But Sarah had enemies enough in the House of Molière. Maubant the tragedian, for one, had sworn that she should enter the theatre only over his dead body! Madame Nathalie was still there, together with her group of powerful friends. She had not forgotten the time that Sarah had slapped her face, nor would she ever forget it. The mere rumour that Sarah was to be invited back to the Comédie would send this group into transports of rage.
After Le Passant, Sarah’s salary at the Odéon had been increased to four hundred francs a month, and following her triumph in Ruy Blas she was given a further increase of two hundred francs, making six hundred in all. This salary, about six pounds a week, was considered excellent in those days—and it was not bad, even considering the somewhat depreciated buying-power of money in Paris due to the war and the Commune.
But it was not nearly sufficient for Sarah, who lived in lavish style in her new apartment in the Boulevard Malesherbes. There she had a suite of nine large rooms, all of them exquisitely furnished, and she maintained a staff of five servants. She had two coaches—one for ordinary driving to and from the theatre, and the other for special occasions, such as Sunday mornings in the Champs Elysées and the Bois, when all fashionable Paris turned out in their smartest equipages to stare and be stared at.
She was constantly buying things and as constantly signing I.O.U.’s and traites (a species of acknowledgment of debt which authorises its collection by a bank). She never knew to a certainty how much money she owed, and was constantly surrounded by a horde of creditors eager to collect.
Among these creditors was a Jew, one François Cohen, a dealer in furniture and one of the most astute business men in Paris. He was not only a good business man; he was an extraordinary judge of dramatic talent, and in fact edited a column of dramatic comment for Le Monde et La Ville, a monthly sheet distinguished for its accurate information. He did this, of course, merely as a recreation.
Sarah’s attention was first attracted to him by the number of Le Monde et La Ville issued after her first performance in François Coppée’s Le Passant—the charity performance, I mean, before the play became a definite part of the Odéon répertoire. In his column Cohen had written:
“It is worth while to report the discovery, on Sunday night, of a new celestial body in the firmament of drama. We have found a poet, you will say; yes, but that is the least of it. Coppée is a master—a master in swaddling clothes—but even he, with his intricate verse, of which one understands only the beauty without comprehending the sense, would have been lost but for the outstanding magnificence of the most promising young actress on the stage in Paris. I am speaking of Mlle. Bernhardt.
“Who is she? I have asked, and nobody seems to know. There are stories of royal favour, of noble blood, of powerful protection; let us trust that they are untrue, for Mlle. Bernhardt must have the incentive to work which only the necessity to live can give her. But that she is something new in the heavens is, as I have said, undoubted.
“The question only remains: Will she be a comet, like so many others, flashing for but a brief instant in our bewildered and astonished consciousness, or will she develop into a new astronomical marvel, a brilliant seventh of the Odéon Constellation, destined to shine with increasing brilliance, to dazzle us with her art and to warm us with her voice, until she becomes a fixed sun in the celestial firmament of France?
“No one who saw her performance last night can doubt that the genius is there; it remains but to know whether she also possesses the great gift of ambition and the necessary determination to work which alone can make her success a permanent thing. It is, perhaps, fortunate that she is not too beautiful....”
It was the most keenly analytical criticism that had appeared—I have quoted only a small part of the article—and, despite Sarah’s distaste for the last sentence, she realised that the author of the commentary knew what he was talking about. This was shown by his skilful delineation of the play. She carried the paper to Berton and asked:
“Who is ‘F. C.’ who signs this article?”
“I don’t know,” said Berton, “and nobody else does either. It seems to be a sort of secret. But he is clever.”