We now come to the great artiste’s most recent creations. Her dramatic genius found fresh expression in Octave Mirabeau’s fine social problem play, Les Mauvais Bergers, brought out on the 15th December. After her appearance as a man in Lorenzaccio, and as a divinely inspired convert in La Samaritaine, here she was as one of the working-class, in a cotton blouse and woollen skirt. Next she gave Gabriel d’Annunzio’s Ville Morte, and, rejuvenated and transfigured after her severe illness, she produced Lysiane by M. Romain Coolus in the spring of 1898.
Immediately after her triumph in Lorenzaccio, a few of Sarah Bernhardt’s friends, headed by M. Henry Bauer, decided to organize a grand fête in her honour, to mark the apogee of her artistic career. Wednesday, 9th December, 1896, was fixed as the date. Shortly before the great day, I had requested Sarah to give herself up to one or two hours’ solitude, to revive the memories of her emotions, struggles, and triumphs, and, in short, give the readers of the Figaro a glimpse into her mind on the eve of one of the most memorable events of her brilliant career. She sent me the following spontaneous and vigorous account of her meditations—
My dear friend, you are asking for nothing less than a full confession, but I have no hesitation in answering. I am proud and thoroughly happy at the prospect of the fête that is to be given me. You ask me to say whether I really and truly believe I deserve this honour. If I say Yes, you will think me very conceited. If I say No, you will set me down as very blamable. I would rather tell you why I am so proud and happy. For twenty-nine years past I have given the public the vibrations of my soul, the pulsations of my heart, and the tears of my eyes. I have played one hundred and twelve parts. I have created thirty-eight new characters, sixteen of which are the work of poets. I have struggled like no other human being has struggled. My independence and hatred of deception have made me bitter enemies. I have overcome and pardoned those whom I condescended to encounter. They have become my friends. The mud thrown at me by others has fallen from me in dust, dried up by the scorching sun of my determination and faith in my own powers. I have ardently longed to climb the topmost pinnacle of my art. I have not yet reached it. By far the smaller part of my life remains for me to live, but what matters it! Every day brings me nearer to the realization of my dream. The hours that have flown away with my youth have left me my courage and cheerfulness, for my goal is unchanged, and I am marching towards it.
I have journeyed across the ocean, carrying with me my ideal of art, and the genius of my nation has triumphed. I have planted the French language in the heart of foreign literature, and this is my proudest achievement. My art has been the missionary whose efforts have made French the common speech of the younger generation. I know this to be true. Teachers in foreign countries have told me so, ladies in New York have confirmed it, the public has proved it, and I have been openly blamed for my presumption by a German professor at Chicago. In Brazil, the students fought with drawn swords because an attempt was made to prevent them from shouting “Vive la France!” as they dragged my carriage along. In the Argentine Republic, the students tried to do honour to my country by learning passages from Racine, Corneille, Molière, and Jules Lemaître’s critiques, all of which they recited most correctly and with scarcely any foreign accent. In Canada, my sledge was propelled by members of Parliament to the cry of “Vive la France!” and after every performance the students struck up the Marseillaise, listened to by the English, standing up, hat in hand, with their invariable respect for any noble expression of feeling.
Here is a typical incident. When I arrived in Australia, the French residents were dominated by the Germans. Our consul was neither liked nor esteemed. Immediately upon my arrival I was received by the mayor in his robes of office. His wife and children offered me flowers, and a military band played the national anthems of France and England. I owed this polite attention to orders from England. The effect was immediately felt, and this semi-royal reception was much to the benefit of our countrymen at Sydney and Melbourne. The plays performed by my company and myself met with wonderful success, and when the steamer which was conveying us back to the northern hemisphere fired her parting gun, our own national anthem was sung by more than five thousand people massed on the quays. I assure you that those who witnessed that grand and heart-stirring scene have not forgotten it.
In Hungary, the towns in which I was to perform were decorated with French flags, in spite of orders from the Austrian Government. Czechs went through their national dances before me with red, white, and blue ribbons.
These are the trifling victories that have gained me so much indulgence. I say nothing of the encounters at which you and all the Paris public have been present. And now, after having finished my confession, I can still find one little circumstance in my own favour. Five months ago I refused an offer of a million francs to perform in Germany. If there be any carping critics to say the fête about to be given me is out of proportion to my talents, tell them I am the militant doyenne of a grand, inspiring, elevating form of art. Tell them French courtesy was never more manifest than when, desiring to honour the art of interpretation and raise the interpreter to the level of other creative artists, it selected a woman.
Sarah Bernhardt.
December 8, 1896.
The promised fête took place on the following day, 9th December. It was a very fine one—much finer than any one could possibly have expected.
It was a charming, delightful festival under a grey wintry sky in the heart of Paris: an outburst of kindly feeling in the most artistic form. Some unsympathetic spirits had made merry over the programme, and it was asserted that the timid poets who were to appear would shrink from the critical gaze of Paris. Thanks to Sarah and the witchcraft of her grace and beauty, the ceremony was not only the greatest and most enviable triumph of her career, but it passed off with perfect harmony, in an atmosphere warm with cordiality and admiration.
Mme. Sarah Bernhardt, from a drawing by C. Léandre.
The brief and hurried summary to which I am obliged to confine myself can give only a faint idea of those six hours of continuous ovations. Half-an-hour after noon Sarah arrived in her two-horse brougham with her son and daughter-in-law. As she appeared on the steps in the courtyard of the Grand Hôtel, cries of “Vive Sarah!” were heard, and the crowd of foreign visitors present spontaneously uncovered as the great artiste passed through them. The great Salle du Zodiaque, in which the banquet was held, was already full of guests, all in evening dress. When Mme. Sarah Bernhardt came down the narrow winding staircase leading from the first floor into the dining-room, every man and woman among the five hundred guests rose and frantically applauded again and again. The long train of her beautiful white dress, trimmed with English lace, embroidered with gold, and bordered with chinchilla, followed her like a graceful, tame serpent down the stairs. At every turn in the winding staircase she bent over the railing and twined her arm like an ivy-wreath round the velvet pillars while she acknowledged the acclamations with her disengaged hand. Her lithe and slender body scarcely seemed to touch the earth. She was wafted towards us as it were in a halo of glory. There was a continuous fire of applause from the whole assembly as she made her way to the presidential chair. She reached it very pale, but smiling and happy. Another thunderous outburst of cheers, and the meal began.
Sarah Bernhardt had M. Sardou on her right and M. Henry Bauer on her left. At the head table there were also Mme. de Najac, MM. François Coppée, H. de Bornier, Ludovic Halévy, Jules Lemaître, Théodore Dubois, André Theuriet, H. Lavedan, Albert Carré, Coquelin the elder, Edouard Colonne, and Gabriel Pierné; Mme. Maurice Bernhardt, MM. Mendès, Silvestre, Maurice Bernhardt, Lord and Lady Ribblesdale, MM. Jean Lorrain, Haraucourt, Charpentier, Comte Robert de Montesquiou, Clairin, Armand d’Artois, Morand, Silvain, and Edmond Rostand. At the other tables the guests took their places as best pleased them, without regard to the cards. There were three kinds of menus, designed by Mme. Abbéma, Chéret, and Mucha. The luncheon was a lively one. All eyes were fixed on the heroine of the feast. Every one was loud in wonder at the freshness of her colour and the perpetual youth which she owes without doubt to the incomparable vital energy of her privileged nature. When the dessert was reached, M. Sardou rose and said—
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I leave to the poets, whom we are to hear later on, the honour of extolling, better than I can do, the genius of the unrivalled artiste before us, the real creator of every one of her rôles, the acknowledged sovereign of dramatic art, and hailed as such throughout the world. My task is a humbler one. To every one of those who owe to her such keen emotions it is not given to see her in her home, among her children and her friends, and, after applauding the actress, to know the benevolence, the charity, and the exquisite kindness of the woman. To her I bear testimony, and wish her long life and prosperity, and I ask you all to drink to the health of her who is both the great and the good Sarah.