Victor Hugo bowed low, muttered a word of adieu and later wrote Sarah as follows:
“Mademoiselle,
“Yesterday I was presented to you, trembling lest you might not accede to my request and play in my Ruy Blas. But I was tongue-tied in the presence of your beauty and your charity; I, who am a man of words, was dumb. I pray you, see Chilly; he knows my wishes. Believe, mademoiselle, in my sincere admiration,
“Victor Hugo.”
Sarah saw Chilly, only to be informed by him that it had been decided to put off the revival of Ruy Blas until the following season. Instead, when Le Passant was finished, Sarah played as star in three plays which definitely established her position as one of the greatest actresses of the period. These plays were L’Autre, a delicious comedy by Georges Sand, Le Bâtard and Theuriet’s Jean Marie.
Before she could play Ruy Blas, the war of 1870 broke out.
Before we go into the war experiences of Sarah Bernhardt, experiences which, moreover, forged her character, into a species of flexible steel, two episodes must be mentioned which have been published before, but which, in my opinion, have been scurrilously misinterpreted. One refers to the fire in her flat in the rue Auber, near the Opera, and the other to the serious illness that followed one of Sarah’s everlasting practical jokes—which this time took the form of trying to make the world believe that she was dead!
Sarah had, as before stated, taken a seven-room flat in the rue Auber which, with the aid of certain of her family, who were now only too willing to resume their relationship with her, she had somewhat luxuriously furnished. That in this connection she went heavily into debt to various furniture dealers, decorators and the like I do not doubt, for such became her invariable practice in later life. From the day she jumped into fame, she was invariably surrounded by dealers anxious to sell her all sorts of things, from jewelry to houses, and from pianos to horses and carriages. These men knew that her salary at the Odéon was still only 160 francs per month, on which she could certainly barely afford an attic. They knew also that the income she received from her father’s estate had been greatly diminished, and was now less than 200 francs monthly.
With less than 500 francs—twenty pounds—a month, and with the inevitable extra expenses incidental to her career, what could Sarah Bernhardt be expected to afford? Her mother could spare her nothing. Her aunt Rosine, in an effort to placate the girl for the many slights of childhood, had given her two ponies and a smart little carriage, but this, at the same time, cost a good deal to keep up. None of her other relatives gave her anything. When she appealed to them they would say: “Why do you ask us? You are a famous actress, and famous actresses can always have money!”
How true that was, Sarah had early found out. I do not think it was any particular regard for morality which kept her from treading the path so many of her sister actresses were obliged to tread, and from procuring herself one or more rich protectors; it was rather that Sarah’s whole life now was bound up with the stage, and that in her love-affairs she consequently never strayed beyond its charmed circle.
I do not say that Sarah Bernhardt was any less or any more “immoral”—and we must try and remember, we readers of a different race, that the moral code of 1870 was not that of to-day—than were the half-dozen other leading actresses of the time; but I do assert that she never formed a liaison merely for the sake of the protection and wealth it could give her.
When Sarah loved, when this brilliant woman gave herself, it was always for her art, and to someone who could assist her in the material realisation of her lofty and ambitious dreams. Such a thing as forming an alliance merely to rid herself of the burden of poverty probably never even entered her mind, which was always lifted above the sordid things of life. But when, as in the case of Pierre Berton, she was offered the love of a great and a noble character, or when, as in the case of Damala, she was swept off her feet by a romantic passion, she succumbed willingly enough.