Sarah grew to know at least two members of the revolutionary government
extremely well. One was Jules Favre, who was given the portfolio of
Foreign Affairs, and the other Rochefort, the notorious editor of _La
Lanterne_, who was taken out of prison by the mob on the night the
Empire was overthrown.
Two more opposite characters it would be hard to imagine. Favre was a
man in middle life--calm, rigidly upright, a thinker and a statesman.
Rochefort was little better than a literary apache, and was the idol of
the worst quarters of Paris. His speeches were calculated to appeal to
the baser instincts of the mob; those of Favre were the measured words
of a lawyer. Rochefort, if he had ever seized the reins of power, might
have been another Marat; while Jules Favre, if he could not save France
from mutilation and humiliation at the hands of Germany, at least aided
her in retaining her honour and self-respect.
When Jules Favre, with Paris ringed by enemy steel and guns capable of
shelling the Opéra point blank, and its population all but starved,
said to Bismarck: “Not one foot of soil! Not one stone from our
fortresses!” he was establishing for all time-to-come the immortal
spirit of Republican France.
Think! Paris could have been laid in ashes on the morrow, the whole of
France ravaged within a month, the last soldier put to the sword, all
without any possibility of resistance--and there was found a Frenchman
who could say defiantly to Bismarck: “Not one inch of soil! Not one
stone from our fortresses!”
Who shall dim the glory of a nation like that?
If I seem to lay unwonted stress on the Franco-Prussian war--now a
matter, even for the French, of cold, unsentimental history--it is
because it occurred at perhaps the most impressionable moment of Sarah
Bernhardt’s life, and has thus a direct bearing on our story.
We have just gone through a war so big that, although the Armistice
was signed five years ago, it seems only yesterday. We have had living
evidence ourselves of the influences of war upon the generation which
fought it. We know how war can alter the characters of men, for we have
seen it react on our own brothers and fathers and sisters. In France,
in 1870, the women did not go to the war as they did in those terrible
years from 1914 to 1918, but they bore their share--possibly the
heaviest share--of suffering behind the scenes. In 1870 the army in the
field was at least on the move, engaged in active operations; or, if it
had been compelled to capitulate, it was, at least, not hungry. But at
that time the women of Paris were very nearly starving. It is hard to
keep up courage, let alone enthusiasm, on an empty stomach; but this
the women of Paris did!
As the Germans drew closer and closer to Paris and the outer
defences began to fall, the flood of wounded that poured into the
hastily-contrived hospitals increased, until it became a matter of
serious doubt whether there were sufficient beds to hold them. Almost
everything was lacking--bedding, medicines, bandages, doctors, nurses
and food.
Starting with five wounded soldiers, Sarah’s hospital in the Odéon was
soon taking care of more than a hundred. I remember visiting it with my
mother during the siege, and the frightfully fetid odour that assailed
one on entering the door still lingers in my nostrils.
The wounded lay both in the theatre proper and on the stage. The beds
were placed in great semi-circles, leaving wide aisles between, along
which the doctors and nurses walked.
The nurses were nearly all actresses and friends of Sarah Bernhardt
whom she herself had trained. Their efficiency, naturally, left much to
be desired, but to the wounded they seemed like ministering angels.
Among the patients were many German prisoners, and during the siege
these always had the best and choicest food obtainable, so that when
cured they could be released and sent back to their army, to refute the
impression of a starving Paris!
Sarah told a story of one man, a corporal, who taunted her on his
arrival with the words: “Oh ho! I see the stories were true! You have
had nothing to eat for so long that you are a skeleton!”
This uncomplimentary allusion to Sarah’s slimness angered her
excessively, but she went on bandaging the man’s leg, which was broken.
The next day the corporal was astonished at being served with chicken
soup for his dinner. On the following one he was given boiled eggs and
some young lamb.
“Chicken, eggs and lamb in a starving city!” he exclaimed. “Why, you
have everything you want! All these stories of a starving Paris, then,
are untrue?”
He did not know that Sarah’s own dinner for days had been black bread
and beans, and that she had not eaten meat for more than a month!
Whatever delicacies were brought to the hospital were for her wounded.
Her face grew thinner, but took on an added beauty. She did not spare
her frail body, but worked from early morning until late at night. More
than once, when an exceptionally late convoy of wounded arrived, she
worked all night as well.
Her character became stronger and nobler; forged in the fires of
suffering, the metal rang true. “La Bernhardt” became a password of
homage among the soldiers. From a careless _gamine_, flattered by the
adulation of the multitude, she became a serious woman, striving only
for one thing: the alleviation of suffering among the soldiers who were
giving their all for their country.
It might be said that the war came at an opportune moment in Sarah
Bernhardt’s career. It demonstrated to her that, despite the plaudits
of Paris and the flattery of the multitude, she was only an ineffectual
morsel of the universe. It served to tame her conceit, to teach her how
insignificant individual success and glory are compared to the welfare
or suffering of a nation.
Her character became more subdued, her fits of temper less violent and
more rare. Her beauty had not suffered, however; rather had it been
enhanced. Her eyes, always enigmatic, had themselves gained something
of the sentiment which animated her being. Dressed in the white of a
military nurse, with the red-and-green cross on either arm and on her
hooded cap, she was ethereally lovely.
She used to go round begging overcoats from her rich acquaintances. The
Odéon was large, coal scarce and heating difficult. It became a proverb
among the men she knew: “Don’t go down to the Odéon with your overcoat
on, or you will lose it: ‘la Bernhardt’ will take it for her wounded!”
Nevertheless, they were generous to her. The Ministry of War,
established in the Palace of the Tuileries, allowed her the same
rations as those allowed to the regular hospitals--and, in fact,
Sarah’s personal appeals probably obtained for her something extra.
At any rate, even in the darkest days of the siege, Sarah Bernhardt’s
wounded never lacked for anything essential. She set every woman and
child of her acquaintance to work making bandages and folding lint. I
myself worked eight hours a day so doing. How I loved Sarah Bernhardt
in those days! She seemed to me to be glory personified.
When the siege began there were, according to official statistics,
220,000 sheep, 40,000 oxen and 12,000 pigs within the city limits.
This, said the authorities, was ample to provide for the wants of
Paris for five or six months. And so it would have been--if they had
not forgotten that a live lamb or ox or pig needs to be fed as well as
the human beings who are subsequently to eat them! They had brought
this vast army of animals to Paris, but they had forgotten to bring in
sufficient quantities of forage to feed them.
All the public buildings were used for storing either food or
munitions. The Opéra, which had not then been officially opened, was
organised as a gigantic warehouse by Charles Garnier, its architect,
and it was discovered that a river of fresh water flowed underneath its
cellars.
Sarah Bernhardt had had her hospital in full working order for six
weeks before she discovered that all the cellars underneath the Odéon
were filled with boxes of cartridges and cases of shells! Since the
Germans could have shelled the Odéon point blank from the heights of
Bellevue or Montretout, there was some excuse for the urgent protest
she made in person to Rochefort, that these munitions should be removed
and her wounded relieved from the necessity of lying on a powder mine.
Rochefort saw that the necessary orders were given.
As winter dragged on, the siege became a wearisome thing, but the
courage of the Parisians could not be daunted. Cut off from all
communication with the outside world, and even from their fugitive
armies in the South; starving and nearly at an end of their resources,
there was nevertheless no real thought of surrender. The Germans said
Paris could not hold out a month. It had already held out two.
The hardest thing was to keep up the spirits of the people, and in
this Sarah Bernhardt again took a leading part. The police had closed
the theatres, and many of these, like the Odéon and the Opéra, were
being used for purposes of national defence. But it was felt that some
amusements should be provided, so Pasdeloup, the famous conductor, was
asked to organise a committee of singers, musicians and stage-folk to
see if some way could not be found of getting over the difficulty.
Eventually, on October 23, Pasdeloup gave his first concert, and
shortly afterwards Lescouvé re-opened the Comédie Française.
Sarah Bernhardt organised a scratch theatrical company from among
those of the actors and actresses of the Odéon who were available,
rehearsed several stock plays and gave them in the open air, for the
benefit of the troops of the National Guard, who were encamped on the
fortifications and in the parks.
In November Pierre Berton re-appeared--an older, bearded,
strange-looking Berton. He had been in that part of the army which was
cut off from Paris, and had only reached the capital by slipping past
the German sentries at the peril of his life.
“But why did you not stay in the country, where you were safe, and
where your family is?” he was asked. It was true--his mistress and his
children had long ago escaped to Tours.
“What?--stay out of Paris, and _she_ here?” he demanded, pointing to
Sarah Bernhardt.
Their intimacy continued, but without the great passion of other days.
Sarah was tender to him, but made him see that her days and nights
belonged now to the wounded. Nevertheless, Berton complained that
others had taken his place in her heart.
There were four men, in particular, who excited his jealousy. These
were the Count of Kératry, under-secretary for food supplies; Paul de
Remusat, one of the prevailing moderate elements in the new Government
and a great friend of Thiers; Rochefort, who certainly had for Sarah
a strange and somewhat uncanny attraction, in view of his violence
and his dissolute character (Sarah says of him: “It was Rochefort who
caused the downfall of the Empire”); and finally Captain O’Connor,
a cavalryman, who was a much more serious competitor for Sarah’s
affections than the other three. O’Connor will figure in these memoirs
later on.
There is considerable doubt as to whether Count de Kératry was ever
a lover of Sarah Bernhardt’s. He had known her since she was a child
at Grandchamps, when he used to visit the Convent to spend an hour
with a niece, who was a pupil there. Later, he had been introduced
to her family, and by the time he received his commission as a
lieutenant of cavalry and was sent to command a unit in the campaign
of Mexico, had come to be a rather frequent visitor in the house in
the rue Michodière. From then on Sarah Bernhardt did not see him until
he returned, just before the Franco-Prussian war, and was given an
appointment on the Staff. After the Revolution he was made a _préfect_,
with special charge over the victualling of the city.
It was he who saw that Sarah’s hospital was so well supplied with
food--well supplied, that is, in comparison with other hospitals of
a similarly independent character. During the siege Sarah saw him
frequently, and he went often to the Odéon.
He was greatly enamoured of the young actress, but they were both too
busy to give much time to each other, and certainly their humane duties
precluded any prolonged love-making. But Berton saw in the Count de
Kératry’s frequent visits to Sarah an intrigue that threatened to oust
him from his privileged place at her side, and he made many heated
remonstrances to that effect.
Paul de Remusat, an author, playwright and educationalist, and withal
a most supremely modest and unassuming man, was one of the real forces
behind the revolution, but he was not one of the popular figures in it.
He seldom spoke in public.
Sarah had been introduced to him, some months prior to the war, by the
younger Dumas. She found inordinate pleasure in reading his writings,
which were of an inspiring beauty. She would go to his modest apartment
in the rue de Seine and sit on the floor at his feet, one arm over his
knees, as he read to her his latest works.
It was to Paul de Remusat that Thiers, Favre, Arago, Crémieux,
Gambetta, Jules Simon, Ferry, Picard, Pagès and the rest of the
revolutionary committee came in the afternoon with their plan of action
(that night the Empire fell). It was de Remusat who revised this plan,
and advised them of the pitfalls that lay ahead.
He could have had anything in the gift of the new Government. If the
times had not decreed that the President must be a military man--the
honour eventually went to the Governor of Paris, General Trochu--there
is no doubt in my mind that Paul de Remusat would have been offered the
highest post possible in the new order of things. The fact that he had
a “de” as prefix to his name was another drawback, for it only needed a
“de” to convince some people of one’s royalist leanings.
Eventually, it was decided to make him Minister of Fine Arts, and a
committee was sent to him with this idea in view. That evening the
president of this committee, M. Théophile Besson, sent for Sarah and
said to her, despairingly: “It is no use, we cannot move him. You are
the only person on earth, mademoiselle, who can make him change his
mind!” Sarah consented to do her best, and saw de Remusat the next day.
He asked to be allowed twenty-four hours to think the matter over, and
he then wrote to Sarah to this effect.
“CHÈRE, CHÈRE AMIE: Allow me to remain, my charming little friend,
in the shadow, where I can see so much clearer than I would if
smothered in honours!”
In another letter a few days afterwards he said:
“You know well that you have instilled into me an ideal of beauty
too partial to be of service to the world, which makes me prefer to
avoid worldly strife and ambitions.”
Throughout her career Sarah Bernhardt seemed to have possessed this
God-given faculty of elevating the ideals and ennobling the ambitions
of men. The influence she exerted on her century in matters of art was
incalculable. To painters she would say: “If you love me, then paint a
masterpiece and dedicate it to me!” To poets she would say: “If it is
true that you love me, you will write a poem about me that will live
when we both are dead!” And true it is that numbers of famous verses to
anonymous beauty had their inception in the ideal which Sarah Bernhardt
had succeeded in creating.
Alexandre Dumas _fils_ once told me: “She drives me mad when I am with
her. She is all temperament and no heart; but when she is gone, how I
work! How I _can_ work!”
Georges Clairin threw down his tools in his studio one day,
interrupting work on a great mural painting he was doing for Sarah
Bernhardt’s house, and went in search of Sarah. When he had found her,
he remained half an hour in silent contemplation of her face. Finally,
he jammed his round black velvet artist’s cap on his head, turned on
his heel without a word and, returning to his studio, worked savagely
on his painting until it was finished.
“Before,” he told me, “it used to be absinthe; now it is Sarah!”
Where other actresses prided themselves on their influence in
politics--there was a time when affairs of state were habitually
settled in the salons of the reigning beauties--Sarah, consciously or
unconsciously, exerted her influence on men of letters and art.
She would not look at a man unless he was doing something useful with
his life. She despised idlers, and was ever at work herself. Not
that she was of severe or strictly moral character. Far from it. But
she used her beauty and her undisputed hold on men in the finest way
possible: namely by inspiring and creating idealism in the minds of the
clever men who loved her. That may have been the secret of her hold on
men.
It became an axiom in the theatrical world: “If you want an
introduction to So-and-so (naming a prominent author, playwright, or
artist), go and ask Sarah Bernhardt.”
Her influence on Pierre Berton was somewhat of a different sort, but
this was his and not her fault. Berton had an excessively jealous
temperament, as I found out for myself later on.
Victor Hugo had returned in triumph to Paris from his secret place of
exile, and Pierre Berton was asked to read his poem “_Les Chatiments_,”
the daring and somewhat terrible masterpiece that is credited with
having been chiefly responsible for the spread of anti-imperialist
feeling in France. It was a forbidden work under the Empire and had
previously only been read in secret in the clubs.
Berton read the poem in the Théâtre Lyrique, before a great and
enthusiastic crowd. Sarah refused to attend. She still felt some
bitterness against Victor Hugo, for, though she now called herself a
Republican--it was dangerous to term oneself anything else--she had
preserved cherished memories of the Emperor, the Empress, and the Court
in which her acting had once produced a sensation.
She had never forgotten that simple act of generous courtesy, when
the Emperor Napoleon had descended from his throne to kiss her on
the cheek, in recognition both of her beauty and her art. He might
be a prisoner in Germany and they might call him an imbecile, but
she remembered him as a very gentle friend. And the Empress--who had
escaped from Paris in the carriage of an American dentist--it was she
who had commanded the performance at the Tuileries, and it was she who
had personally sent a note of thanks to Sarah at the theatre on the
following day.
Sarah’s memories of Royalty were inspiring. And she had hardly become
accustomed to Republicanism when the existing Government was swept
away with the Capitulation of Paris, and the horrors of the Commune
introduced.
Sarah saw Paris set on fire by the maniacs who said they were “saving
the nation”; saw many of her friends in political circles shot dead
without trial; feared, like many others, that the Terror was come
again. And, to add to her trouble, a man whom she had been at some
pains to make an enemy was appointed chief of police!
This man was Raoul Rigault, a youngster of thirty. He had been one of
that student band who established Sarah’s fame, and had presumed on
this fact to send her loving verses, and on one occasion a play in bad
verse, which she promptly returned through Berton as being “unfit for
her to handle, let alone read.” Rigault was furious and swore vengeance.
When the Commune came, Rigault was appointed _Préfect_ of Police, and
he visited Sarah at her flat, situated, after another move on her part,
in the Boulevard Malesherbes.
“It depends upon you, mademoiselle,” he said, “whether there is war or
peace between us.”
Sarah, angered beyond measure at this insult, sprang up and struck him
on the face with the palm of her hand. Then she ordered him to be shown
the door.
When Berton came later in the day, he wanted to seek out Rigault at
once and kill him. “The rat!” he kept declaring, “the rat!”
He did, in fact, visit the Préfecture with the idea of meeting Rigault
and “calling him out,” but could not find him. Before the Communist
could wreak his threatened vengeance on Sarah, the Commune was over and
he was executed.
Immediately after the signature of peace, Sarah made a long and
exceedingly hazardous voyage to Hamburg, _via_ Holland, where she
met her family and saw her baby boy again. She furiously abused her
mother and her aunt for daring to take her son to Germany during that
country’s war on France, and after their return to Paris she refused
for some time to have anything to do with her Aunt Rosine, whom she
regarded as responsible for the outrage. She brought her son back with
her.
Among her acquaintances before the war had been a man named James
O’Connor, a Frenchman of Irish descent. She had had little to do with
him at this epoch, and had known him only as a frequenter of several
literary salons which she had been in the habit of attending.
Just before the siege of Paris, Captain O’Connor--he had been given a
commission in the cavalry--was brought to her hospital at the Odéon,
suffering from a bullet wound in the hip. Though his recovery was rapid
his convalescence was long.
Sarah tended him with her own hands, and their friendship ripened into
a warm intimacy. With Berton more and more involved in politics, and
passing nearly all his evenings at meetings in the home of Victor Hugo,
Sarah saw a lot of the dashing Captain O’Connor, and it was he who,
when the Communist rebellion broke out, arranged her escape from Paris
with her son, and installed her in a cottage between St. Germain and
Versailles.
Almost every day they took long gallops together and once, when riding
through the Park of Versailles, they were shot at by a crazy communist
who had hidden himself behind a tree. The bullet missed its mark and,
turning in the saddle, Captain O’Connor mortally wounded the man. Then
he made as if to ride coolly on.
“But you are not going to leave him like that?” asked Sarah, sick at
heart, pointing to the man who lay dying on the grass.
“Why not,” asked O’Connor, coldly. “He would have worried himself
precious little about you and me if he had succeeded in killing us.
Every day friends in my regiment are killed in this way by some of
these madmen in ambush.”
Sarah slipped off her horse and supported the man’s head in her arms,
where a few seconds later he expired. Then, remounting with a stony
face, she gave her hand to O’Connor.
“What’s the matter?” he asked in cynical amazement.
“I will not ride any further with an assassin!” she said, and then
galloped away.
This unjust accusation deeply mortified O’Connor, especially as Sarah
refused to see him the next day when he rode over to offer renewed
explanations and to exact an apology.