In the ’80’s I attended a picnic at St. Germain, and heard Sarah recite a part in Iphigénie, the first play in which she appeared at the Comédie Française, and in which she played only on two occasions during her long career. There was never a moment after she became internationally famous when Sarah could not recite out of her prodigious memory the whole of the words of any one of fifty or sixty different plays.
I have said that her voice was becoming known in Paris. One day Georges Sand came to her dressing-room. Looking very mysterious, she said:
“There is a gentleman outside who has fallen in love with your voice!”
“Send him away!” retorted Sarah petulantly. She was in a bad humour, in consequence of a quarrel with Berton.
“You cannot send this man away, my dear!” said Madame Sand. “He is the Prince!”
“Never mind; I do not want to see him, Prince or no Prince,” declared the young actress.
After much coaxing, however, she consented to meet the “gentleman in love with her voice,” and descended to the stage, where she found Prince Napoleon talking with Louis Bouilhet. Sarah shook his hand, instead of kissing it, as was the custom, and said never a word. The Prince was furious.
“She is spiteful, your little kitten,” he said to Georges Sand.
“She is a Madonna, sire!” said the authoress.
“A Madonna who acts like a devil!” retorted the Prince, shortly, and, turning on his heel, he walked away.