“But the President is waiting for us!” cried Rostand finally through the key-hole.
Sarah’s “voice of gold” came sonorously through the door:
“It is a far greater honour, messieurs, to be a prisoner in Sarah Bernhardt’s hands, than to be a performing lion for the President of France!”
Rostand’s courtship of Sarah Bernhardt remained one of the great episodes of his career. Though Sarah refused him repeatedly, and he afterwards married the famous Rosamonde, his friendship with the actress continued, and she was at once his inspiration and his mentor, as well as the co-author of his fame.
Sarah was the first woman invited to see little Maurice Rostand on the day that he was born.
And when Sarah herself lay dying, Rosamonde and this same boy Maurice were among the last to be admitted to her bedchamber.
Rostand used to write Sarah frantic letters, pleading his love for her. He sang her praises everywhere he went, even in the cafés on the boulevards where he and his fellow litterateurs were wont to gather.
“She is the Queen of Attitude, the Princess of Gesture, the Lady of Energy,” he exclaimed once, in a poem dedicated to Sarah.
In 1896, after L’Aiglon was produced, he wrote:
“The existence of Sarah Bernhardt remains the supreme marvel of the nineteenth century.”