“Much Ado About Nothing. In friendly discussion it has been decided that outside the rehearsals and the performances of the Comédie Française, each artist is free to employ his time as he sees fit. There is therefore absolutely no truth at all in the pretended quarrel between the Comédie Française and Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt. This artiste has only acted strictly within her rights, which nobody attempts to limit, and all our artistes intend to benefit in the same manner. The manager of the Comédie Française asks only that the artistes who form this ‘corps’ do not give performances in a body.”

This article came from the Comédie, and the members of the Committee had taken advantage of it to advertise a little for themselves, announcing that they also were ready to play in drawing-rooms, for the article was sent to Mayer with a request that it should appear in the English papers. It was Mayer himself who told me this.

All disputes being at an end, we commenced our preparations for departure.

CHAPTER XXI
MY LONDON DÉBUT

I had never been on the sea when it was decided that the artistes of the Comédie Française should go to London. The determined ignorance of the French concerning all things foreign was much more pronounced in those days than it is at present. As for me, my ignorance was quite pathetic. I had a very warm cloak made, as I had been assured that the crossing was icy cold, even in the very middle of summer, and I believed this. On every side I was besieged with lozenges for seasickness, sedative for headache, tissue paper to put down my back, little compress plasters to put on my diaphragm, and waterproof cork soles for my shoes, for it appeared that above all things I must not have cold feet. Oh, how droll and amusing it all was! I took everything, paid attention to all the recommendations and believed everything I was told.

The most inconceivable thing of all, though, was the arrival, five minutes before the boat started, of an enormous wooden case. It was very light and was held by a tall young man, who to-day is a most remarkable individual, with all the crosses, all the honors, an immense fortune, and the most outrageous vanity. At that time he was a shy inventor, young, poor, and sad; he was always buried in books which treated of abstract questions, while of life he knew absolutely nothing. He had a great admiration for me, mingled with a trifle of awe. My little court had surnamed him “La Quenelle.” He was long, vacillating, colorless, and really did resemble the thin roll of forcemeat in a vol-au-vent.

He came up to me, his face more wan looking even than usual. The boat was moving a little, my departure terrified him, and the wind caused him to plunge from right to left. He made a mysterious sign to me and I followed him, accompanied by ma petite dame and leaving my friends, who were inclined to be ironical, behind. When I was seated, he opened the case and took out an enormous life belt invented by himself. I was perfectly astounded, for I was unused to sea voyages, and the idea had never even occurred to me that we might be shipwrecked during one hour’s crossing. “La Quenelle” was by no means disconcerted, and he put the belt on himself in order to show me how it was used.

Nothing could have looked more foolish than this man with his sad, serious face, putting on this apparatus. There were a dozen egg-sized bladders round the belt, eleven of which were filled with air and contained a lump of sugar each. In the twelfth, a very small bladder, were ten drops of brandy. In the middle of the belt was a tiny cushion with a few pins on it.

“You understand,” he said to me. “You fall in the water paff—you stay like this.” Hereupon he pretended to sit down, rising and sinking with the movement of the waves, his two hands in front of him laid upon the imaginary sea, and his neck stretched like that of a tortoise in order to keep his head above water.