Years afterwards, on the fiftieth anniversary of the great actress's first appearance on the stage, my wife was chosen to present a testimonial which had been prepared in her honour, in the presence of a remarkable gathering in which Monsieur Paul Cambon, the honoured French Ambassador to our Court for so many years, took a prominent part.
These were some of her words:
"Dear Madame Bernhardt, or, as you have so closely fastened yourself to our hearts 'with hoops of steel,' I hope you will allow me to say, dear Sarah. My words will be brief, but they come from my heart—the heart of a comrade and friend. Since my retirement no greater pleasure has befallen me than I feel at this moment, and when I was invited to perform this delightful ceremony I was proud to be remembered and to be thought worthy to have the honour of presenting this tribute to your genius; an endorsement, as it were, of the force and value of the Entente Cordiale which so happily unites our two great countries. Your fame belongs to all the world—the homage of every land is yours. Your name will live with those of Siddons, Rachel and Ristori. You have shed lustre and glory on the beautiful art you have so long and nobly served and in which you reign supreme."
The great woman took the opportunity to repeat her opinion given to a mutual friend, Hamilton Aidé, years before, of my wife's acting as Peg Woffington.
Aimée Desclée
But great as she was, unequalled in technique, wonderful in the range of her art, perfect in her command of every tone in her beautiful language, Sarah Bernhardt was never to my mind quite free from the blemish—it may be thought heresy to say so—of being something of a show-woman. The drum was too big in her orchestra, while I always considered her to be surpassed in the reality of emotion and passion by one other woman I have seen upon the stage—Aimée Desclée. No other serious actress, to my mind, took more absolute possession of her audience. I doubt if even Rachel could have eclipsed her. Her acting in Froufrou, her original part, was supreme. The quarrel with her sister I can best describe as a whirlwind of dramatic art in its highest form, as was the pathos with which—when she had wrecked her life and gone away with her lover—she moaned: "Une heure de colère, et voilà ou j'en suis." Only those who are now quite old can have seen Desclée. Her fame was achieved in a few brief years, as she died in the flower of youth, being little more than thirty, if my memory serves me, in 1873. When Sarah then was asked her opinion of Desclée's acting she answered, "Truth!" She made no claim to beauty, but possessed more "magnetism"—I know no better word—unclouded by exaggeration than any of her rivals. Had Desclée been spared to act for twenty years her name would have lived among the immortals.
Alexandre Dumas thus wrote of her:
"Nothing remains of what was once so dear. Let us regret this great artist, but pity not her death. She has won the rest for which she prayed. Her best reward is death. Of the details of her actual life I have told you nothing. Where was she born? How was she brought up? Where did she first appear? What became of her? What matters it at all? A woman like her has no biography. She touched our souls: and she is dead. There is her history."
Réjane
Another Frenchwoman whose name and fame give her an honoured place among the great ones, was Réjane. Our acquaintance began with a visit she paid us behind the scenes at the Haymarket when she was quite young. My wife at the time was acting the part first played by Réjane in a play by Sardou, called Odette.