Rachel (1887 British Edition)/Chapter 16
ON THE WANE.
By 1852 Rachel had begun to feel acutely the havoc that continual wandering and over-exertion had wrought upon her delicate constitution.
She wrote to her mother about her depression and incapacity for work in these terms:—
I am not actually ill; I am very weak, but have no pain. I can sleep well, and can now remain alone at night. My appetite is not so good as at Paris. I went out walking with papa yesterday, but came home utterly exhausted. To-day I preferred to drive; I found that better. My leisure time is spent reading and working. It is impossible for me to study any rôle; I do not attempt it, therefore. I hope with returning health the dear old tragedies will inspire me once more. Now, it is my duty and my wish to take care of myself for the sake of my children, for you and my friends who have proved their affection.
Your tired old daughter,
Rachel.
I embrace all the family circle.
She had been invited by the King of Prussia to visit Berlin in the summer. Although suffering from want of sleep and overtaxed nerves, the demon of unrest that now seemed to have permanently taken possession of her, induced the actress to accept the invitation. In Brussels, on her way to Berlin, she almost completely broke down. Unable to sleep or eat, consumed by hectic fever, a prey to forebodings and hallucinations, she soon became a wreck of her former self. Little could those who saw her on the stage, electrifying her audience by her bursts of passion and superhuman energy, have known her for the same creature who, breathless and exhausted, lay fainting in the arms of her sister and her maid, and, when the representation was over, had to be carried to the carriage, to return to a sleepless bed, and to hours spent next day on the sofa, in a state of prostration and weakness.
"The public, the footlights, Father Corneille," she wrote, "even my dress, impart a fictitious strength which enables me to act my part. That done, I am again powerless, and unable to think or speak until the next performance." Conquering her fatigue, however, she continued her journey, and the following letter, giving an account of her reception, shows how, in the midst of great physical suffering, adulation and success could stimulate her into a semblance of good spirits and life:—
My dear Historian,
Your daily correspondent thinks himself a Talleyrand, but cannot really boast of ordinary common sense. What he may have told you and you may have told him I know not. You are both demented, I think! This is my preface.
Now let us blow the trumpet of history, and attention! True and exact history of the apparition of a wandering tragedian at Berlin, after visiting a thousand other places. Your correspondent declares that on the 12th I gave Adrienne Lecouvreur in the presence of kings and queens. Untrue! Know that this representation, which was to have taken place at the new palace at Potsdam, was adjourned in consequence of the great heat. The public thought neither Adrienne nor Rachel refreshing enough. First of Talleyrand's blunders. Secondly: The Emperor of Russia never saw me act, and could only judge of me in recitation. Third error of said correspondent (not worth his pay): On the subject of his Excellency, Count Redern, Chamberlain of the King of Prussia, who has been, in all my negotiations with the Court, courtesy and kindness itself, to the stage and my fragile person (ma maigrelette personne) most useful; but there is not a word of truth in the statement that he has arranged my future engagement at St. Petersburg. Attrape, petit Talleyrand!
Now, then, for the plain, unvarnished tale as it really took place. How much will you pay me the column or the line? On the 8th July I gave my first representation of Les Horaces at the new palace of Potsdam mentioned above. A sumptuous repast had been prepared for me on my arrival at the palace, and, thinking to show honour to my artistic majesty, they had laid for me and my special attendants a separate table, while my confidants, pages, and lower order of traitors and heroes, were to sup in another room with another menu. I remonstrated loudly, and, I am told, in eloquent terms, declaring that a good general, on the eve of a great battle, ought to mess with his soldiers, as the representation was to take place late in the evening. As soon as I had dined, a royal carriage was placed at the disposal of little Rachel, who certainly was treated with royal honours, and His Majesty's reader accompanied me in a charming excursion round the magnificent Château of Sans Souci (happy château!).
She goes on to relate the successes of the evening, the compliments of the Empress of Russia and the King of Prussia, who, approaching, stammered in bad French, "Vraiment, Mademoiselle, je suis tout bouleversé par votre faute!" "I answered little civilities, that came much more easily to me than formerly with the Queen of England. While I was talking with her, I could not help thinking of the fogs of her river Thames."
Describing a fête champêtre, attended only by the royal families of Russia and Prussia, she says:—"It took place in the open air, on the charming Island of Peacocks, surrounded by a pretty miniature river, actually boasting a name—Havel, if I remember accurately—which forms a playground for troops of swans, white as swans proverbially are."
In front of this sylvan background she recited various portions of Adrienne and Phèdre, amid much applause from Imperial and Royal hands, the Emperor of Russia informing her she was still greater than her reputation; and when she wished to rise to speak to him^ he begged her to remain seated. On her respectfully insisting, he took both her hands and gently made her sit down again, saying, "I beg you not to rise, Mademoiselle; if you do, I will retire."
These civilities were accompanied by an invitation to Petersburg, and a substantial testimonial in the shape of two magnificent opals surrounded with diamonds, while the King of Prussia, through Count Redern, sent her 20,000 francs, and placed the opera-house at Berlin at her disposal for six nights. She wrote:—
It needs a strong head to stand this adulation, the compliments, praise, bouquets. All the wonderful titles and names of these princes, dukes, and great personages who begged to be presented to me are enough to fill the lives of most artists. Never did Talma or Mars, my glorious predecessors, enjoy such an experience.
*****
I will leave it to your discretion [she says at the end of the letter] to decide what you will publish of this long story concerning ce pauvre petit bout de tragédienne. The public call Rachel and her friends Rachow. Please decide how much ought to be known of these incomparable days by my contemporaries, or if the account of them ought only to be transmitted to posterity.
Poor Rachel! had she only known how little posterity would have troubled their heads or cared to know about "those incomparable days"! It is only by her own sprightly and amusing letter that we hear about them now; while she, the great tragedian, in spite of her crowd of admirers, with emperors and kings to do her honour, has become but a memory and a name.
The invitation of the Emperor of Russia was remembered and acted upon the following year. This visit was the summit of earthly splendour and success to which Rachel was to attain. It reads like a fairy tale, with its princes and palaces, and jewels, and sunshine; but we must tell it in her own words. The first letter is written to her mother from Warsaw:—
What weather! What a delightful journey! Not a drop of rain, not a moment cold enough to necessitate the closing of the carriage-window. Everywhere I am recognised and treated with respectful courtesy. I like Polish cooking, it reminds me of our Jewish stews. You know the fatigue I went through in Paris the last seven or eight weeks. I have slept so well in the little bed of the railway carriage, that I am quite rested. I have heard so much about Poland, its greatness and its fall! and, also, I think I am half a Pole in heart through my little Alexander. My attention was riveted on everything I saw on my way from the station to the hotel. I listen to every word said around me; and with all my heart I pity this brave people, deprived of the greatest blessing, its liberty.
She wrote to her sister Sarah, from St. Petersburg, one of her amusing letters:—
To sum up all, I was invited the other day to a grand banquet given in my honour at the Imperial Palace. A fact, O daughter of Papa and Mama Félix! . . . . It took place yesterday. What splendour! Behold! at my arrival at the palace, great footmen powdered and covered with gold lace, as in Paris, awaited my arrival, and escorted me up-stairs. One took my cloak, another went in front and announced me, and I entered a drawing-room gilded from floor to ceiling, the occupants of which seemed to me to rush forward to greet me. One of the Grand Dukes, a brother of the Emperor, conducted me to the dinner-table. An immense table, raised upon a dais, but not laid for many guests, only thirty; but what a select company! The Imperial family, the Grand Dukes, the little dukes and archdukes—all the dukes, in short, of all calibres. All this tra-la-la of princes and princesses, curious and attentive, never took their eyes off me for a moment, watching my every movement, every smile, and listening to every word I spoke. You must not think I was embarrassed; not the least in the world! My self-possession never forsook me for a moment until the middle of the repast, which, by the way, was very good; but everyone seemed more occupied with watching me than eating their dinner. At that moment the "toasts" in my honour began, and the scene that took place was a most extraordinary one. The young archdukes, to get a better view of me, rose, mounted on their chairs, and even put their feet upon the table—I was going to say into the plates! No one seemed astonished. Evidently there is still a great deal of the savage in the princes of this country. They shouted, cried "Bravo!" and called upon me to recite something. To reply to toasts by a tragic tirade was, indeed, strange; but I was equal to the occasion. I rose, pushed back my chair, assumed the most tragic air of my repertory, and rushed into the great scene In Phèdre. A death-like silence came over the company: you could have heard a fly, were there any in this country. They all listened religiously, bent forward towards me with gestures of profound admiration. Then, when I had come to an end, there was a fresh outbreak of cries of "Bravo!" clink of glasses and renewed toasts, to such an extent that I remained a moment quite overcome. Soon, however, the excitement took possession of me, the fumes of the wine, the scent of the flowers, all this enthusiasm, which certainly flattered my vanity, got into my head. I again rose, and began to sing, or rather declaim, the Russian National Hymn. On this it was no longer enthusiasm, but frenzy. They crowded round me, they pressed my hands, they thanked me. I was the greatest tragedian of all times past and future. Thus they went on for a good quarter of an hour.
But the best things come to an end at last; the hour struck when I must take my leave. I accomplished this with the same queenly dignity as when I arrived, conducted to the great staircase by the same Grand Duke, who, although gallant and attentive, never forgot his punctilious politeness. Then appeared the splendid powdered footmen, one of whom carried my cloak; I put it on and was escorted by them to my carriage, which was surrounded by other footmen carrying torches to light me on my way.
She wrote to her mother describing her benefit a few days later, telling her it was impossible to count the number of bouquets showered on her, and that she thinks she remembers having been recalled "seven hundred thousand times." The Empress gave her a splendid pair of ear-rings; several of the box and stall holders joined together to make her an offering of a wonderful diamond and ruby bracelet. The Grand Duchess Hélène sent her a magnificent Indian shawl, "Ah! Madame, ma mère," she wrote, "comme ce châle-la fera bien sur vos épaules!" The receipts on the evening of her "benefit" amounted to more than twenty thousand francs. She gave fifteen thousand to be divided amongst the theatrical people and the poor. This, and acting on several occasions for charity, made her immensely popular. She was overwhelmed with invitations to the best houses of the exclusive circles of St. Petersburg society, and the hotel where she was stopping was besieged with visitors; but, she concluded,—
It is time to put an end to all this. I wish to reserve all my energy to finish my six months at the Comédie Française. Moscow will be very brilliant; we shall become really too rich. They want me to return here next winter, but I promise nothing, although I will never re-enter the Comédie Française, were they to give me a hundred thousand francs for six months; and still I feel that it will be a sad wrench to separate from that dear little public who for sixteen years have been so good to me. I embrace you tenderly, also my father, my darling children, and my dear sisters.
It was not only on but also off the stage that Rachel enjoyed so great a success in St. Petersburg. The young nobles were all at her feet. At a dinner that was given her by a number of officers, they were discussing the chances of war between France and Russia.
"We will not say good-bye, but au revoir, Mademoiselle," said one of her hosts. "We hope soon to applaud you in the capital of France, and to drink your health in its excellent wines."
"I am afraid Monsieur," was the reply, "that France will not be rich enough to afford champagne to all her prisoners."
Rachel must have been amongst the last who crossed the frontier before war was declared between the two nations It is said that she brought back 300,000 francs for her own share, and that Raphael's profits as manager amounted to 100,000 francs.
What a grim tragedy it is, not without its instructive lesson to us who look on, that Rachel should have touched the highest point of her material success in these two years, 1852 and 1853, and the lowest of her artistic career. She had not been true to her genius, and her genius was forsaking her. Corneille and Racine, as she said herself, inspired her no more. She returned to Paris to act Latours St. Ybar's monstrous and detestable tragedy of Rosemonde, in which, without any regard to proportion or sequence, every horror and crime were concentrated into one act. She had wandered far from Pauline, Corneille, and Hermione, when she accepted such parts. She was a daughter of Corneille no more. Her refusal in this year of Legouvé's Medea and acceptance of St. Ybar's Rosemonde, shows how far she had already dulled her artistic perception. Her absence of a year had not only displeased the public, but rendered them indifferent, and they let her act to an empty house. An epigram that appeared the day after tells the story of the change more pointedly than pages of description:—
Pourquoi donc nomme-t-on ce drame Rosemonde?
Je n'y vois plus de rose et n'y vois pas de monde.
None knew better than Rachel the utter failure she had made. Like all great artists, she was always in direct communication with her audience, not a murmur or a movement escaped her. Like a delicately-strung instrument, feeling every breath of approval or displeasure, if her audience were less enthusiastic, less favourably disposed towards her, she understood it at once, and, by calling to her aid the wonderful resources of her energy and passion, had hitherto, when by long absences and grasping demands she had alienated their affections, conquered their ill-humour, and won them back to their allegiance. Now the syren was powerless; the charm was broken. Applause was given, but it was mechanical and cold. She entered her loge, overwhelmed with disappointment and despair. Jules Janin, who was present, describes the scene. Cowering in a corner of the green-room that was connected with some of the greatest triumphs of her career, she suddenly broke down, tears filled her eyes; and when an incautious friend tried to console her, she sobbed aloud, and, passionately tearing open her dress, said, "See! see how I am wasting away. It is a dying woman who weeps."
The shadow of death had indeed fallen on her. The following celebrated letter, written in 1855 to Émile de Girardin, shows how surely she felt the advances of the disease that killed her:—
Houssaye tells me that it was he who gave you the little Louis Quinze watch that you have arranged so nicely by changing the glass through which you could see the entrails of the beast, and putting in an enamel with a baked likeness of your humble servant. I think, and so does Sarah, the lower part of the face a little long. But enamels, or rather "emaux" for there are "maux" everywhere, are not to be changed once they have been through the fire. It is only a thing to be worn after my death. I am so "to pieces," I don't think that is far off now. If Madame de Girardin would write the rôle of an historical consumptive patient, supposing there is one to be found, I think I could act it to draw tears, for I would weep myself. It is all very well to tell me I am only suffering from nerves. I feel there is something wrong. We were speaking of the watch; it is as if you had turned the key too hard—it goes "crac." I often feel something going "crac' in me when I wind myself up to play. The day before yesterday, in Les Horaces, when giving Maubant his cue, I felt the "crac." Yes, my friend, I was breaking to pieces. This is between ourselves, because of my mother and the little ones.
Always superstitious, she was now under the influence of the manifold fancies and tremors of disordered health and overtaxed nerves. She could not sleep, and saw visions. Her maid Rose related how one night she called her, and told her a long white figure had entered her room, and, on her asking who she was, the figure had thrown off her veil and revealed the face of a skeleton. Another time she declared Corneille had appeared to her, with a frown on his face, as though reproaching her for her disloyalty to the allegiance she had sworn to him in her youth. At a supper at Victor Hugo's some months before, Rachel had discovered they were thirteen at table; she now frequently recurred with terror to the misfortunes that had pursued each of the guests. Victor Hugo and his wife in exile, Madame de Girardin dead, Pradier gone, Alfred de Musset gone, Count D'Orsay dead, Rebecca dead. "I alone am left, and that will not be for long."
There is little doubt that several times during her career Rachel inclined toward Catholicism. The splendour and pomp of the ceremonial made a deep impression on her excitable nature, and there were not wanting many who were interested in her conversion. It was an endless subject of jest and speculation in the Paris press of the time. In 1846 it was affirmed positively by one authority that she had been seen to repeat the "Belief" with clasped hands, and a rosary by her side. The sponsors were stated, the hour, the church, the officiating minister, "while her godfather (Count Walewski) was declared to have given her a christening gift of diamonds to the amount of 50,000 francs. The following covert sneer was made at the tragedian's expense at the end of this tissue of romance: "Jean Jacques Rousseau became a convert for the sum of three francs."
She related once to some of her theatrical comrades the story of the Archbishop at Madame Recamier's. "All reste, je ne mourrai pas sans être Chrétienne," added the actress with a sigh. "For whose benefit, Madam, will this extraordinary peformance be given?" asked M. Roussel, one of the actors. The only answer he received was one of those looks for which Rachel was celebrated, and never again was M. Roussel engaged as a member of her "troupe."
The exhortations of her family, all staunch Jews, did a great deal to keep her loyal to the religion of her fathers. When in Rome, Rebecca, remarking the profound impression made on her sister by the services of the church, adjured her solemnly not to allow herself to be led away by the flattery and persuasions of those interested in her conversion, and there is little doubt that the young girl was a potent influence in preventing her change of faith. We already know that, when realising Rebecca's illness at the last to be hopeless, like all superstitious people, she sought for some cause to account for the affliction that had fallen on her, and remembering the rosary blessed by the Pope, which she had worn round her arm as a bracelet ever since the visit to Rome, she tore it from her wrist and dashed it to the ground.
Rachel went to Egypt, as a forlorn hope, a few months before her death. She had sent directions for the sale of her furniture, and of the small hotel in which she had resided. The whole world crowded to see the wonderful house of which they had heard so much, and the following account, given by an Englishman, of the auction of her goods, contains an allusion to the rosary, and shows the strange mixture of inconsistency that reigned in her surroundings as in her opinions and convictions:—
Rather annoyed by the clamorous remarks and somewhat indecorous curiosity of my fellow sightseers, I let the string of visitors proceed up-stairs to the rooms upon the second floor, before I made my way into a little dark hole leading out of the drawing-room, which I had heard my noisy predecessors dignify by the high-sounding title of the "Boudoir Chinois." It was an absolute hole, and so pitch dark that I was for some minutes in it before my eyes were able to distinguish a Chinese paper, with birds and flowers upon it, and one or two little brackets supporting Chinese pots, which stood in the angles of the walls, and in virtue of which I suppose the room obtained its name. I was just preparing to go up-stairs, when a bust in white marble, which stood upon the chimney-piece, attracted my attention; the head was of a young and handsome man, with a shortish beard divided into two points, and round the neck there hung a rosary—forgotten, like so many other things, in the distress of that departure. I was greatly struck by this detail, and waited impatiently for the return of the concierge, whom I heard conveying the other party to the door. At last he came, and, anxious to ascertain on which of her adorers poor Rachel had left this singular necklace hanging, I immediately inquired, De qui est ce buste?"
"C'est de Canova," was the reply.
"Mais de qui est-ce le portrait?" I persisted, under the impression that the man did not know what he was speaking about.
"C'est le portrait du Christ."
I left the house bewildered with the confusion of ideas created by the curious assemblage of heterogeneous objects I had seen there, and strangely moved by the remembrance of that image of Our Blessed Lord in Rachel's Chinese boudoir with the poor dying Jewess's rosary hung about His neck.
Rachel herself, in a letter written on her return from Egypt, full of the playful fun of her more brilliant years of health and happiness, dispels any doubt there may still have existed on the subject of her conversion:—
On the deck of the Clyde, returning from Damietta, one of my travelling companions was the bishop, in partibus, of Byblos, Mgr. Pellerin. He was introduced to me. I thanked him for having caused a mass to be said to St. John, the Patron Saint of Malta, as thanksgiving for my restoration to health; but, obedient to a hint I then gave him, he did not once allude to religion, conversion, or anything of the kind. Until we reached Marseilles, indeed, we principally talked of cookery. He was a prelate fond of eating. One day he asked me suddenly, alluding, no doubt, to my first appearance on the stage—if I had ever eaten any of the famous Gymnase "galette." "I never go there," I answered, "without filling my pockets." There was doubtless a certain amount of confession in this avowal, but it was the first and only time in my life I ever approached Catholicism.