Sarah Bernhardt in Le Passant.
Duquesnel was triumphant; Chilly was delighted. They had found another star worthy of the greatness of their theatre. They were summoned to play Le Passant at Court, in the magnificent setting of the Tuileries. The Emperor Louis Napoleon, after the performance, descended from his throne and kissed Sarah on both cheeks, afterwards presenting her with a diamond brooch set with the Imperial initials.
This brooch was not among the property of the tragédienne which was recently sold by auction in Paris, and I believe there was a story that, pressed for funds during a trip to London after the revolution, she pawned it and never subsequently regained possession of it. She was like that all her life. Always the desperate need for money, always the large extravagance, the royal expenditures that she could not afford!
This was the age of literary giants. Neither politics, nor even religion, had half the power to stir the passions of the educated masses that a literary war between two editors or two dramatists possessed. The two great rivals for public popularity were Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas the elder, and there was a deal of fanaticism in the fervour of their respective partisans. Public meetings were held denouncing one or the other. Victor Hugo’s political martyrdom was of recent memory, and this gentle character, this splendid genius, was the prey of attacks which were at once unscrupulous and false. Newspapers were started by chiefs of the different literary factions, and dozens of duels, some of them mortal, resulted from the wanton attacks on the reputations of two of the greatest men of the time.
Sarah’s first meeting with Victor Hugo occurred about a week after the première of Le Passant, in which she took the adolescent male rôle of Zanetto. It suited her to perfection, for she had retained her boyish slimness and her general allure of gaminerie.
After the performance she was presented to Hugo, who had been watching the play from the depths of a loge. Public opinion was running high in Paris at the moment, and it was considered inadvisable that either Victor Hugo or Alexandre Dumas should show themselves in public.
Sarah had ignorantly allowed herself to be carried away by the fulminations of the Dumas clique at the Odéon, and actually shuddered when she held her hand out to Hugo to be kissed.
“Ah, mademoiselle,” remarked the great author, with a sad smile, “I see that my greatest trial is to come in your prejudice against me!”
Sarah was touched, and could not bring herself to believe that this meek man, with the deep marks of suffering about his eyes, was really the monster his enemies would have the world believe. It was currently rumoured that Hugo was an anarchist, that he had deserted his wife, that he had five mistresses at one and the same time, and that his life consisted of one immorality after another. He was accused of many political crimes also—and with as much reason.
“I am my own judge of men, monsieur,” said Sarah.