He chose this moment to relate—using assumed names, of course, but with descriptions which revealed better than mere names could have done—how, in a quarter of an hour, he had made the conquest of Sarah Bernhardt!
Sarah was terribly offended, not so much at the way the article was written, but at the idea that any man could dare to claim that he had “conquered” her—and in fifteen minutes at that!
Hurrying to de Lagrenée, she laid the article before him. The young consular official was furious, and sent an immediate challenge to O’Monroy, despite the fact that the chronicler was a notoriously expert swordsman, while de Lagrenée was small, physically weak, and no fencer at all.
The duel was arranged according to the code, and was fixed to take place in the Bois de Boulogne one morning at five o’clock. Sarah watched it from the closed windows of her coach. Neither antagonist knew that she was there, the coach being hidden behind some trees in an allée usually reserved for riders.
As was to be expected, de Lagrenée was overwhelmed from the outset, and in less than two minutes he was severely wounded in the thigh.
Seeing him lying bleeding on the ground, Sarah would have run to him and covered him with caresses, but she was prevented by her companions.
During his convalescence, she was barred from the sick-room and had to content herself with daily letters and flowers.
As soon as he recovered, he was ordered to his post at St. Petersburg, and the short-lived romance was over.
Sarah never forgot de Lagrenée, and for several years she kept up a correspondence with him. His letters which, according to her custom, she destroyed—-were full of tender, poetic messages, pleading love of and faith in her, A man less fitted to be a diplomat probably never existed. Sarah always spoke of him to me in terms of genuine affection.