Sarah signed the lease with the civic authorities of Paris to run the
Théâtre de l’Opéra Comique, on the Place du Châtelet, in November,
1898. She immediately changed the name to Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt, and
on January 18, 1899, she opened it with _Adrienne Lecouvreur_.
This was a curtain-raiser, so to speak, and it soon gave place to
_L’Aiglon_, which has been consistently included in that theatre’s
_répertoire_ ever since.
By a singular irony of coincidence _L’Aiglon_ was being played at the
Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt on that sad night, the twenty-sixth of March,
1923, when the world of art and drama was thrown into mourning by her
death.
It was at the Théâtre de l’Opéra Comique, it will be remembered, where
Sarah saw her first play as a little girl. And it was there that she
played her last.
Although it was to be nearly a quarter of a century before the final
curtain fell, Sarah found her energy, though not her fortitude,
diminishing. Further and further her sentimental life was being pushed
into the background, as the cares of business and of management weighed
on her.
She moved to a little red-brown house on the Boulevard Pereire, and
there at last, after all her wanderings amongst the different quarters
of Paris, she found a permanent home. Into it she brought the
accumulated treasures of a lifetime spent in travel, including gifts
that had come to her from every corner of the globe.
She installed herself in this house alone with a secretary, for her son
was married now and living in a street near-by, in a home of his own.
Here also she brought the waiter Claude, who loved to call himself
“_l’écuyer de Sarah Bernhardt_,” or “Sarah Bernhardt’s butler,” and
Félicie, her maid.
Sarah was very particular over her table. She insisted on the best.
Although she herself ate frugally, her guests were always given the
choicest that could be procured.
Sarah was a vegetarian--she remained so, in fact, all her life although
on one or two occasions perhaps she may have pecked at a bird, a slice
of venison, or a similar dainty.
In the morning, at eight o’clock, she would partake of an orange, a
light roll, and drink a cup of weak tea. The orange-for-breakfast habit
she acquired in America, where fruit customarily precedes the first
meal of the day.
Then she would work until noon, when she would be served with her only
real meal--an omelette, perhaps, and a piece of fish, and more fruit.
Until she was thirty-four she never tasted cheese--it offended, she
said, her æsthetic sense!--but when she grew old, a light gruyère or a
Pont-l’Evêque was a favourite dish of hers.
At five in the afternoon she had an invariable glass of champagne, and
at seven an _œuf soufflé_ or something similarly light. For years her
diet was prescribed by doctors, and never a week went by after 1890
that Sarah Bernhardt was not examined by a physician.
Despite the accident to her leg and the subsequent phlebitis, which
grew more serious with every recurrent attack, Sarah continued to act
in the plays she produced at the Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt. One after
another she produced _L’Aiglon_, _Hamlet_, _La Sorcière_, _Le Procès de
Jeanne d’Arc_, _La Belle au Bois Dormant_, _La Beffa_, _La Courtisane
de Corinthe_, _Lucrèce Borgia_, _Les Bouffons_, and _Jeanne Dorée_.
Thrice, after she opened her theatre, she undertook long, fatiguing
tours of America and Europe, and once she went to Australia, South
Africa and New Zealand. “Bernhardt’s Circus” was what her travelling
company was facetiously nicknamed by the Paris press--the fun and
criticism of which, however, had grown considerate and kindly.
“Sarah Bernhardt is a national institution; to criticise her is like
criticising the Tomb of Napoleon,” said _Le Journal des Débats_ one
evening.
The Prince of Wales, who was shortly to become King Edward VII., was
a warm friend of Sarah Bernhardt, and on one well-remembered occasion
paid an informal visit, together with the Princess of Wales, to her
home in Paris.
“What did you talk about?” I asked, the next day.
“Dogs and dresses,” said Sarah promptly.
“The Prince,” she continued, “is tremendously interested in dogs, and
there we have a common ground.”
Once the Prince called on Sarah in her dressing-room--this was when she
was at the Renaissance.
Word was sent in advance, of course, that he was coming--and she was
requested to be ready to receive him at ten o’clock. At that hour she
was customarily on the stage, and her entourage was excited at the
possibility of her not being there to receive the Royal visitor.
The stage-manager suggested advancing the time of the whole piece, so
that the third act would be finished by ten, but this did not suit
Sarah, who knew that such an arrangement would make many people who had
purchased seats miss a part of the first act.
She settled it in her own characteristic fashion.
“Let him wait,” she said. “After all, he isn’t King yet!”
At ten o’clock--punctuality is the politeness of kings--the Prince
arrived. When Sarah returned, she found him in the wings, watching the
life behind the scenes with intense interest. It being draughty there,
he had not removed his hat.
He advanced his hand, but Sarah kept hers at her side. She was in one
of her haughty moods that evening.
“A King may wear his crown, but a Prince must remove his hat in the
presence of a lady,” she said loftily.
The Prince snatched his silk hat from his head, blushed deeply, and
murmured a confused apology. It was probably the one occasion in his
life when a woman treated him with such scant consideration for his
Royal dignity!
After the famous dinner “_en famille_” given to the Prince and Princess
of Wales by Sarah--it was supposed to be strictly secret, but Sarah saw
that it leaked into the papers!--she received a note from one of the
ladies-in-waiting to the Princess, who, with her Royal husband, was
living at the Hotel Bristol in the Place Vendôme.
“Her Royal Highness was much interested in the gown which Madame
Bernhardt was describing to her last night, and wonders whether Madame
Bernhardt could spare her a few minutes this morning to consult with
her regarding it.”
Truly a strange message to be sent by a Princess to an actress!
Sarah visited the hotel and had another long chat with the Princess,
whose beauty and grace were the talk of Paris. They talked of a good
deal besides dresses. The Princess loved to speak of her beloved
Denmark, which Sarah knew well, and they recalled the first occasion on
which Sarah went there, just after she left the Comédie Française, when
the Princess was also visiting her native country.
Sarah gave the Prince a Swiss shepherd-dog, and he, after becoming
King Edward VII., sent her an Airedale puppy. This puppy came to an
unfortunate end shortly afterwards. It died in agony as the result of
being bitten by Sarah’s pet panther.
After he came to the throne, King Edward VII. and Queen Alexandra
invariably “commanded” a performance whenever Sarah was in London. It
might be at Windsor, or at Sandringham, or in London, but afterwards
the kindly King and the lovely Queen of England would carry Sarah off
for a confidential chat in the homelike atmosphere of their private
apartments.
Sarah had hundreds of reminiscences to relate regarding her two Royal
friends. How she loved Queen Alexandra!
In 1904 Sarah had another and severe attack of phlebitis while on
tour in America, and lay ill for a long time in San Francisco. It was
thought then that she would eventually lose her limb. The poison was
gradually creeping upwards, and she could not put her foot to the
ground without intense pain. She remained a fortnight in bed, with her
leg held up by a pulley.
Sarah’s fortitude throughout her long trial was amazing. As soon
as her foot became sufficiently well to stand upon, she insisted on
returning to the theatre.
Finally, when she was playing in Bordeaux in the early spring of 1915
she had another and more critical attack, and was taken to Dr. Moure’s
private clinic.
Dr. Pozzi, the famous surgeon, was sent for from Paris, but after
examination he shook his head.
“Amputation cannot save her,” he said, and he refused to undertake the
operation.
Another doctor was sent for, Dr. Denucce, also a great surgeon. Dr.
Denucce put the situation squarely before the actress.
“There is one hope for you--amputation--but it is a chance in a
thousand, for the infection has reached the spine,” he told her.
Sarah heard her sentence calmly.
“Cut it off!” she said.
When they laid her on the operating table, they tried to cheer her with
words of encouragement, but Sarah’s brave smile shone wanly.
“I have already faced death seven times,” she said. “If this is when my
light is to go out, I shall not be afraid!”
She was in a terrible condition, not only physically but financially.
The operation was a success, but she had not a cent with which to pay
the clinic or the doctors. The Rothschilds and their friends finally
came to the rescue.
“All my life, it seems, I have been making money for others to spend!”
she said, but with no complaint in her voice.
She faced her future then, penniless after the millions she had earned,
and with one leg, as courageously as she had returned to face a jeering
Paris after her first visit to London.
By the irony of fate her sick-room at Bordeaux was filled with flowers
worth literally thousands of pounds, that had been sent from all
quarters of France by her worshippers.
“If I only had the money these flowers cost!” she remarked resignedly.
The war was on, and the ambulance in which she was being taken to the
station on her way back to Paris overtook regiment after regiment of
soldiers on their way to the Front.
“_La glorieuse blessée_,” the papers called her, and the soldiers
thronged about the ambulance and her car on the train, taking the
flowers that decorated their bayonets and throwing them at the
indomitable genius who sat inside it with tears in her eyes.
Within six months Sarah herself was at the Front, playing from an
armchair for the _poilus_ who were battling to check the invader.
She was then seventy-one years old.