When she was asked by a journalist in 1898 to describe her “ideal”
Sarah Bernhardt replied:
“My ideal? But I am still pursuing it! I shall pursue it until my
last hour, and I feel that in the supreme moment I shall know the
certainty of attaining it beyond the tomb.”
In these few words lie the expression of Sarah Bernhardt’s whole life.
Indefinable as perhaps her ideal was, it was the star that guided
her throughout her long career. It was that grasping after the
unattainable, that desire to take the one more step ahead, that _culte
du parfait_, as Rostand expressed it, that inspired her battles and
illuminated her art.
Shortly after she moved to the Boulevard Pereire, she purchased the
Fort des Poulains, on Belle Isle-sur-Mer, on the coast of Brittany, and
here she spent the summers of her convalescence, surrounded by faithful
friends and members of her family.
She built a magnificent house at Belle Isle, and another building on
the farm adjoining it. This she called “Sarah’s Fort,” and it was
consecrated to the great tragedienne. Here she would spend hours in
the company of her son, or with Jules Lemaître, or some other trusted
friend, and here she was safe from the cares and worries of her
business in Paris--for she still retained the active management of the
Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt.
“It is,” said the _Illustration_ recently, “with a real sentiment of
satisfaction that we learn that the Fort des Poulains, the property of
Madame Sarah Bernhardt at Belle Isle, is to become a museum consecrated
to the great tragedienne and is not to become a tourist hotel and
dancing-place, as had been reported. By a sentiment of respect and
piety, the group which has purchased the property has so decided. They
will try to bring to the property a collection of souvenirs of the
great artiste, and tourists will thus be able to visit the surroundings
which were so dear to Sarah Bernhardt’s heart.... What souvenirs are
attached to Belle Isle, where _La Princesse Lointaine_ will sleep one
day perhaps her last repose!”
Once when in Florida, Sarah expressed the desire to hunt an alligator.
There was no alligator in that region, and the local admirers of the
artiste were in despair until it was remembered that the druggist of
the town possessed a baby alligator, which at the moment (it being
winter) was tranquilly asleep.
He consented to give the creature for the purposes of the hunt, and it
was placed secretly in a marsh near-by. The next day Sarah was told
that the hunt had been organised. She was delighted beyond measure and
gaily walked the five miles to the spot, where the sleeping alligator
was captured without any difficulty.
Maurice Bernhardt was at Belle Isle at the time and Sarah sent him the
alligator, together with a letter telling her son that he did not need
to be afraid of it, for it was a “quiet little thing” and had not even
made a move since it had been caught.
But, unfortunately, when the alligator arrived at Belle Isle, it was
its time to wake up, and it became a formidable customer--so dangerous,
in fact, that before Sarah could arrive to view her capture in its new
home it had to be killed.
Sarah had a regular colony of dogs, horses, and birds on the farm.
After the war she announced her intention of returning to the stage,
one-legged though she was. There was a chorus of protest, which,
however, had no effect upon her.
Money had to be earned, and it seemed as though she was the only member
of the family who could earn it! So she returned to the stage, in
_Athalie_, and was given on the opening night what was possibly the
greatest ovation of her career.
Then Louis Verneuil, a talented young poet who had married her
beautiful grand-daughter Lysiane, wrote a play specially for
her--_Daniel_. It was the story of a young author, victim of opium.
In it Sarah had no need to move, but spoke her lines sitting in an
armchair and lying on a couch. Even thus, her tremendous personality
and her magnificent voice dominated the house.
Sarah next played in a one-act play, _Le Vitrail_, by Réné Fauchois, at
the Alhambra. Then she produced _Régine Armand_, and, finally, created
_La Gloire_, by Maurice Rostand.
Not content with this almost superhuman labour, she was arranging to
play with the Guitrys, at the Théâtre Edouard VII. when, just before
Christmas 1922, she was seized with an attack of her old enemy, uremia.
I was among those who called at the little house in the Boulevard
Pereire on the night of December 31, when it was thought that she must
die. But she rallied, and though all her friends and her family and
she herself knew that it was but a temporary reprieve, she insisted on
going back to work. Not this time, on the stage, but in her own house
before the motion-picture camera.
A syndicate organised by a young American in Paris and directed by
another American, Leon Abrams, made her an offer of, I think it was,
5,000 francs per day. She was, as usual, penniless, and the offer was a
godsend.
She posed for the film, with her chimpanzee, in the studio at the rear
of her house.
So needy was she that, just before lapsing into unconsciousness for the
last time, she demanded that the moving-picture men should be admitted
to the bedchamber.
“They can film me in bed,” she said, her voice scarcely audible, so
weak was she. “Now, don’t object,” as Professor Vidal remonstrated,
“they pay me 5,000 francs each time I pose!”
Her insistence on fulfilling her contract to play in this cinema play
was, according to the doctors, the cause of her last collapse. It was
more than her strength could stand. She was really dying when she
faced the camera on the last two occasions. But her indomitable will
triumphed over her body almost to the last, and, until the dreadful
malady paralysed her, she continued acting.
My tears are falling as I write these last lines. They are difficult
sentences to fashion. I am no poet, and words could not add to the
drama of that night when the divine Call-boy came for Sarah Bernhardt.
She died at five minutes past eight o’clock, her snow-white head
pillowed in the arms of her son, Maurice.
“Be a good boy ... Maurice.” These were her last words.... The curtain
descended....
That day, Monday, the twenty-sixth of March, Victor Hugo died for a
second time.
Even before she died, Sarah Bernhardt had outstripped Glory and had
become Legend.
Nothing of hers had faltered: not her intelligence, not her heart, not
her talent, not her genius. She was complete.
She was the glory and the light of the French theatre. The light that
is extinguished will not flame again. How dark it seems!
Dead, she is greater than in life. Who of us would not accept her
luminous night?
Her epitaph, by Jacques Richepin:
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CI-GIT SARAH
QUI SURVIVRA
THE END
PRINTED BY THE ANCHOR PRESS, LTD., TIPTREE, ESSEX, ENGLAND.
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they
were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation
marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left
unbalanced. Accent marks in French words have not been changed, added,
or removed.
Illustrations in this eBook have been positioned between paragraphs
and outside quotations. In versions of this eBook that support
hyperlinks, the page references in the List of Illustrations lead to
the corresponding illustrations.
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End of Project Gutenberg's Sarah Bernhardt as I knew her, by Basil Woon