SARAH BERNHARDT IN “FRANÇOIS LE CHAMPI.”
“Why, she is in love with you!” he exclaimed, laughing.
George Sand stroked my cheek gently.
“She is my little Madonna,” she answered, “do not torment her.”
I stayed with her, casting displeased and furtive glances at the prince. Gradually, though, I began to enjoy listening to him, for his conversation was brilliant, serious, and at the same time witty. He sprinkled his discourses and his replies with words that were a trifle crude, but all that he said was interesting and instructive. He was not very indulgent, though, and I have heard him say base, horrible things about little Thiers which I believe had little truth in them. He drew such an amusing portrait one day of that agreeable Louis Bouilhet, that George Sand, who liked him, could not help laughing, although she called the prince a bad man. He was very unceremonious, too, but at the same time he did not like people to be wanting in respect to him. One day an artiste named Paul Deshayes, who was playing in “François le Champi,” came into the artistes’ foyer. Prince Napoleon was there, Mme. George Sand, the curator of the library, whose name I have forgotten, and I. This artiste was common and something of an anarchist. He bowed to Mme. Sand and, addressing the prince, said:
“You are sitting on my gloves, sir.”
The prince scarcely moved, pulled the gloves out and, throwing them on the floor, remarked:
“I thought this seat was clean.”
The actor colored, picked up the gloves, and went away murmuring some revolutionary threat.