Sarah was particularly concerned over the effect Sarcey’s diatribes would have with the management of the Comédie Française, for (secretly) she longed to be taken back into the fold of the theatre which then, as now, was the principal play-house of France.
Sarcey’s articles culminated in a vitriolic attack on Sarah’s interpretation of another rôle (I think it was that of Mademoiselle Aïsée). Sarah read the attack during an entr’acte on the third night, and became so ill with anger that a doctor had to be sent for. She finished her rôle that night, but her acting was so bad that even critics favourable to her commented upon it.
Girardin, the friend of Victor Hugo and the most famous journalist of his time, came to her on the following day, as she lay in bed exhausted from a sleepless night, and said to her without preamble:
“Of course, you realise why Sarcey is attacking you?”
Sarah looked at him in red-eyed surprise.
“No—why should I know?” she replied. “I have never met him!”
“Think again!” urged Girardin. “He says you and he are old acquaintances!”
Sarah thought, and after a moment she replied: “He is mistaken; I have never met him.”
“He tells his friends that he met you once at the home of Madame de S——,” responded Girardin, “and that you were rude to him there——”
Sarah sat up in bed with a bound. “That—that creature—that was Sarcey?” she cried. “Why—he was ignoble! He was criticising Camille Blanchet, one of my dearest friends, saying that he was a cow on the stage, and I——”