M. Damala.
After the withdrawal of Fédora from the Vaudeville, Sarah Bernhardt took the play on tour, but it proved only moderately popular in Belgium and Holland. The intrepid Sarah now made up her mind to a brief period of repose, but she was none the less kept before the Paris public. On April 28, 1883, she appeared with Mme. Réjane, M. Saint Germain, M. Daubray, and M. Guyon, at the Trocadéro, in a two-act pantomime by M. Richepin, entitled Pierrot Assassin. Early in September the papers published mysterious paragraphs announcing the return of M. Damala to Paris, and the agreement of the pair to separate. The public was not previously aware of M. Damala’s absence, or of any disagreement in the household. The initiated, however, knew that the honeymoon was a short one, that discord had made its appearance only a few months after the sensational marriage in London, and that M. Damala had been obliged to make up his mind to exile—in Tunis, it was said. The separation did not seem to be a great affliction to Sarah. At the very beginning of the season she was in arms and eager for the fray. On September 17, 1883, in company with Marais, she revived Froufrou, which she had never before performed in Paris. This was at the Porte St. Martin theatre, which had been bought by her under the name of her son, M. Maurice Bernhardt, in partnership with M. Derembourg. The success of the piece was considerable, though not absolutely complete. Nevertheless Froufrou ran for ninety-nine nights. Immediately afterwards (December 20) she brought out Nana Sahib, a seven-act drama in verse by M. Jean Richepin. Her own success was very great, though, as usual, it was not unanimously admitted; but the piece itself was a failure, in spite of the fact that the author himself replaced M. Marais a week after the première. Nana Sahib is connected in theatrical history with another souvenir. The night before its production, Mme. Sarah Bernhardt was the central figure in a terrific scandal. Accompanied by her son Maurice and M. Jean Richepin, she made her way into the rooms occupied by Mme. Marie Colombier, turned all the furniture topsy-turvy, smashed the ornaments, and finally set upon the lady of the house and horsewhipped her in a frenzy of rage. The reason for this conduct was not far to seek. Mme. Marie Colombier had just published an abominably offensive book, the title of which, Sarah Barnum, showed clearly enough against whom it was directed. The affair created a great uproar, but no one ventured to blame the insulted actress for taking the law into her own hands.
As Théodora.
Nana Sahib was withdrawn after thirty performances, and on January 26, 1884, Sarah Bernhardt appeared in La Dame aux Camélias, which thus became, as it still is, her chief resource. This revival lasted for more than a hundred nights. On May 21 it was replaced by an adaptation of Macbeth, by M. Jean Richepin. This ran for only a month. At the end of June Mme. Sarah Bernhardt left for a short foreign tour. Next season, in consequence of sundry stories which found their way into the papers, and particularly of an attempt to poison her, which Paris did not take seriously, she handed over the Porte St. Martin theatre to M. Duquesnel, and joined his company at that theatre. Macbeth was tried again on September 11, but was withdrawn five weeks afterwards. On December 26 she played Théodora, one of the most undoubted successes of her career. On this point there can be no mistaking the testimony of figures. Théodora ran for two hundred consecutive nights, and, when the hundredth performance was given, the piece had already earned nearly a million francs. After Paris had had enough of Théodora, the piece was taken to Brussels and London, where it met with renewed success. It was brought back to the Porte St. Martin on the 28th October, 1885, and was given fifty-four times before its chief exponent broke down, and was compelled, on the 21st December, to leave the stage before the performance was over. On the following day she was obliged to take to her bed, but on the 31st she was able to appear in Marion de Lorme, though she was still visibly suffering from overwork. On the 27th February she gave another trial to a Shakespearean adaptation—a somewhat indifferent version of Hamlet, by MM. Cressonnois and Samson, in which she played Ophelia. Hamlet failed to attract the public any more than Marion de Lorme, and on the 5th April Sarah brought out Fédora again. After sixteen performances she left on her annual visit to London, and thence to Liverpool, where she took the steamer for Rio de Janeiro. This was the beginning of her great American tour under the management of Messrs. Abbey and Grau. It was one prodigious triumphal progress from one end of America to the other. It lasted thirteen months, and took her through Mexico, Brazil, Chili, the United States, and Canada; The répertoire, an extensive one, comprised Fédora, La Dame aux Camélias, Froufrou, Phèdre, Adrienne Lecouvreur, Théodora, Hernani, Le Maître de Forges, and Le Sphinx, M. Philippe Garnier taking the principal male parts. In Brazil the average receipts were £720 a night. “Absurdly rich men,” says M. Jules Lemaître, “wearing black whiskers and covered with jewels, like idols, used to wait outside the stage door, and lay their handkerchiefs on the ground so that dust should not soil the feet of Phèdre or Théodora.” After her appearance as Phèdre at Rio de Janeiro she was recalled two hundred times! The twenty-five performances she gave brought in £12,800, of which she received £4000. Three performances at New York realized £5040, and twenty at Buenos Ayres, where the total number of spectators reached 80,000, produced £20,000. The Argentinos’ enthusiasm rose to such a pitch that they presented her with an estate of 13,000 acres in the Mission territory, the best part of the Argentine Republic. She was obliged to promise the generous donors that she would take advantage of her first month’s leisure to come and taste the sweets of repose amongst her own gazelles and beneath the shade of her own gardenias and diamelas!
Scene from Théodora. Mme. Sarah Bernhardt. Mme. Marie Laurent.
In the meantime, gossip, the inevitable companion of the capricious artiste, was not idle. At Rio de Janeiro the Noirmont scandal occurred. Mme. Noirmont, intermittently an actress, but better known in a certain circle of society as “la grande Marthe,” was a member of the company. What was the quarrel between the actress and her manageress? History sayeth not, but the fact remains that during a rehearsal one day Mme. Noirmont “went for” Sarah, and gave her a resounding smack, to the accompaniment of much strong language. Sarah promptly hauled Mme. Noirmont off to the nearest police-station, where a summons was duly issued against the offender. But this was not enough for Sarah, and one evening, when the curtain had only just fallen on the second act of Adrienne Lecouvreur, Sarah seized a horsewhip and paid off all outstanding scores. Result: a second visit to the police-station, and a second scandal. Later on, while the company was at Santiago, another story got into circulation. In April 1878 the American papers announced the marriage of Mme. Sarah Bernhardt and M. Angelo, a member of her troupe. The New York Morning Journal added that the marriage was kept secret because the divorce proceedings against M. Damala were still in progress. The report was promptly denied, and Sarah sent the following telegram to the Figaro—
The news of my marriage with Angelo is absurd, because he is married already, and so am I. Please contradict this mischievous story. Thanks in advance.
Sarah Bernhardt.