM. Chilly and Duquesnel decided to bring out _Ruy Blas_. One evening there was a big dinner at Victor Hugo’s, and the guests set themselves to work to arrange the cast. Every _rôle_ was satisfactorily allotted except that of the Queen, on which there was some difference of opinion. M. Paul Meurice strongly supported Mlle. Jane Essler. Victor Hugo, observing that Busnach had taken no part in the discussion, asked him his opinion.

“_Ma foi_,” exclaimed the dramatist, “I think Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt is the only possible choice, and I strongly advise you to have her.”

Busnach argued his case with so much warmth that on the following day Victor Hugo asked the artiste to go over the part with him, and accepted her on the spot. Sarah’s success was unmistakable. Auguste Vitu wrote of her in the _Figaro_ (February 19, 1872)--

Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt displayed feeling, grace, and even passion in the comparatively small part of Doña Maria. If, at the beginning of the second act, she could succeed in getting rid of the dismal, psalm-like intonation which she erroneously regards as the proper way to express melancholy, she would perfect a remarkable creation, which does her honour.

M. Sarcey was warmer in his praise--

No _rôle_ was ever better adapted to Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt’s talents than that of this melancholy queen. She possesses the gift of resigned and patient dignity. Her diction is so wonderfully clear and distinct that not a syllable is missed. At the same time it is hardly powerful enough for the passionate outbursts in the last act, but there is a great deal of warmth and feeling in the impassioned passages at the close.

Immediately after this success the newspapers began to urge M. Perrin, the manager of the Théâtre Français, to engage the brilliant star which had just made its appearance in the theatrical firmament. Sarah was, however, bound by her engagement at the Odéon, and the management would not hear of releasing her. Offers were made to her, and she decided to take legal proceedings to have the contract set aside. The decision was against her, and she was obliged to pay the Odéon the not excessive indemnity of £200. In this way she returned to the scene of her _début_. The event excited a great deal of comment in the theatrical world, and especially, as may be imagined, in the House of Molière. But the success of _Ruy Blas_ and _Le Passant_ silenced the envious tongues, and her comrades soon found that they would have to reckon with the new _pensionnaire_. She set to work with astonishing ardour, and made her appearance on November 5, 1872, in _Mademoiselle de Belle-Isle_. There could be no doubt of her possessing the fire of genius, or of her ability to charm and touch her audience. There was still a certain want of power, but she was full of happy inspirations. Paul de Saint-Victor, however, persisted in opposing her. He wrote--

Mlle. Bernhardt made a very indifferent _début_ as Gabrielle. The artificial reputation she made at the Odéon and brought with her to the Comédie Française does not stand examination. There is a deadly monotony about her diction. Everything is on the same level. The only tone in her voice is the low and plaintive one. When the action of the play quickens and the passions of the various characters begin to assert themselves, she dwindles away to nothing, and loses all the fire, force, and colour that the part ought to have. What good work can Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt do at the Théâtre Français? The idea of giving her a leading part in a modern drama is out of the question. The most she can do is to act as a feeble substitute for Mlle. Favart. The weakness of her voice and the insufficiency of her talents exclude her from leading tragedy parts, and I do not see that she can take her place anywhere except in the background. She might sigh through the tirades of Atalide in _Bajazet_ or of Aricie in _Phèdre_ melodiously enough, but that is really the extent of her powers, and it is not enough to justify the importance attached to a very unpromising _début_.

The reader will readily understand that these unjust criticisms by a celebrated writer are given here merely as evidence of the vanity of theatrical criticism.

In January and February 1873, Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt appeared successively as Junie in _Britannicus_, as Mademoiselle de Belle-Isle, and as Cherubin in _Le Mariage de Figaro_. With the exception of M. Sarcey the newspaper critics paid little attention to her. He thought her one of the best Cherubins he had ever seen: the incarnation of the adventurous youngster, the little scamp who is sure to be never without a sweetheart. She had all the self-consciousness of the big school-boy, with the audacity and impetuousness of a young bantam. She conveyed an impression of desire without love.

Next month her struggles began again with the production of _Dalila_ by Edmond About. Her friends seemed inclined to abandon her. M. Sarcey was far from encouraging--

I fear, he said, that the management has made a mistake in already giving Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt leading parts. I do not know whether she will ever be able to fill them, but she certainly cannot do so at present. She is wanting in power and breadth of conception. She impersonates soft and gentle characters admirably, but her failings become manifest when the whole burden of the piece rests on her frail shoulders.

Apparently forgetting that, only a year before, he had declared Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt the only possible successor to Mlle. Favart, M. Sarcey added--