“Enough of Sarah Bernhardt! Now that she has finally left the Comédie
Française, let us forget her!”
This was the slogan of Sarah’s enemies in the year 1880. And many
of her friends thought, with a sigh of relief, that they were to be
spared for a little while, at any rate, the pain of the extraordinary
publicity the actress provoked.
Sarah was now thirty-six years old. Her son, Maurice, had reached his
seventeenth year, and was already causing her a good deal of trouble,
due to her eccentric way of bringing him up.
She was original in her treatment of his childish faults. When he was
six, he persisted in a habit of chewing the tips of his gloves, and no
correction, apparently, could cure him of the habit. Exasperated, Sarah
one day made him take a pair of gloves to the kitchen, fry them in
butter, and eat them! The cure proved effective.
I do not intend to devote much of this biography to Maurice Bernhardt.
He is still alive, and I understand he is writing his own memoirs. It
is my opinion, however, that it was not he himself but Sarah’s own
conception of the boon of motherhood which throughout her life was
perhaps its outstanding influence.
Maurice was a wilful, headstrong, nervous child; strong for his size,
and a handful for the various nurses who were engaged to look after
him.
Sarah was stern with him at times, indulgent at others; and she
educated him to rely upon her, and never once, even in her old age, did
she rely upon him.
When he was twelve, Maurice was already quite a “man about town,”
preferring adult companionship and evincing precocious likes and
dislikes. When he was fifteen, Sarah settled a large sum on him and
before he was twenty his income from her was 60,000 francs annually.
She always told her friends that she did not mind what he did with the
money, so long as he dressed himself properly.
Thus, almost from infancy, Maurice was accustomed to an amount of
luxury that was far in advance of his mother’s real circumstances.
The sole thing on which she insisted was that he should learn the art
of fencing, so as to defend his life in case of a duel. This art, when
once learned, got the youngster into several scrapes, which cost Sarah
a good deal of money.
As a small child Maurice appeared with Sarah on the stage on one or two
occasions, but he evinced no great talent for the theatre. He also,
when a young man, attempted the art of playwriting, assisted by his
mother, but met with no greater success. In later years he tried to
persuade his mother to make him general manager of the Sarah Bernhardt
Theatre, in her stead. It was the only thing she ever denied him.
Sarah’s various studios and flats were always filled with pictures of
Maurice at all ages--many of them being sketches or paintings by Sarah
herself.
[Illustration: Sarah Bernhardt in _Adrienne Lecouvreur_.]
So much for Maurice Bernhardt. He was an affectionate son, and if he
has not been exceptionally useful during his long life, it is the
fault of his haphazard upbringing. He is now a father, a grandfather, a
member of the best Paris clubs, a well-known figure in baccarat rooms
and on race-courses, and he still maintains his excellent reputation as
a swordsman. Sarah died in his arms.
It was in 1880, before she left for her first American tour--in October
of that year--that Sarah Bernhardt first organised a company of her
own. This was placed by her under the paternal direction of Félix
Duquesnel, Sarah’s old friend at the Odéon, and consisted of nine
artistes, who had been carefully selected for the purpose of supporting
her on tour. They were Madame Kalb, Pierre Berton, Mary Jullien, Jeanne
Bernhardt, Madame Devoyod, Jean Dieudonné, L. Talbot, J. Train and
myself. I was, of course, the youngster of the troupe.
Our _répertoire_ at this time consisted of eight plays: _Hernani_,
_Froufrou_, _La Dame aux Camélias_, _Le Sphinx_, _L’Etrangère_, _La
Princesse George_, _Adrienne Lecouvreur_ and _Phèdre_. Let me now set
forth the story of how _La Dame aux Camélias_, one of Sarah’s greatest
triumphs, proved a failure until she brought her own genius to bear on
the play and transformed it into a masterpiece.
_La Dame aux Camélias_, as a matter of fact, was in its original form
written by Dumas fils after earnest consultation with Sarah. It was
never played, however, and lay for some years neglected in a drawer.
One day Dumas took it out and read a few pages of the second act to
Sarah, for the purpose of eliciting her opinion on the piece.
“Let me take it with me!” she asked, and Dumas gave the manuscript to
her.
A few days later she brought it back to him with a third of it
crossed out and corrected. New lines had been added to practically all
the important passages, and part of the second act had been cut out
entirely.
“There!” she told him. “Your play is better like that! If you will
revise it as I have marked the manuscript, I will play it and make it a
success.”
“It is I who am the playwright and not you, mademoiselle!” he said
angrily.
Bernhardt turned on her heel.
“Very well!” she flung at him over her shoulder; “a day will come when
you will beg me to produce your play!”
Dumas refused to be influenced by such criticism, and eventually
the play was produced, in a small way, at the Comédie, and then at
another theatre, but had no success at either. Sarah’s amendments and
suggestions had been ignored.
After Sarah had organised her own company, Pierre Berton one day went
to her with the information that Dumas wished to see her.
“What about?” asked Sarah.
“About a play called _La Dame aux Camélias_. We were reading it
together last night and I believe it can be played by us with success.
In fact, it is a play absolutely written for you!”
“Did you tell Dumas that?” asked Sarah, grimly.
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“He said that he agreed with me.”
“And that was all?”
“That was all--except that he asked that I should bring the matter to
your attention.”
Sarah laughed. “I told Dumas that he would one day beg me to play this
thing for him,” she said, “and you may tell him that if he wants me to,
he must do just that--beg!”
Berton must have taken the message diplomatically to Dumas, for the
next day the latter was announced at Sarah’s house.
I was not present at the interview, but at the end of it Sarah informed
us that _La Dame aux Camélias_ was to be included in our _répertoire_.
Knowing Sarah’s temperament and her obstinacy, I presume Dumas begged.
At any rate, the book of the play, as it was placed in our hands
shortly afterwards, contained all the original corrections which she
had made and which Dumas had at first ignored.
We produced _La Dame_ (as it was always called) at Brussels, whither we
had gone on the earnest representations of King Léopold, who was still
greatly enamoured of Sarah.
In Brussels _La Dame_ obtained no success whatever. The Belgians
much preferred _Adrienne Lecouvreur_ and _Froufrou_. It was in the
last-named play that Sarah had scored her biggest success in London,
on her second visit as an independent artiste. Sarcey, who had written
what he called “Sarah’s Epitaph” when she left the Comédie, saying
that it was “time to send naughty children to bed,” was compelled to
make a special journey to London in order to write reviews of Sarah’s
extraordinary productions there.
Instead of her light becoming dimmer, it blazed higher and higher with
each month that separated her from her “imprisonment” at the Comédie
Française.
Yes ... imprisonment was what Sarah considered it.
“At last I am free and my own mistress,” she said. “Perrin cannot make
me work when I don’t want to, and all the critics can go to the devil!”
It was predicted that the fine of one hundred thousand francs imposed
on Sarah for breaking her contract with the Comédie would be a blow
from which she would find it hard to recover.
“We shall hear less of our dear Sarah now! She will go away and leave
us in peace!” wrote Paul de St. Victor, her ancient enemy of the _Ruy
Blas_ banquet.
But instead of sinking under the blow, Sarah only worked the harder.
She was absolutely tireless at this period. Her visits to London and to
Brussels were organised chiefly to avoid the process-servers, who were
hammering at the door of her house in Paris with blue papers ordering
her to pay the hundred thousand francs.
Sarah had not then the money to pay her fine, but for one full year
her creditors could not legally obtain a judgment against her by
default (which would have meant the sacrifice of her house, and of
all its treasures). So after they had made the customary three visits
to her Paris home, had knocked thrice on the door, and had instituted
condemnation proceedings, Sarah returned to Paris and set about
organising a whirlwind tour of the provinces, to precede her departure
for America.
Sarah met the Prince and Princess of Wales at Brussels, and charmed and
was charmed by them. They saw her in _Froufrou_ while the guests of the
King and Queen of the Belgians. This was the beginning of a long and
precious friendship between Sarah and the Princess (afterwards Queen
Alexandra) which lasted until Sarah’s death.
After Sarah’s Brussels visit the Princess--who was by birth Danish,
as everybody knows--obtained for us a Royal command to perform before
the King and Queen of Denmark at Copenhagen. Five performances only
were asked for, and for these Sarah demanded 120,000 francs and our
expenses. The sum was immediately agreed to.
Sarah did not like Denmark. She was in a bad humour throughout the
visit. We were lent the Royal yacht, on which to make a trip on the
fjords. It was a lovely day and I can hear still the beautiful voices
of the Upsal Choir, blending so perfectly with the grandeur of the
landscape.
Vicomte de Bondy, an attaché then at the French Legation, met us on the
trip and begged me to introduce him to Sarah. I agreed, but when we
approached her we were dismayed to hear her giving her opinion of the
country to a friend, in no uncertain terms.
“_Je m’en fiche de leur pays! Ils m’embêtent!_” she cried. The nearest
translation to this, in English slang, would be: “I’m fed up with
their country! They bore me to death!” Only the language was a trifle
stronger!
When these phrases reached our ears the Vicomte stopped suddenly. Then
he raised his hat, and turned on his heel.
“I do not think I want to meet your Sarah!” he said shortly, and
forthwith he disappeared from our party.
I recounted the incident to Sarah the next day, as we sat on deck of a
steamer which was carrying us back to France.
“And he was a Frenchman!” she exclaimed. “Why, what you heard me say
was nothing! I said a great deal more to the Crown Prince, and he only
laughed!”
Sarah’s freedom of language was at times embarrassing.
Baron Magnus, the then German Minister in Denmark, was an old
inhabitant of Paris, and had known Sarah in the days before the war.
But since 1870 Sarah could not bear to look at a German.
When the baron got up at a banquet, therefore, and, raising a glass of
champagne, jovially proposed her health, the actress could not restrain
her anger. She sprang to her feet and raised her glass high in the air,
to the astonishment of the King, the Queen and various other members of
the Royal family who were seated round her--and probably, it must be
admitted, to their secret amusement.
“I accept your toast, Monsieur the Minister of Prussia,” she cried,
“but only on condition that you extend it to include the whole of La
Belle France!”
Baron Magnus turned white. He could think of nothing to say, and he
sat down. The band struck up the “Marseillaise” and then, courteously
enough, considering what had passed, he got on his feet again.
Long afterwards, he and Sarah became very good friends. But he never
tired of telling the story of how Sarah had startled a King and Queen
and humbled an Imperial Ambassador.
On September 4, 1880, we left Paris on our first tour of the provinces
under Duquesnel’s managership. The tour, which lasted twenty-eight
days, was a tremendous success, and in October, a few days after our
return to Paris, Sarah left for America under Abbey’s management. I
did not go with her, my family being unwilling that I should make the
journey before having completed my studies.