the _Conservatoire_--Gabrielle’s progress had been such that her
fellow-students and her professor all thought her sure of the first
prize in comedy. Regnier chose for her one of Roxelane’s scenes in
_Les Trois Sultanes_. When she had finished she felt that she had
done herself scant justice. Then the unexpected happened. She was
also to appear in a dialogue called _La Jeunesse_, by Emile Augier. A
youthful couple met at a fountain. The young man says: “Cyprienne!” She
exclaims: “Ah! Mon Dieu!” Gabrielle delivered this commonplace speech
with such a sincerity and intensity of emotion that the audience broke
into applause. Reassured, she played the dialogue through to the end
with a command of emotional acting that surprised even her friends, for
she had been thought of as only a _comédienne_, a soubrette.
When the prizes were announced, Gabrielle found that she had not only
missed getting the first comedy prize, but that she was to get only a
share of the second; the other half was to go to Mlle. Jeanne Samary,
she “of the perfect laugh.”
Regnier was chagrined. “_Malfaiteurs_,” he called the judges. And some
of the newspaper comment showed a recognition of unusual merit in the
young Réjane. Sarcey, the reigning king of the Paris critics, had
again been present, and _Le Temps_ rang with his praises of her. And
his praises were perhaps better than official prizes. A score of years
later, M. Meunier wrote:
“To-day, as then, though twenty years have passed, there is no
possibility of success, no chance of getting an engagement, for a pupil
on leaving the _Conservatoire_, unless a certain all-powerful critic,
supreme judge, arbiter beyond appeal, sees fit to pronounce a decision
confirming the verdict of the Examining Jury.... He smiles or frowns,
the Jury bows its head. The pupils tremble before this monstrous
Fetich--for the Public thinks with him, and sees only through his
spectacles; and no star can shine till his short sight has discovered
it. This puissant astronomer is Monsieur Francisque Sarcey....
“Monsieur Sarcey smiled upon and applauded Réjane’s début at the
_Conservatoire_. He consecrated to her as many as fifty lines of
intelligent criticism; and I pray to Heaven they may be remembered to
his credit on the Day of Judgment. Here they are, in that two-penny,
half-penny style of his, so dear to the readers of _Le Temps_:
“‘I own that, for my part, I should have willingly awarded to the
latter (Mlle. Réjane) a first prize. It seems to me that she deserved
it. But the Jury is frequently influenced by extrinsic and private
motives, into which it is not permitted to pry. A first prize carries
with it the right of entrance into the _Comédie Française_; and the
Jury did not think Mademoiselle Réjane, with her little wide-awake
face, suited to the vast frame of the House of Molière. That is well
enough; but the second prize which it awarded her authorized the
director of the _Odéon_ to receive her into his company; and that
perspective alone ought to have sufficed to dissuade the Jury from the
course it took.... Every one knows that at present the _Odéon_ is,
for a beginner, a most indifferent school.... Instead of shoving its
promising pupils into it by the shoulders, the _Conservatoire_ should
forbid them to approach it, lest they should be lost there. What will
Mademoiselle Réjane do at the _Odéon_? Show her legs in _La Jeunnesse
de Louis XIV_, which is to be revived at the opening of the season?
A pretty state of things. She must either go to the _Vaudeville_ or
to the _Gymnase_. It is there that she will form herself; it is there
that she will learn her trade, show what she is capable of, and prepare
herself for the _Comédie Française_, if she is ever to enter it....
She recited a fragment from _Les Trois Sultanes_.... I was delighted
by her choice. _Les Trois Sultanes_ is so little known nowadays....
What wit there is in her look, her smile! With her small eyes, shrewd
and piercing, with her little face thrust forward, she has so knowing
an air, one is inclined to smile at the mere sight of her. Does she
perhaps show a little too much assurance? What of it? ’Tis the result
of excessive timidity. But she laughs with such good grace, she has
so fresh and true a voice, she articulates so clearly, she seems so
happy to be alone and to have talent, that involuntarily one thinks of
Chenier’s line: “_Sa bienvenue au jour lui rit dans tous les yeux_.”...
I shall be surprised if she does not make her way.’”
Second prize or first, it mattered not, really; for she had, almost at
once, offers from three theatres: the _Odéon_, the government theatre
that by the conditions of the award had a right to her services, and
also from the _Vaudeville_ and the _Gymnase_. M. Duquesnel of the
_Odéon_ proposed, as Sarcey had predicted, that she take a part in the
impending _La Jeunesse de Louis XIV_. Réjane, however, declined to cut
short her studies at the _Conservatoire_, which had yet a few weeks to
run.
Her choice fell to the _Vaudeville_, as the theatre best suiting her
methods and sympathies. Also, the pay there was to be four thousand
francs per year, and costumes, as against one hundred and fifty francs
per month at the _Odéon_. With the directors of the _Vaudeville_ she
signed a provisional contract, by the terms of which she was to join
their forces if the _Odéon_ did not press home its claim to her.
Weeks passed, the October openings came round, and still there was
no summons. In her anxiety she went to the office of the Minister of
Fine Arts and from him obtained a letter releasing her, in two days’
time, from her obligations to the _Odéon_. Before the two days were
up, however, she received from Duquesnel a summons to a rehearsal
of _La Jeunnesse_. Réjane hastened to see him. “Well,” he said, “we
shall rehearse to-morrow at one.” Réjane replied that she had one at
the _Vaudeville_ at the same hour. Duquesnel objected to the loss of
his promising recruit and showed an official letter bestowing her
services upon the _Odéon_. Gabrielle in turn showed the letter from the
Minister. Duquesnel was forced to yield, but afterwards lodged a suit
in which the _Odéon_ was awarded damages. “So,” said Réjane to Jules
Huret, “if the _Odéon_ can to-day boast its velvet chairs, it has me to
thank for them.”
And so Réjane began her career, when she was less than eighteen, with
a two years’ engagement at the _Vaudeville_. Her first few rôles[98]
were unimportant, and in them she attracted no particular notice, but
in September (1875) she appeared in _Madame Lili_, a one-act play in
verse, to such good purpose that Sarcey wrote of her: “Mademoiselle
Réjane is charming, with her roguery, her ingenuousness, her
tenderness. This pretty and piquant girl is spirited to her fingertips.
What a piece of good luck it is that she cannot sing; for if she had a
voice operetta would gobble her up.”
Yet Regnier wrote to her in the following April, on the day following
her appearance in _Le Premier Tapis_ (in which she sang an interpolated
song by Lecocq): “I was really astonished by your singing. You had
better cultivate this talent, which I didn’t know you had.” Offenbach
also heard her in this piece, and liked her singing so well that he
offered her twenty thousand francs a year for her signature to a
contract at the _Variétés_. Luckily she made no attempt to break her
contract with the _Vaudeville_.
That contract she renewed again and again until she had played eight
seasons at the theatre of her first choice. The best guide to her
growing art, and to the beginnings of her fame, are found in her
letters from Regnier, who followed her career with loving watchfulness,
and often with frank, kindly comment on her work. Their correspondence
forms a charming chapter of her youth.
Regnier’s birthday fell on the first of April. Every year Réjane wrote
to him on March 31 and sent him some small gift. In the year when she
was beginning her work at the _Vaudeville_ he wrote her:
“Ought you really send me presents, my child? Do I need assurances of
your affection? Do follow my advice, dear girl, save your money and
give me nothing but your friendship. That is the only present I desire
from you and, I warn you, it is the only one I shall accept in the
future. You hope to be able to celebrate my birthday for many years
to come. I hope so too. You will never have a better friend, a better
adviser, and no one, save only your mother, will ever bear your welfare
more at heart. I thank you, none the less, and with all my heart I
embrace you.”
At the close of a health-seeking trip she took in Holland and Belgium
in the summer of 1875 he wrote: “I knew you would get many new
impressions. You must always be on the search for like ones, for your
spirit, your ideas, your taste, your talent will thus find themselves.
Frequent our museums, stimulate your mind, read a great deal, even do a
little writing. Such is the intellectual regimen that will profit your
soul as the exercises I have advised will benefit your gentle body.”
Less exalted advice comes after _Le Verglas_ and _Le Premier Tapis_,
besides the commendation of her singing in the latter piece: “Keep
at your study and your work and let me repeat that it is the simple
and the veracious that brings the true effect. But I was more
than satisfied with you yesterday. _But_, please remember your
carriage--don’t waddle on one leg and then on the other; don’t
swallow your syllables and your words. Pronounce everything without
affectation, but also without negligence. I embrace you.”
After she had been a year and a half in harness, he was still
emphasizing the fundamentals. After _Le Perfide comme l’Onde_ he
wrote (November 26, 1876): “You are very pretty and very amusing in
your rôle.... _You are a comédienne_,--that you have proved. Between
ourselves, the other young ladies frightened me a bit. Do not you
allow yourself to fall into the general carelessness of carriage and
pronunciation. Really talk to those to whom your words are addressed,
and when your eyes peer into the auditorium remember it is a vacuum,
and never talk to any one therein. You know how to avoid this fault,
so look out for it, and remain natural. But you played well, were
applauded, and deserved to be.”
Her work must have pleased the directors of the _Vaudeville_, for
when the time came to renew her contract she signed for nine thousand
francs, a considerable advance over four thousand. Her mother, however,
had set her heart on nine thousand six hundred francs, and her
objections threatened to break off the negotiations. Réjane promised,
however, unknown to her mother, to repay the disputed six hundred
francs during the engagement.
“I economized on cress,” she relates. “Instead of getting two boxes at
three sous apiece, I got two boxes at five sous. From time to time I
put fifteen centimes into my boots. And one fine day I carried to the
managers one hundred and fifty laboriously collected francs. I must
say, to their credit, that they wouldn’t take the money. But my mother
never knew, and sometimes, endeavoring to crush me with the superiority
of a strong-minded woman, she would say: “There now! Without me, you
would never have had those six hundred francs.”
In the summer of 1877 she grew nervous over the forthcoming production
of _Pierre_. She wrote Regnier from Abbeville: “If you could only
give me one hour for the third act of _Pierre_. The nearer the
time approaches, the more I fear that act--all sentiment. If I am
unsupported by your good advice, my dear master, I cannot answer for
myself.”
Regnier was eager to help her; and in his response he gives her more
fatherly advice: “My greatest wish is to help you in your work.... But
is it necessary for you to go to La Bourbelle, where you will stay
hardly two weeks? The time seems to me much too short for serious
treatment. Can’t you simply betake yourself to the waters of Enghien?
“Talk this over with your doctor: ask him if it is really good for
the nerves that that abominable musk or amber odor which perfumes
your letters should permeate your whole system. No doubt the odor is
agreeable, but still that is a matter of taste.”
The _première_ of _Pierre_ proved the first crowning success for the
young actress. Immediately after the performance, unable to restrain
her overflowing joy, she wrote to Regnier this enthusiastic letter:
“I have just had a _grand succès_, and I don’t wish to sleep before
thanking you, to whom I owe it. I have never been so happy as I am
tonight, and I believe that, if such a thing is possible, even my
affection for you has grown. One thing alone distresses me, and that
is my inability to repay you for all you have done. At each burst
of applause, I thought of you, dear master, who have given me your
time and made sure for me my future. No affection has ever been more
profound nor any gratitude so sincere, believe me. Without you I would
have been nothing, but with you--two hours ago they told me I was an
artist! I can open my heart to you. You cannot imagine how much is
included in that one word “artist” especially to a young girl, who
yesterday had doubts about the future and had need of reading all your
letters in order to give courage.... I am doubly happy. Do not mistake
for vanity the effects of the great joy I have been experiencing. How I
would work, dear master, to do you the honor of registering a multitude
of such nights!”
But good parts fell to Réjane’s lot only infrequently. The reigning
queen of the _Vaudeville_ was Mme. Bartet, and it was she, naturally,
who got most of the leading rôles. The public had begun to like
the young newcomer, whom it had come to know in her small but
repeated successes; but nevertheless she was kept more or less in
the background, encouraged only by Regnier and patiently waiting her
opportunities.
It was in this fashion that she spent the remaining time at the
_Vaudeville_ until she left it in the spring of 1882. That period,
whatever dissatisfactions it brought to her, is not without its high
lights. In _Le Club_ she has “_un vrai rôle_,” and played it, with
gratifying success, a hundred times. In April, 1879, Mme. Bartet fell
suddenly ill, and with only a few hours notice Réjane assumed the
older woman’s rôle in _Les Tapageurs_. When _Les Lionnes Pauvres_ was
revived, in November 1879, her Séraphine aroused one of those artistic
controversies which delight the French mind. Sarcey disapproved,
for once. M. Defère advised her to change her costumer. M. Barbey
d’Aurevilly on the other hand said she recalled Rachel and was a true
artist; Augier, the author of the play, sustained her; and stanch old
Regnier wrote her at length, discoursing on the art of acting and of
his _affection véritable_. Her Mimi in _La Vie de Bohème_ again saw the
critics at odds about her.
Altogether in her eight seasons at the _Vaudeville_, she had played
more than a score of parts, some of them genuine successes. Yet she
had not won genuine recognition at the hands of the directors, and
her position in the company was hardly in accord with her promise and
deserts. Sardou and the others responsible for the affairs of the
_Vaudeville_ seemed strangely blind to the fact that in Réjane they had
a _comédienne_ of the first order. But though she was by her superiors
much of the time either kept idle or employed in almost insignificant
parts, the rest of Paris speedily knew her for what she was. She was
in keen demand for all the special, semi-informal performances that
make up so large a part of the artistic life of the normal Paris. The
“spectacles” of the _Cercle de la rue Royale_, the _revues_ at the
_Epatant_, the dramatic trifles that were the adjuncts of authors’
readings, all found in Réjane a willing and able helper. She took these
artistic informalities seriously, rehearsed for them and costumed them
with care, and was so particularly well adapted to the work that she
became a marked favorite with the very social and artistic circles to
which the _Vaudeville_ catered.
As the directors, however, continued to give her insignificant parts,
it is not strange that she listened to those friends, like Pierre
Berton, who urged her to shake the dust of _Vaudeville_ from her feet.
“You are a star,” Berton told her. It happened that a star was the
quest just then of M. Bertrand of the _Variétés_ and with him she
signed a three years’ contract.
This moment may be said to mark the definite arrival of Réjane. She was
no longer to cool her heels in the greenroom or at home, and henceforth
she was to play, as a rule, principal parts. Moreover, the agreement
with the _Variétés_ was elastic enough to allow appearances at other
theatres, often in plays of more import than the light material of
which the _Variétés_ was the avowed medium. And when she returned, on
occasion, to the _Vaudeville_, it was not in minor rôles. Réjane had
assumed her due place on the stage of Paris.
It had not been a difficult rise. Though it is not possible to overlook
the elements of steadfast ambition, patience, and hard work in Réjane’s
early career, it is true that her native spirits, her _flair_, and
the training and friendship of Regnier made inevitable her right to a
prominent place on the stage of Paris.
With that place assured, we see her thenceforth steadily enlarging it,
progressing from part to part, appearing now in this theatre of Paris
and now in that, shortly venturing into the other capitals of Europe,
then making a tour--to be later repeated--in America, and finally
acquiring a theatre of her own in Paris,--an international figure, a
queen of comedy.
M. Porel, whom Réjane afterward married, has given a graphic account
of one of her earlier triumphs--and a typical Parisian first night.
The play was de Goncourt’s _Germinie Lacerteux_, the date, 1888; the
theatre the _Odéon_.
“Oh, that première! The beautiful theatre was crowded to the last inch
with an audience that was restless and seemed none too good-natured.
The journalists were furious because the dress rehearsal had been
behind closed doors. The women were puzzling themselves about
the subject of the play, and some of the literary gossips were
loudly telling all they thought they knew. The _cafétiers_ of the
neighborhood, disgruntled because the usual five _entr’actes_ had
been cut down to two, were protesting to the _claque_ against the
change, which interfered with the sale of the usual five bocks. Amid
the confusion of the lobbies were heard remarks that the piece was
impossible.
“The curtain rises; Réjane makes her appearance, with her arms as red
as those of a kitchen-girl. In the ball gown of a servant-maid she is
indeed amazing. This little scene she plays well, and wins applause. In
the scene of the fortifications, some of the hissers are in evidence
before she enters; and then Réjane, so prettily modest, plays her
idyllic scene so well that the delighted audience breaks into cries
of ‘Bravo!, and the curtain is raised and raised again.... In one of
the following scenes, some of the audience refuse to listen to Mme.
Crosnier; she becomes confused, loses her head and begins over again.
Some cry aloud, some laugh, some hiss. Without Réjane the piece will
go on the rocks. A gesture, a poignant, sincere cry, and Réjane has
the house with her again. They applaud her, they recall her again and
again. During the _entr’acte_, there is a stormy time. Antoine is
indignant over the sneering of his neighbors and calls them scoundrelly
imbeciles. There is shaking of fists, challenges are exchanged, some
hiss, others applaud. It is in this atmosphere that the scene in
the creamery begins. Then it was that she quite won the house. She
is again recalled again and again, applauded by the whole audience.
She is acclaimed again, after the fall of the curtain in the scene
of the _Rue du Roiher_. The ladies were completely upset; they wept,
they clapped their hands. Even without Réjane, the two last scenes
finished themselves somehow. After that, de Goncourt’s play was to
live more than one night; and after that Réjane was assuredly a great
_comédienne_.”
Two years later, when _Ma Cousine_, a comedy in three acts by
Henri Meilbac, was produced, Paris saw that Réjane had again made
extraordinary progress. “Playing,” says M. Huret, “in a vast
auditorium, a rôle that demanded large dramatic power, she responded
to that demand, and, exhibited new poise, control of voice, and
exactness of articulation. She who had heretofore almost expired of
apprehension at each new impersonation, was now calm, sure of herself,
almost indifferent. She sensed the authority that had come to her; she
held the audience in her hand. In _Décoré_, in _Monsieur Betsy_, she
had been one of a remarkable trio of actresses; now, in _Ma Cousine_,
she outshone her _confrères_ at all points. The author had set her
the difficult task of playing an act three quarters of an hour long
without rising from her couch. But she was equal to the occasion, and,
by the intelligence and sprightliness of her inflections, gestures and
facial expression, she made that chair itself a miniature theatre.”
It was in _Ma Cousine_ that Réjane introduced on the boards of the
_Variétés_, after careful study, a bit of dancing like that on view
at the _Elysée-Montmartre_; “she seized on and imitated the grotesque
effrontery of Mlle. Grille-d’Egout.” In other words the sprightly
Gabrielle performed a veritable can-can.
A little later M. Meunier, who was not remarkable for his kindness in
print to the dean of his craft, wrote: “Sarcey’s exultation knew no
bounds when, in 1890, Réjane again appeared in _Décoré_. Time, that had
metamorphosed the lissom critic of 1875 into a round and inert mass of
solid flesh, cruel Father Time, gave back to Sarcey, for this occasion
only, a flash of youthful fire, which stirred his wits to warmth and
animation. He shouted out hardly articulate praise; he literally rolled
in his stall with pleasure; his bald head blushed like an aurora
borealis. ‘Look at her!’ he cried, ‘See her malicious smiles, her
feline graces, listen to her reserved and biting diction; she is the
very essence of the Parisienne! What an ovation she received! How they
applauded her! and how she played!’ From M. Sarcey the laugh spreads;
it thaws the skepticism of M. Jules Lemaître, engulfs the timidity of
the public, becomes unanimous and universal, and is no longer to be
silenced.”
The day of Réjane’s greatest and most lasting success came with the
production, in 1893, of _Madame Sans-Gêne_, by Sardou, the latest of
the Parisian dramatists to answer the call of the great _comédienne_ in
their midst.
“Just as the first dressmakers of Paris measure Réjane’s fine figure
for the costumes of her various rôles, so the best writers of the
French Academy now make plays to her measure,” wrote M. Meunier in
1894. “They take the size of her temperament, the height of her talent,
the breadth of her acting; they consider her taste, they flatter her
mood; they clothe her with the richest draperies she can covet. Their
imagination, their fancy, their cleverness, are all put at her service.
The leaders in this industry have hitherto been Messrs. Meilhac and
Halévy, but now M. Victorien Sardou is ruining them. _Madame Sans-Gêne_
is certainly, of all the rôles Réjane has played, that best suited to
bring out her manifold resources. It is not merely that Réjane play
the washerwoman, become a great lady, without blemish or omission; she
_is Madame Sans-Gêne_ herself, with no overloading, nothing forced,
nothing caricatured. It is portraiture; history.
“Many a time has Réjane appeared in cap, cotton frock, and white apron;
many a time in robes of state, glittering with diamonds; she has worn
the buskin or the sock, demeaned herself like a gutter heroine, or
dropped the stately curtsey of the high-born lady. But never, except
in _Madame Sans-Géne_, has she been able to bring all her rôles into
one focus, exhibit her whole wardrobe, and yet remain one and the same
person, compress into one evening the whole of her life.”
What sort of woman presented herself to the gaze of her Parisian
admirers--and soon to American eyes--at this, the time of her greatest
triumph? Whatever other gifts she brought to her work, sheer beauty was
not one of them. “Is it her beauty?” asked M. Filon, seeking the source
of her power, and of her perfect understanding with her audiences.
“Certainly not. She is not pretty; one might even say ... but it
is more polite not to say it. To quote a famous _mot_, ‘She is not
beautiful, she is worse.’”[99]