Sarah wore mourning for Damala for a year, but his death did not put a stop to her theatrical activities. If anything, she cast herself into her work with more eagerness than ever.
The seven years of her marriage with Damala had been distinguished by Sarah’s first essay in theatrical management. Towards the end of 1882 she acquired the lesseeship of the Ambigu Theatre—the play-house where, fifteen years earlier, she had been refused a part by Chilly. It was announced that her son, Maurice Bernhardt, was to be manager.
It is doubtful whether Maurice ever did any active management. He had little aptitude for such work, and Sarah was the supervising genius both at the Ambigu and the other theatres which she subsequently acquired.
It was at the Ambigu that Sarah launched Jean Richepin. She mounted his play La Glu, which obtained an enormous success. She also played Les Mères Ennemies, by Catulle Mendès.
Exactly on what occasion Sarah Bernhardt and Jean Richepin were brought together I cannot say. I think they had known each other for a considerable period before their real association began. Sarah was much attracted to Richepin, who had a temperament very similar to hers by all accounts.
Richepin’s life had been almost as fantastically varied and adventurous as Sarah’s own. He had been born of rich and influential parents, and educated at the Paris Normal School, an institution of considerable importance.
He gave many evidences of precocity during his schooldays, and, after graduating, scandalised his former teachers and schoolmates by impertinently opening up a fried-potato stand just outside the school gates. It was a way of expressing his individuality and his scorn of pedantries.
After that he became a vagabond, journeying through the provinces of France on foot, sometimes begging his bread and sometimes working at odd trades for it.
Sarah Bernhardt in her Studio Dress.