When she left the convent Sarah was a capricious, sensitive, religious girl, who must indeed have constituted a problem for her mother. Sarah, strangely enough, was herself strongly inclined to be a nun. But her mother, who was a woman of the world and of means, had other plans and provided as “finishing governess” for Sarah a Mlle. de Brabander. One day, when she was fifteen, her fate was decided for her. At a family council her own ambition to be a nun was voted down and the decision was: “Send her to the Conservatoire.” Sarah had never even heard of the famous school for actors of the government theatres. That same evening she was taken to the theatre for the first time—the Théâtre Français. Brittanicus and Amphitrion moved her profoundly, and she left the theatre weeping, as much for the sudden shattering of her cherished plan as from the effects of the plays.
Thus she began her studies at the Conservatoire (1860) with no love for the career chosen for her.[9] She was no beauty;—she was decidedly thin, had kinky hair, and a pale face. But she worked hard. Her extraordinary nervous energy and her intelligence had their effect and when she left the Conservatoire she had won two second prizes.[10] The discernment of some of the judges[11] saw in her something of the artist she was to be, and she immediately had a call to the company of the Comédie Française. With the signing of her contract came her resolve, that if the stage were to be her working place, she would throw herself into her task with all her soul. “Quand-même,”—in spite of all,—was already her motto,—she would, in the face of any obstacle, win a place for herself.[12]
Though with wonderful success she has been busily pursuing that object from that day to this, the beginnings of her career were not promising. Her début (1862) in Racine’s Iphigénie created no particular comment. She remembers, however, that on that occasion, when she lifted her long and extraordinarily thin arms, for the sacrifice, the audience laughed.[13] Other parts fell to her, but she did not long remain at the House of Molière. As other managers were later to learn, Sarah cared little for agreements and contracts.
The occasion of her first desertion of the Comédie was trivial enough. Here at the great national theatre she expected to remain always, but one day her sister trod on the gown of Mme. Nathalie, another actress of the company, “old, spiteful and surly,” who in petty anger shoved the girl aside. Sarah promptly responded by boxing the ears of her elder colleague. Neither would apologize, and the quickly achieved result was that the younger actress retired.
She remained away from the Comédie Française for ten years, and it was during this time that she laid the foundation of her fame. Brief engagements at the Gymnase[14] and the Porte St. Martin were followed by an opportunity to join the company at the Odéon. MM. Chilly and Duquesnel were the managers. The latter was young, kind to Sarah, and discerning of her talents. As for Chilly, he was less enthusiastic: “M. Duquesnel is responsible for you. I should not upon any account have engaged you.”
“And if you had been alone, monsieur,” she answered, “I should not have signed, so we are quits.”
Mlle. Bernhardt’s career—once she had launched herself upon it—divides naturally into three periods: the six years (1866–1872) at the Odéon, the playhouse of the Latin Quarter, “the theatre,” she says, “that I have loved most”; another term (1872–1880) at the Française; and her long career since, during which she has been her own mistress, accepting engagements where it pleased her, managing theatres of her own, and traveling over all the world.
Her first taste of success came when she played Zacharie in Athalie, soon after she went to the Odéon. It fell to her to recite the choruses, and the “voix d’or” won its first triumph. She was now twenty-two. For four years, with plentiful interludes of temper and temperament, she had been striving for success. Now, at the Odéon, she worked and worked hard. “I was always ready to take any one’s place at a moment’s notice, for I knew all the rôles.” Chilly, who at first could see only her thinness[15] and not her ability, was brought round to Duquesnel’s view of her. “I used to think,” she says again, “of my few months at the Comédie Française. The little world I had known there had been stiff, scandal-mongering, and jealous. At the Odéon I was very happy. We thought of nothing but putting on plays, and we rehearsed morning, afternoon, and at all hours, and I liked that very much.”[16]
At the Odéon Sarah soon became the favorite of the students of the Quartier. Rather to the disgust of the older patrons of the house, the students were indiscriminate in their appreciation of the young actress, and applauded her indifferent work equally with her successes.
For successes she now began to have. With difficulty M. Chilly was induced to consent to the production of Coppée’s one-act play Le Passant. But so successful was it that it not only ran for a hundred nights, but Bernhardt and the beautiful Mlle. Agar played it for Napoleon and Eugénie at the Tuileries. In Kean, by Dumas, she was, by all accounts, admirable.[17]