Coppée shyly shook her hand, and seemed to want to say something, but to be too bashful.
“Come, François,” urged Madame Agar, the great tragédienne, who was the hostess, “you have been wanting to meet Mlle. Bernhardt for weeks, and now that you have the chance you are dumb!”
“He has written a play,” she explained to Sarah, “and he thinks that you should be the one to play in it.”
“It was written for you,” said the young poet, simply.
François Coppée was then unknown, and Sarah had never heard his name before. But the subtle compliment of writing a play round her touched her heart, and she determined to grant him his wish.
“We will hear it at once!” she decided.
Two hours later she had enthusiastically promised to make Duquesnel and Chilly produce the piece, which was called Le Passant, and within four months it was produced at a benefit matinée. Then, after it had proved an enormous success, it was included in the regular Odéon repertoire, which it has never since left.
If Kean had been a triumph for Sarah, Le Passant was a vindication. There had been many to hint that her success in Kean was only an accident due to fortuitous circumstances and to the fact that she was popular with the students who thronged the theatre on the first night. But when she carried all before her in Le Passant, she proved herself to be the great actress that she really was.
Every critic except the dour Francisque Sarcey, who still persisted in ignoring her talent, joined in an enthusiastic chorus of praise, and they said much more about her than they did about Agar, who was in reality the star of the piece.
