Proud though she might be to the exterior world, she was humility itself before the cradle of her child.
And her struggle was no easy one. She told me of it one day on board ship while we were travelling to the Near East, and so deep an impression did her words make on me that I can remember them almost textually.
“When my son was born,” she said, “I had, for all my fortune, the sum of two hundred francs. If it had not been for Madame Guérard, who officiated at the birth of my child as she had officiated at my own, I do not know what I should have done.
“I owed ten times two hundred francs in small tradesmen’s bills, scattered about the city. My mother was ill, and could not be appealed to. I was ashamed to go to my other friends, such as the Duc de Morny, who would have been only too glad to have helped me, and I forbade Madame Guérard to say a word to anyone about my predicament.
“When my sister Régine came to see me, she was told that I had a contagious disease and could not be seen. Later on it was given out that I had left Paris for a holiday in the country.
“When the first week was up I had scarcely a sou. It was then that I determined to appeal to the one man whom duty should have compelled to aid me, and I sent a letter to the Prince, imploring him to take pity upon me and upon our child.
“The Prince’s reply was brutality itself: ‘I know a woman named Bernhardt,’ he wrote, ‘but I do not know her child.’ The note enclosed—fifty francs!
“I persuaded myself that there was a mistake. I could not believe that the man I had loved could be so cruel.
“I dragged myself out of bed and went, faint and ill, to a mansion in the rue de Lille, where the Prince was that night giving a joyous fête.
“I was shown into an ante-room and waited nearly an hour before the Prince finally condescended to see me.