“Not at all; there is no mystery about it. I get £120 for every performance, plus one-third of the receipts, which makes on the average a total of £240. Oh! I was forgetting: I am allowed £40 a week for hotel expenses.”
In accordance with her programme, Sarah left on January 23 for her second tour in America. She followed the route given above, with the exception of Mexico and Havana, which she omitted. She was enthusiastically applauded almost everywhere. In Australia the excitement rose to a frenzy. Sydney was decorated with flags in her honour; she was received by members of the Colonial Cabinet; the horses were taken out of her carriage, she was borne in triumph, and official receptions were organized for her. At Sydney she appeared for the first time in Pauline Blanchard, by MM. Darmont and Humblot. On this occasion she also played La Dame de Chalant—a piece that has not yet been seen in France.
As Izeïl.
During her absence there was some talk of her returning to the House of Molière for the creation of La Reine Juana, by M. Parodi, the author of Rome Vaincue, in which she had scored so many triumphs. Her own plans, however, were different. She wanted to make her dream a reality: to be her own mistress and to work on her own account. Thus, barely a month after her return to Paris in May 1892, she set off for London, returned to France, and started again on a tour through Russia and the Continental cities, such as Vienna, Copenhagen, Christiania, etc. It would take too long to record the triumph she scored in this wild gallop across Europe. Back in Paris in March 1893, she immediately began to prepare for another tour in South America. On the 28th May she played Phèdre at the Vaudeville in aid of the funds of the Pouponnière, a charitable organization under the presidency of Mme. Georges Charpentier, wife of the well-known publisher. On the 24th May, through her American impresarii, Messrs. Abbey and Grau, she purchased the Renaissance theatre. Then came her tour through South America; dazzling success, big takings, and back to Paris.
Mme. Sarah Bernhardt in her entrance-hall.
Sarah Bernhardt was now at length installed in her own theatre, which she was to make her own in every sense, and which was destined to be for several years to come the scene of the finest experiments in dramatic art in all Paris—experiments carried out with a lavish disregard for everything except the interests of art. On the 6th November she opened the Renaissance with a four-act drama by M. Jules Lemaître, Les Rois.
As one critic expressed it, the Renaissance was not a shop but almost a temple!
At last, exclaims M. Sarcey, we have seen the great and only Sarah again, and the Renaissance, under her management, has opened its doors with Les Rois. How splendid she was, and how she reminded us of the Sarah of her best days!