Part 4
Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt had now been nearly seven years at the Comédie Française, and those who knew her were beginning to feel surprise at the length of her stay. The same year, 1879, was to witness several events leading up to her final flight in search of independence and freedom of movement. Mr. Mayer engaged the Comédie Française troupe for a series of performances to be given at the Gaiety Theatre, London, in June. Sarah was to play in _L’Etrangère_, _Phèdre_, _Le Sphinx_, _Hernani_, _Andromaque_, and _Zaïre_. The company left for London on June 1. Next day _Phèdre_ was played, and _L’Etrangère_ on the 3rd. Sarah was somewhat coldly received at first, but British iciness soon melted beneath the tragedienne’s fire. On the 9th, M. Sarcey felt justified in writing--“The English can adore two idols at the same time, and they are now devoted to Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt.”
On the first evening she insisted on playing the second act of _Phèdre_ as an interlude. Just as her turn was coming, she was seized by one of those “blue funks” by which actors are sometimes liable to be paralyzed. She fell down in a state of collapse; her hands and feet became icy cold, and she had to be rubbed vigorously for ten minutes to put a little life into her. She was half carried on to the stage. As was only to be expected, she attacked her words badly, went on worse, and failed completely. The audience, however, noticed nothing, and applauded her frantically. She was “called,” and was enthusiastically cheered as she stood leaning on the arm of M. Mounet-Sully, without whose support she must have fallen, half dead as she was.
But now things began to go wrong. _L’Etrangère_ had been announced for a Saturday _matinée_, and _Hernani_ for the evening. Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt was in both pieces, but her parts were not very tiring ones. Like Doña Sol, Mrs. Clarkson has only one act calling for real exertion. Moreover, Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt had not played at all since her appearance in _Zaïre_, and she had had time to rest. As a matter of fact--and this was the principal grievance of the Comédie against her--she did not rest. She had, for instance, performed _Le Passant_ and the second act of _Phèdre_ on the Friday night at a private house, before an aristocratic audience. When the time came for her to go to the theatre, she sent her maid to say that she was tired and could not perform. The effect may easily be imagined. Every seat was taken, the Saturday performances being always the best attended. It was feared that the public would take the announcement, which would have to be made, as a gross breach of politeness. How was it possible to organize another performance at such short notice? If only she had let them know in the morning! There was, however, no escape. Coquelin, whose turn it was to make the announcements for the week, went before the curtain. In a few well-chosen words he explained what had occurred, asked the audience to excuse the Comédie Française, and wound up by announcing that there would be no performance. A great commotion followed, and several hisses were heard--a very rare occurrence in a good English theatre. Chance brought an addition to the strength of the company in the shape of an actor who happened to call at the theatre for his letters. Some one pointed out that it would now be possible to play _Tartuffe_, and Coquelin was called upon to make another proclamation. But Coquelin was too disconcerted to do anything of the kind. “I should be a perfect weathercock,” he exclaimed. “I really can’t go on and say the exact opposite of what I said five minutes before. Let Got go!” Got was the _doyen_ and sage of the company, the last resource in desperate emergencies. He went forward and delivered a little speech to the effect that _Tartuffe_ would be performed for those who liked to remain, and that their money would be returned. As for those who desired to see _L’Etrangère_, their tickets would be available for a special _matinée_, which would be given on the Wednesday following.
Here was a pretty kettle of fish! M. Sarcey, who had, as usual, accompanied the Comédie Française troupe, observed--
Another affair of this kind would be more than enough to make the Comédie Française unpopular in England. Those persons who, through caprice or a desire to show off, or, to put it differently, through a mistaken estimate of their own physical powers, place their _confrères_ in such difficulties, are greatly to blame, and they may be sure that a day will come when they will have to atone for such conduct. Spoilt children are amusing until some friend of the family wants to know at what time they are put to bed.
The whole of the French Press rose in wrath. M. Albert Wolff, in the _Figaro_, was particularly aggressive. He raked up all the old grievances against the actress, and accused her of having gone about in male attire, and having organized an exhibition of her sculpture and paintings in London. Sarah sent him the following reply by telegraph--
_London, June 28._
MONSIEUR ALBERT WOLFF, _Figaro_ Office.
Do you really believe these insane stories, Monsieur Wolff? Who could have given you such information? In spite of all the infamous slanders that must have been poured into your ear, I still think you a friend with a little kindness for me. I give you my word of honour that I have never worn man’s clothes here in London; I did not even bring my suit with me. I absolutely deny the story. I went once, and only once, to the little exhibition I organized, and that was the day on which admission was by invitation only. Consequently it is false to say that a single shilling was paid on purpose for any one to see me. It is true that I give private performances, but you are aware that I am one of the worst paid _sociétaires_ of the Comédie Française, and I am entitled to make up the difference. That I am exhibiting sixteen pictures and eight pieces of sculpture is perfectly true, but as I brought them here to sell them I must let them be seen. With regard to the respect due to the House of Molière, my dear M. Wolff, I maintain that I uphold it better than anybody, because I am incapable of inventing such slanders on one of its standard-bearers. If the silly stories told about me have wearied the Parisians and decided them, as you lead me to fear, to give me a bad reception, I will not expose any one to the possibility of having to commit an act of cowardice, and I will hand in my resignation. If the London public is incensed against me by the rumours in circulation, and has decided to change its kindness into hostility, I hope the Comédie will allow me to leave England at once, so that the company may not experience the pain of seeing one of their number hooted and hissed. I send you this letter by telegraph--a piece of extravagance justified by the importance I attach to public opinion. I beg you, my dear Monsieur Wolff, to accord my letter at least as much consideration as you have given to the calumnies circulated by my enemies.
With a friendly hand-shake, I am, etc., SARAH BERNHARDT.
She then handed her formal resignation to Got, the _doyen_ of the Comédie Française. Her colleagues, who fully understood how greatly she contributed to the success of the company, insisted on her withdrawing her resignation, made her a _sociétaire_ with a full share in the profits, promised her two months’ holiday every year, and, in short, concealed the iron hand of interest under the velvet glove of amiability. Emile Zola took up his vigorous pen and treated M. Albert Wolff’s hypocritical arguments with scant ceremony--
One of the principal grievances against her is that she has not confined herself to dramatic art, but has also taken up sculpture, painting, and what not. This is too absurd! Not content with calling her thin and treating her as a lunatic, people want to decide how she is to use her spare time! She might as well be in prison. As a matter of fact she is not actually denied the right to practise painting and sculpture, but she is calmly told that she must not exhibit her works. This pretension is simply unmitigated rubbish. We had better pass a law at once to forbid the plurality of talents. And Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt’s style is considered to have so much individuality that she has been accused of passing off other people’s work as her own!
M. Sarcey indulged in a species of funeral oration--
Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt has given in her resignation. The Comédie will lose a charming actress in her, and will have to temporarily abandon certain pieces which it will be almost impossible to perform without her. These pieces, however, are not many. Mlle. Bernhardt is a heavenly lyre, but she has only two or three strings. I regret that we must do without her, but, as we know, no one is indispensable. Actors come and go and their places are soon filled up, however exceptional their talents may be. No actress, however great, can walk off with the House of Molière sticking to the soles of her boots. It will be interesting to see how Mlle. Bernhardt will succeed when she follows an _impresario_ and tries her powers on uneducated audiences ignorant of our language. But, after all, these melancholy reflections are perhaps uncalled for. The matter may still be put right. Who knows?
The matter was, in fact, put right, but only temporarily. The Théâtre Français re-opened its doors on August 2nd, with _Les Femmes Savantes_ and _Le Malade Imaginaire_. At midnight the curtain rose for the well-known ceremony carried out on such occasions. All the artists of the Comédie came forward, two by two, according to the time-honoured custom, bowed to the public, and took their seats. Loud, continued, and hearty applause burst forth from every part of the house when Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt came slowly forward to the footlights. It was her formal reconciliation with the Paris public. “We are all delighted about it,” said M. Sarcey, “and we hope the ‘row’ will be a lesson to all concerned.”
All’s well that ends well; but unfortunately in this case the end had not been reached. The year 1880 witnessed a great event in Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt’s life: the severance of her connection with the Comédie Française. On April 17th, _L’Aventurière_, by Emile Augier, was revived, Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt taking the difficult part of Clorinde. The newspapers gave her full credit for her usual ability and charm, but qualified their praise to an unmistakable extent. M. Sarcey wrote in the _Temps_--
Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt’s costume hardly struck me as suitable. She came on the stage with a head-dress exactly like a nightcap. Her comprehension of the part was still more unsatisfactory. It is difficult to understand what she intended to make of the character. Her Clorinde was absolutely colourless.
In the _Moniteur Universal_, Paul de Saint-Victor devoted several columns of scathing and even savage criticism to an attack on Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt. Knowing her hold on the public, she might have ignored this hostility, but her cup of bitterness was filled to overflowing by M. Auguste Vitu, who, though a courteous and moderate critic, wrote as follows in the _Figaro_--
During the last two acts, the new Clorinde indulged in uncalled-for exaggerations. She not merely forced a voice which is pleasing only when used in moderation, but she managed her body and arms in a style which would do very well for Virginie in _L’Assommoir_, but is out of place at the Comédie Française.
This was more than Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt could bear. She sat down and wrote the following letter to M. Perrin--
MONSIEUR L’ADMINISTRATEUR,
You made me play before I was ready. You gave me only eight stage rehearsals, and there were only three full rehearsals of the piece. I could not make up my mind to appear under such conditions, but you insisted upon it. What I foresaw has come to pass, and the result of the performance has even gone beyond what I expected. One critic actually charges me with playing Virginie in _L’Assommoir_ instead of Doña Clorinde in _L’Aventurière_! I appeal to Zola and Emile Augier. This is my first failure at the Comédie Française, and it shall be my last. I warned you at the dress rehearsal, but you took no notice. I now keep my word. When you receive this letter I shall have left Paris. Be good enough, Monsieur l’Administrateur, to accept my resignation as from this moment, and to believe me, etc.,
SARAH BERNHARDT.
_April 18, 1880._
Immediately after writing this letter Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt took the train to Havre, and ran to earth at Sainte-Adresse. A terrible uproar followed. The entire Press, the Comédie, the author of the unlucky play, and the public assailed the fugitive with showers of violent invective and cutting sarcasm. The _sociétaires_ of the Comédie were hastily summoned to a meeting, and they decided to take legal proceedings with a view to obtaining--
(1) The exclusion of Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt from all rights as a _sociétaire_ of the Comédie Française.
(2) The confiscation of her proportion of the reserve fund, amounting to over forty thousand francs.
(3) Three hundred thousand francs damages.
The critics were unanimously against her. Paul de Saint-Victor opened all the flood-gates of his controversial invective. M. Sarcey indulged in prophecy, and delivered himself of the following oracular saying--“She had better not try to deceive herself. _Her success will not be lasting. She is not one of those artistes who can bear the whole weight of a piece on their own shoulders, and who require no assistance to hold the public attention._”
M. Emile Augier, who had expected great things from the revival of his play, was much annoyed by the defection of the principal exponent. He wrote M. Perrin a letter in which he attempted to conceal his irritation under the mask of irony--
She was as well prepared as she could be. I go further, and say she played quite as well as usual, with all her defects and all her good qualities, with which art has nothing to do. Moreover, she obtained as much applause as ever from an adoring public. What, then, was the cause of the trouble? The Press indulged in some uncomplimentary remarks, and Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt does not like this kind of thing. With whom does the fault lie? Evidently with messieurs the critics, who have hitherto treated her as a spoilt child. Are these ungrateful Athenians beginning to tire of her success, and to think it unjustified?
M. Emile Zola, whose devotion to the cause of generosity and courage does not date from yesterday, was almost the only journalist to take Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt’s part, or rather to point out the faults on both sides, and to make the voice of wisdom heard amid this outburst of passion. He reminded Sarah that “it is sometimes an honour to be attacked.” Whilst Emile Zola, and also Emile de Girardin, lifted up their voices for peace and reconciliation, Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt in her retirement at Sainte-Adresse enthusiastically proclaimed her joy at what she called her deliverance. “Do you know how much I earned?” she asked a representative of the _Gaulois_. “Barely thirty thousand francs a year. That may be all very well for people who intend to remain on the stage until they are fifty or sixty years old, but in twenty years’ time shall I still be in this world? I have always had a horror of growing old on the stage, and I don’t mean to do it.” Her feeling was in fact so strong on this point that she incontinently adopted an heroic resolution--to leave the stage! It had already caused her too much suffering, she said, and she was quite decided not to die on it. She thus announced the result of her cogitations to the representative of the _Gaulois_--
“Yes, it’s all settled. I have learnt painting and sculpture, and I intend to live by that. My sales bring me in thirty thousand francs a year. My brush and chisel will make me a second existence, much calmer and more profitable than the first.”
Observing her guest’s astonishment, she added, gravely, “with a sad smile which rendered doubt impossible”--
“I came to this decision when I made up my mind to leave the Comédie Française.”
Gradually the storm subsided, and the affair began to be forgotten. The only allusions made to it were when some other artiste took up one of Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt’s parts. The _Figaro_, for instance, amiably remarked--
M. Emile Augier last night assured Mlle. Croizette, who was playing Sarah Bernhardt’s _rôle_ in _L’Aventurière_, that this was the first time he had known any artiste form an intelligent conception of the character of Clorinde.
According to M. Sarcey--
Mlle. Bartet has begun to appear as the Queen in _Ruy Blas_, the part formerly taken by Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt. Mlle. Bartet is meeting with considerable success.
It was a very neat way of saying to the fugitive--
“You see after all, you are not indispensable.”
Here is another specimen of the kind remarks which the newspapers took a keen joy in circulating. It was reported that Sarah had said, “I shall never forgive Victor Hugo for letting Mlle. Bartet play the Queen in _Ruy Blas_,” to which the poet had retorted that Mlle. Bartet played the part so well that her name deserved to be indissolubly connected with it in future.
Exactly a month after her sensational resignation, Sarah Bernhardt went to London, not, as might have been supposed, to sell some of her works of art, but to give a series of performances with Mlles. Lalb and Jeanne Bernhardt, and MM. Dieudonné and Berton. She met with considerable success, especially in _Adrienne Lecouvreur_, _Froufrou_, and _Rome Vaincue_. While she was tasting the joys of this apotheosis, she was by no means forgotten in the city she had abandoned. On the 18th June, the First Chamber of the Civil Tribunal resounded for three mortal hours with her name, and in spite of all the skill of her counsel, Maître Barboux, the Court ordered her to pay the Comédie Française 100,000 francs damages, and to forfeit all right to her share (about 44,000 francs) of the reserve fund. Her flight thus turned out to be an expensive affair. There was nothing for it but to pay, and this was the beginning of the peregrinations destined to spread Sarah’s fame beyond the seas. In August we find her travelling through Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. One of those numerous incidents which have caused incorrigible patriotism to be numbered among Sarah’s virtues, occurred at Copenhagen. In the course of a _fête_ given in her honour, the German Minister, Baron Magnus, proposed the health of _la belle France_. Sarah Bernhardt immediately interposed with--
“I beg your pardon, Baron, but you mean the whole of France, don’t you?”
The German Minister found himself in so awkward a predicament that he promptly left the room, and it was supposed that he had discovered an allusion to Alsace-Lorraine in Sarah’s remark.
She returned to Paris, but left again almost immediately. On the 10th September she was at Nantes, and afterwards she appeared at Bordeaux, Toulouse, Lyons, and Geneva. She excited wild enthusiasm everywhere. Medals bearing her image and superscription, Sarah Bernhardt bracelets and collars, photographs and biographies were sold in the streets. At Lyons, the Khedive’s son unsuccessfully offered £80 for a stage-box. The Old World soon ceased to afford sufficient scope for her activity. On the 16th October, 1880, she realized a long-cherished desire, and sailed from Havre to America on a tour, under Mr. Abbey’s management. She took with her all her company, her servants, and twenty-eight trunks containing innumerable dresses and particularly one which she was to wear in _La Dame aux Camélias_. This wonderful toilette had cost £480, and fifty work-girls, so the story ran, had toiled for a whole month to embroider the camellias on the mantle. Mr. Abbey had promised the actress a small fortune: £100 for every performance, plus half the receipts above £480. Sarah extended her journey to nearly every part of the States. From the date of her _début_ at New York, on 10th November, she was incessantly on the move. She appeared at Boston, Hartford, Montreal, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati, etc. Her _répertoire_ included _Adrienne Lecouvreur_, _Froufrou_, _Hernani_, _Phèdre_, _Le Passant_, and _La Dame aux Camélias_. She became the proprietor of a tame alligator, who soon succumbed to the champagne diet she inflicted on him. At length, on the 16th May, 1881, she landed in triumph at Havre, and was greeted by a cohort of friends from Paris, and by a crowd estimated, somewhat rashly perhaps, by the _Figaro_, at 50,000 persons. She had earned £36,800 in one hundred and sixty-six performances. Out of this sum she handed £4000 over to her agent, Jarrett, and £16,000 to her legal representatives in Paris. Her travelling expenses amounted to about £8000, so that after paying all her debts she was left with a balance of £8800. She brought back from America not only this respectable sum, but something else: the remembrance of great ovations, unprecedented triumphs, and adventures in which she invariably preserved her dignity. One day she happened to enter a Protestant church and heard the minister denounce her as an “imp of darkness, a female demon sent from the modern Babylon to corrupt the New World.” Before the day was over, the clergyman received this note--
MY DEAR CONFRÈRE,
Why attack me so violently? Actors ought not to be hard on one another.
SARAH BERNHARDT.
On her return to France, she treated her compatriots to such a surprise as only a _grand seigneur_ could have conceived. She was urged by a charitable association at Havre to give a performance in aid of the funds, and two days after landing she performed _La Dame aux Camélias_--the same play which had been applauded all over the world for a year before under the name of _Camille_, but which she had never yet performed in France. When she appeared as Marguerite Gauthier, on the 18th of May, 1881, before the Havre public and many of her Paris friends, including Halanzier, Lapommeraye, Clairin, Busnach, Abbéma, and many others, her reception was a perfect triumph. And yet Dumas had said of the part, “It is not made for her!”