Another critic, James Berbier, wrote:
“A young woman named Sarah Bernhardt made her début at the Comédie on September 1. She has a pretty voice and a not-unpleasing face, but her body is ugly and she has no stage presence.”
Still another, Pierre Mirabeau, declared:
“Sarah Bernhardt has no personality; she possesses only a voice.”
After Sarah’s second début, in Valérie, this same Mirabeau wrote:
“We had the pleasure of seeing in the cast at the Comédie the young woman Sarah Bernhardt, who made her début recently in Iphigénie. She has improved, but she still has much to learn before she can properly be considered worthy of the House of Molière.”
When Sarah appeared in Les Femmes Savantes, Francisque Sarcey, who had ignored her in Valérie, devoted several lines to her:
“Mlle. Bernhardt took the rôle of Henriette. She was just as pretty and insignificant as in Iphigénie and in Valérie. No reflections on her performance can be extremely gay. However, it is doubtless natural that among all the débutantes we are asked to see there should be some who do not succeed.”
Sarah was furious at these critiques, but not as furious as her mother, who bitterly exclaimed:
“See! All the world calls you stupid, and all the world knows that you are my child!”