She was a remarkable woman by this time. Eighteen years old, very fair, with a marvellous complexion and the wonderful head of hair that was to make her renowned later on, Julie Bernard possessed a gay and careless disposition that would have made her notorious anywhere. With her sisters, she began frequenting the cafés that were then fashionable, and it was not long before the trio began to meet interesting people.
Baptismal Certificate of Sarah Bernhardt, May 21st, 1846.
Among these acquaintances was a man whom Sarah herself always referred to as “Baron Larrey,” but who was probably another man of title with a similar name. Baron Larrey and Julie became first friends, then lovers, and the relationship lasted five years.
Far behind her now the dingy, decrepit old building at 5, rue de l’Ecole de Médecine! Far behind her the days when she had to trudge weary miles, in all weathers, to secure orders and deliver hats! Julie was now a “fille à la mode.” She flaunted the latest fashions, the latest colours, the latest millinery on the Boulevards and in the exclusive restaurants. Her relationship with the Baron commanded for her a certain respect in the gay, care-free Bohemian world that was the Paris of 1845. Nobles at Court commenced to be interested in her. Famous personages of the stage consented to sit at her table.
She soon eclipsed in beauty and in accomplishments her less endowed sisters, although they too formed wealthy and prominent relationships.
All three sisters loved to travel. Julie took the younger one on many voyages throughout Europe, and Rosine made regular pilgrimages to Germany to the famous spas.
While Julie lived the gay, irresponsible life of a Parisian butterfly, her daughter Sarah, a weak, anæmic child, cursed with a terrific temper, remained on the farm in Brittany.
When she was nearly two years old she was still in her “first steps”; she did not begin to learn to walk until she was fourteen months old. Her nurse, who had married again, had other duties about the farm and could give scant attention to the little one during the day. In order to keep her quiet, the nurse got her husband to build a little chair, in which the baby was fastened with a strap. This was then pushed against a table, so that the child could amuse herself with pieces of coloured paper—the only toys Sarah Bernhardt knew until she was three years old.
One day the woman set her in the chair as usual but neglected to fasten the strap, and the baby, leaning forward to catch something, fell from the high chair and into the wide, Breton fireplace, in which a log fire was burning. Her screams brought the nurse and her husband running. The nurse picked her up and plunged her bodily, flaming clothes and all, into a huge tub of milk which was waiting to be churned.