[22] She remained at the Comédie this time eight years, 1872–1880. Her first appearances were: Gabrielle in Mlle. de Belle-Isle, Junie in Britannicus, 1872; Chérubin in Le Mariage de Figaro, Léonora in Dalila, Mrs. Douglas in L’Absent, Marthe in Chez l’Avocat, Andromaque, Aricie in Phèdre, 1873; Peril en la Demeure, Berthe de Savigny in Le Sphinx, La Belle Paule, Zaïre, Phèdre in Phèdre, 1874; Berthe in La Fille de Roland, Gabrielle, 1875; Mrs. Clarkson in L’Etrangère, Posthumia in Rome Vaincue, 1876; Doña Sol in Hernani, 1877; Desdemona in Aicard’s Othello (once only), Alcmène in Amphitrion, 1878; Monime in Mithridate, 1879; Clorinde in L’Aventurtière, 1880.
[23] For many years her tomb in Père Lachaise has been awaiting her.
[24] She published an account of these aerial experiences: Dans les nuages; Impressions d’une Chaise.
[25] The Associates or Sociétaires of the Comédie Française are sharers in the profits, a custom that has come down from the days of Molière. A member of the company is at first a pensionnaire, and serves upon a salary only. After proving his worth he is made Sociétaire. He does not at once receive a full share of the profits, however, but must progress from an eighth, fourth and half share to the full rank of Sociétaire à parte entière. Bernhardt had been made Sociétaire in 1875. During the year 1879 the share received by the leading actors and actresses of the Comédie varied from 55,000 to 70,000 francs, besides their salaries. Sarah’s share was 62,000 francs.
[26] Perrin and his fellow directors were not the only ones who felt the strain imposed by Sarah’s presence on earth. She herself tells of the dying words of Charles Varrey: “I am content to die because I shall hear no more of Sarah Bernhardt and the great Français.” The latter was de Lesseps, then much in the public eye.
[27] In this statement, for once, M. Sarcey justified Sardou’s tribute, inspired, seven years later, by Sarcey’s criticism of La Tosca: “Sarcey, who knows nothing about painting, music, architecture or sculpture, and to whom Nature has harshly denied all sense of the artistic.”
[28] She was to have $1,000 per night, half the receipts over $3,000, $200 a week for hotel bills, and a special car.
[29] Huret.
[30] She played on this tour: La Dame aux Camélias (sixty-five times); Frou-Frou (forty-one times); Adrienne Lecouvreur (seventeen); Hernani (fourteen); Le Sphinx (seven); Phèdre (six); La Princesse Georges (three); and L’Etrangère (three),—one hundred and fifty-six performances in all, with average receipts of $2,820. She acted in half a hundred cities of the East, Middle West and South, including New York, Boston, Montreal, Ottawa, Springfield, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Chicago, St. Louis, New Orleans, Cincinnati, Memphis, Louisville, Cleveland and Pittsburgh.
[31] In Chicago another bishop attacked Bernhardt and her plays. Mr. Abbey, her manager, thereupon sent him this letter: “Whenever I visit your city I am accustomed to spend four hundred dollars in advertising. But as you have done the advertising for me, I send you $200 for your poor.”