The Committee and M. Perrin had made an agreement with John Hollingshead, director of the Gaiety Theater, in London. Nobody had been consulted and I thought that was a little too free and easy. So when they told me about this agreement, I said nothing. Perrin rather anxiously took me aside:
“What are you turning over in your mind?”
“I am turning over this: that I will not go to London in a situation inferior to anybody. For the entire term of my contract I intend to be Associate à part entière (with full benefit).”
This intention excited the Committee highly. And the next day Perrin told me that my proposal was rejected.
“Well, I shall not go to London. That is all! Nothing in my contract obliges me to go.”
SARAH BERNHARDT, PORTRAIT BY CLAIRIN.
The Committee met again, and Got cried out: “Well, let her stay away! She is a regular nuisance!”
It was therefore decided that I should not go to London. But Hollingshead and Mayer, his partner, did not see it in this light, and they declared that the contract would not be binding if either Croizette, Mounet-Sully, or I did not go.
The agents, who had bought two hundred thousand francs’ worth of tickets beforehand, also refused to regard the affair as binding on them if we did not go. Mayer came to see me in profound despair and told me all about it.