SARAH BERNHARDT 383 " Yes, sir," was the reply. " You are a Jewess ? " " Yes, sir, by birth ; but I have been baptized." "She has been baptized," said Auber, turning to his colleagues. " It would have been a pity if such a pretty child had not. She said her fable of the 'Two Pigeons' very well. She must be admitted." Thus Sarah Bernhardt, for it was she, entered the Conservatoire. She was a Jewess of French and Dutch parentage, and was born at Paris in 1844. Her father, after having her baptized, bad placed her in a convent ; but she had already secretly determined to become an actress. In her course of study at the Conservatoire she so dis- tinguished herself that she received a prize which entitled her to a ddbut at the Theatre Francais. She selected the part of Iphig£nie, in which she appeared on August 11, 1862; and at least one newspaper drew special attention to her perform- ance, describing her as " pretty and elegant," and particularly praising her perfect enunciation. She afterward played other part* at the Theatre Francais, but soon transferred herself from that bouse to the Gymnase, though not until she had made herself notorious by having, as was al- leged, slapped the face of a sister-actress in a fit of temper. The director of the Gymnase did not take too serious a view of his new act' ress, who turned up late at rehearsals, and sometimes did not turn up at all. Noi did her acting make any great impression at the Gymnase, where, it is true, she was only permitted to appear on Sundays. At this theatre she lost no time in exhibiting that independence and caprice to which, as much as to her talent, she owes her celebrity. The day after the first representation of a piece by La- biche, " Un Mari qui Lance sa Femme," in which she had undertaken an im- portant part, she stealthily quitted Paris, addressing to the author a letter in which she begged him to forgive her. After a tour in Spain, Sarah returned to Paris, and appeared at the Oddon. Here she created a certain number of characters, in such plays as " Les Arrets, "
- Le Drame de la Rue de la Paix," and " Le Batard," but chiefly distinguished
herself in " Ruy Bias," and in a translation of " King Lear." Already she had riveted the attention of the public and the press, who saw that a brilliant future lay before her. At the end of 1872 she appeared at the Comddie Francaise, and with such dis- tinction that she was retained, first as a pensionnaire, at a salary of six thousand francs, and afterward as a socittaire. Her successes were rapid and dazzling, ano whether she appeared in modern comedy, in classic tragedy, or as the creator of characters in entirely new plays, the theatre was always crowded. Her melodious voice and pure enunciation, her singularly varied accents, her pathos, her ardent
