“Madame,
“You have been great and charming; you have touched my heart—mine, the old soldier’s—and, at a certain moment, while the enchanted and overwhelmed public applauded you, I wept. This tear, which you caused to fall, is yours, and I throw myself at your feet!
“Victor Hugo.”
Accompanying the note was the “tear”—a magnificent, pear-shaped diamond, suspended from a gold bracelet.
Years later, when Sarah was visiting Alfred Sassoon in London, she lost the bracelet, and Sassoon, tremendously worried, begged to be permitted to replace it.
Sarah sadly shook her head.
“Nothing,” she said, “can ever replace for me the tear of Victor Hugo!”
Every critic in Paris, with the sole exception of Francisque Sarcey the irrepressible, praised with lavish phrases her performance as the Queen in Ruy Blas. But Sarcey was brutal.
“She is a scarecrow with a voice,” he wrote. “Certainly, the public is entitled to be informed of the reasons MM. Duquesnel, Chilly and Hugo had for giving her the rôle in which she appears. She is not yet mature, does not move naturally, and seems to rely exclusively on her talent for recital.”
Sarah went into violent hysterics when she read the article. She could not imagine why Sarcey was so venomous. Pierre Berton knew Sarcey intimately, of course, and tried to intercede for her. He met a rebuff.
“Your protégée has blinded you with her blue eyes,” Sarcey said. “She is not a great success, and she never will be one!”
The critic continued his devastating articles, seeming to find pleasure in tearing down the reputation of the young actress. He had an undisputedly great following, and the management of the Odéon itself commenced to look askance at this unwelcome publicity.