Bernhardt, or de Thérard, was one of the wildest youngsters in the Latin Quarter. He was constantly getting into scrapes, which his family at Le Havre had to pay for. Many of these scrapes were with women much older than himself, and l’aventure amoureuse was probably his strong—or weak—point. At any rate, he succeeded in studying as little law as possible, for he failed completely in all his examinations.
Where he and Julie met is unknown; probably it was a simple rencontre de la rue, which is common enough in Paris to-day. The nature of Julie’s trade, when delivering her hats to her customers, took her frequently into the streets of the quarter in which young Bernhardt was studying and in which he prosecuted his love affairs. It is likely that, seeing a marvellously pretty girl (of a type then unusual in Paris), walking along the Boul ‘Mich’, he followed her and, being of the handsome, devil-may-care type, pleased her so that she agreed to meet him again.
Be that as it may, the link between the little German girl and the reckless Havre student soon became public enough. Their appearance in any of the cafés or cabarets of the quarter was the signal for a chorus of congratulations and ironical greetings from Bernhardt’s comrades.
The little flat at Number 5, rue de l’Ecole de Médecine, was furnished and rented by Bernhardt for Julie, out of his slender student’s purse.
Two weeks before the birth of his child, Bernhardt returned to Havre.
He wrote ardent letters to the forsaken mother and sent regular sums for the child’s support. Sometimes he visited Paris, but rarely remained there longer than twenty-four hours. As his financial circumstances improved, for relatives bequeathed him fairly large sums, he began to travel, and before his first voyage, to Portugal, he suggested that the infant Sarah should be sent to his own old nurse, now become a professional dry-nurse, with a farm near Quimperlé, in Brittany.
About this time Julie’s fortunes underwent a sudden change for the better. This came about through several circumstances which occurred within a few weeks of each other. First, a relative of the young girl died in Holland, and bequeathed to her and each of her three sisters an equal number of guelders. The sum was not large, but it sufficed to lift Julie above immediate want. She went to Holland to claim the money, and was gone six months.
A few days after the legacy reached her, she discovered to her astonishment that one of her sisters, Rosine, who was her elder by four years and who was supposedly in Marseilles, was in reality living in Paris. How she was living is rather a mystery. But she seemed to be well off, and she had been long enough in France to speak the language excellently.
When Julie returned from Holland, she came by way of Berlin and brought with her Henriette, her younger sister, then aged thirteen. There was still another sister, two years younger, and another aged twenty-eight, who was married and who lived in the French West Indies.
Julie and Henriette, when they arrived in Paris, went to live with Rosine, who had a flat in Montmartre. With baby Sarah safely in the country, in charge of a capable nurse, and with funds for the child’s upkeep provided by the father, Julie felt free to look around.