“I have spoken to him,” said the actor, “and he has promised to leave the engagement of the company in my own hands, providing the salaries and the lengths of the contracts are supervised and agreed to by him and Monsieur Duquesnel.”
Later on Sarah discovered that what had actually happened was that Chilly, spoken to the evening before, had flatly declined to consider Sarah as a member of the company.
“She is not an actress, and shows no promise of ever being one!” he repeated.
And then Pierre Berton had threatened to resign, so that in face of this threatened calamity Chilly had given way. He had insisted, however, that the responsibility for Sarah’s engagement should rest with Berton and Duquesnel.
The next day Sarah went to Duquesnel’s office again, and was introduced to Chilly, who presented her with her contract.
“Believe me, mademoiselle,” he said, “had I been alone in this matter, you would not have been engaged!”
“If you had been alone here I would not have consented to sign!” said Sarah haughtily.
For months after that, she told me, she hated Chilly. In reality, however, he was a decent little fellow, and a man of great ability, whose only fault was his obstinacy. Later on he and Sarah became fast friends, and when Sarah left the Odéon, to return to the Comédie Française as the triumphant idol of the French stage, it was Chilly who went on his knees to her and implored her to reconsider her decision.
Sarah entered the Odéon in 1866. In 1868 she was famous. In 1872 she re-entered the Comédie Française, where she remained eight years. In 1882 she was married, and in 1889 became a widow.
I give these dates now because the period comprised by them was that in which Sarah Bernhardt reached the supreme pinnacle of her glory, and it was during this period, also, that the most romantic episodes of her life occurred.