CHAPTER XV
THE COMMUNE AND VICTOR HUGO
I had gone away from Paris eleven days before, and had then left a sad city. The sadness had been painful, the result of a great misfortune which had been unexpected. No one had dared to look up, fearing to be blown upon by the same wind which was blowing the German flag floating over yonder beyond the Arc de Triomphe.
I found Paris now effervescent and grumbling. The walls were placarded with many-colored posters, and all these posters contained the wildest harangues. Fine, noble ideas were side by side with absurd threats. Workmen, on their way to their daily toil, stopped in front of these bills. One would read aloud, and the gathering crowd would begin the reading over again. And all these human beings, who had just been suffering so much through this abominable war, now echoed these appeals for vengeance. They were very much to be excused. This war, alas! had hollowed out under their very feet a gulf of ruin and of mourning. Poverty had brought the women to rags, the privations of the siege had lowered the vitality of the children, and the shame of the defeat had discouraged the men. Well, these appeals to rebellion, these anarchist shouts, these yells from the crowd, shrieking: “Down with thrones! Down with the Republic! Down with the rich! Down with the priests! Down with the Jews! Down with the army! Down with the masters! Down with those who work! Down with everything!”—all these cries roused the benumbed hearers. The Germans, who fomented all these riots, rendered us a real service without intending it. Those who had given themselves up to resignation were stirred out of their torpor. Others, who were asking for “revenge,” found an aliment for their inactive forces. None of them agreed. There were ten or twenty different parties, devouring each other and threatening each other. It was terrible!
But it was the awakening. It was life after death. I had among my friends about ten of the leaders of different opinions, and all of them interested me, the maddest and the wisest of them. I often saw Gambetta at Girardin’s, and it was a joy to me to listen to this admirable man. What he said was so wise, so well balanced and so captivating! This man with his heavy stomach, his short arms, and huge head, had a halo of beauty round him when he spoke. And he was never common, never ordinary. He took snuff, and the gesture of his hand when he brushed away the stray grains, was full of grace, He smoked huge cigars, but could smoke them without annoying anyone. When he was tired of politics and talked literature, it was a rare charm, for he knew everything and quoted poetry admirably. One evening, after dinner at Girardin’s, we played together the whole of the scene in the first act between Hernani and Doña Sol. He was not handsome, like Mounet-Sully, but he was just as admirable in it.
Another time he recited the whole of “Ruth and Boaz.” But I preferred his political discussions to all that, especially when he criticised the speech of some one whose opinion was opposed to his own. The eminent qualities of this politician’s talent were logic and balance, and his seductive force was chauvinism. The obscure death of so great a thinker is a disconcerting challenge flung at human pride.
I sometimes saw Rochefort, whose wit delighted me. I was not at ease with him, though, for he was the cause of the fall of the Empire, and, although I am very Republican, I liked the Emperor, Napoleon III. He had been too trustful, but very unfortunate, and it seemed to me that Rochefort insulted him too much after his misfortune.
I also frequently saw Paul de Rémusat, the favorite of Thiers. He had great refinement of mind, broad ideas, and fascinating manners. Some people accused him of Orleanism. He was a Republican, and a much more advanced Republican than Thiers. Anyone must have known him very little to believe him anything else but what he said he was. Paul de Rémusat had a horror of untruth. He was sensitive, and had a very straightforward, strong character. He took no active part in politics, except in private circles; and his advice always prevailed, even in the Chamber and in the Senate. He would never speak except in the office. The Ministry of Fine Arts was offered to him a hundred times, but he repeatedly refused it. Finally, after my repeated entreaties, he almost allowed himself to be appointed Minister of Fine Arts, but at the last moment he declined, and wrote me a delicious letter, from which I quote a few passages. As the letter was not written for publication, I do not consider that I have a right to give the whole of it, but there seems to be no harm in publishing these few lines:
Allow me, my charming friend, to remain in the shade. I can see better there than in the dazzling brilliancy of men. You are grateful to me, sometimes, for being attentive to the miseries you point out to me. Let me keep my independence. It is more agreeable to me to have the right to relieve everyone than to be obliged to relieve no matter whom.... In matters of art, I have made for myself an ideal of beauty which would naturally seem too partial....
It is a great pity that the scruples of this delicate-minded man did not allow him to accept this office. The reforms that he pointed out to me were, and still are, very necessary ones. However, that cannot be helped.
I also knew, and frequently saw, a great, foolish fellow full of dreams and Utopian follies. His name was Flourens, and he was tall and nice looking. He wanted everyone to be happy and everyone to have money, and he shot down the soldiers without reflecting that he was commencing by making one or more of them unhappy. Reasoning with him was impossible, but he was charming and brave. I saw him two days before his death. He came to see me with a very young girl, who wanted to devote herself to dramatic art. I promised him to help her. Two days later the poor child came to tell me of the heroic death of Flourens. He had refused to surrender, and, stretching out his arms, and shouted to the hesitating soldiers: “Shoot! shoot! I would not have spared you!” And he had then fallen under the bullets.
Another man, not so interesting, whom I looked upon as a dangerous madman, was a certain Raoul Rigault. For a short time he was Prefect of Police. He was very young and very daring, wildly ambitious, determined to do anything to succeed, and it seemed to him more easy to do harm than good. That man was a real danger. He belonged to that band of students who used to send me verses every day. I came across them everywhere, enthusiastic and mad. They had been nicknamed in Paris “the drivelers.” One day he brought me a little one-act play. This piece was so stupid and the verses so insipid that I sent it back to him with a few words, which he no doubt considered unkind, for he bore me malice for them and attempted to avenge himself in the following way. He called on me one day. Mme. Guérard was there when he was shown in.
“Do you know that I am all-powerful at present?” he said.
“In these days there is nothing surprising in that,” I replied.
“I have come to see you, either to make peace or declare war,” he continued.
This way of talking did not suit me, and I sprang up. “As I can foresee that your conditions of peace would not suit me, cher monsieur, I will not give you time to declare war. You are one of the men one would prefer, no matter how spiteful they might be, to have for enemies, rather than for friends.” With these words I rang for my footman to show the Prefect of Police to the door.
Mme. Guérard was in despair. “That man will do us some harm, my dear Sarah, I assure you,” she said.
She was not mistaken in her presentiment, except that she was thinking of me and not of herself, for his first vengeance was taken on her, by sending away one of her relatives, who was a police commissioner, to an inferior and dangerous post. He then began to invent a hundred miseries for me. One day I received an order to go at once to the Prefecture of Police, on urgent business. I took no notice. The following day a mounted courier brought me a note from Sire Raoul Rigault, threatening to send a prison van for me. I took no notice whatever of the threats of this wretch, who was shot shortly after, and died without showing any courage.
Life, however, was no longer possible in Paris, and I decided to go to St. Germain en Laye. I asked my mother to go with me, but she went to Switzerland with my youngest sister.
The departure from Paris was not as easy as I had hoped. Communists, with gun on shoulder, stopped the trains and searched in all our bags and pockets, and even under the cushions of the railway carriages. They were afraid that the passengers were taking newspapers to Versailles. This was monstrously stupid.
The installation at St. Germain was not easy. Nearly all Paris had taken refuge in this little place, which is as pretty as it is dull. From the height of the terrace, where the crowd remained morning and night, we could see the alarming progress of the Commune. On all sides of Paris the flames rose, proud and destructive. The wind often brought us burnt papers, which we took to the Council House. The Seine brought quantities along with it, and the boatmen collected these in sacks. Some days—and these were the most distressing of any—an opaque veil of smoke enveloped Paris. There was no breeze to allow the flames to pierce through. The city then burned stealthily, without our anxious eyes being able to discover what fresh homes these furious madmen had set alight.
I went for a ride every day in the forest. Sometimes I would go as far as Versailles, but this was not without danger. We often came across poor starving wretches in the forest, whom we joyfully helped, but often, too, there were prisoners who had escaped from Poissy, or Communist sharp shooters trying to shoot a Versailles soldier. One day on the way back from Triel, where Captain O’Connor and I had been for a gallop over all the hills, we entered the forest rather late in the evening, as it was a shorter way. A shot wits fired from a neighboring thicket, which made my horse bound so sharply toward the left that I was thrown. Fortunately my horse was quiet. O’Connor hurried to me, but I was already up and ready to mount again. “Just a second,” he said, “I want to search that thicket.” With a short gallop he was soon at the spot, and I then heard a shot, some branches breaking under flying feet, then another shot, not at all like the two former ones, and my friend appeared again with a pistol in his hand.
“It has not touched you?” I asked.
“Yes, the first shot just touched my leg, but the fellow aimed too low. The second he fired haphazard. I fancy, though, that he has a bullet from my revolver in his body.”
“But I heard some one running away,” I said.
“Oh,” replied the elegant captain, chuckling, “he will not go far!”
“Poor wretch!” I murmured.
“Oh, no!” exclaimed O’Connor, “do not pity them, I beg. They kill numbers of our men every day; only yesterday five soldiers from my regiment were found on the Versailles road, not only killed, but mutilated,” and, gnashing his teeth, he finished his sentence with an oath.
I turned toward him rather surprised, but he took no notice. We continued our way, riding as quickly as the obstacles in the forest would allow us. All at once, our horses stopped short, snorting and sniffing. O’Connor took his revolver in his hand, got off and led his horse. A few yards from us there was a man lying on the ground. “That must be my wretch of just now,” said my companion and, bending down over the man, he spoke to him. A moan was the only reply. O’Connor had not seen his man, so he could not have recognized him. He lighted a match, and we saw that this one had no gun. I had dismounted and was trying to raise the unfortunate man’s head, but I withdrew my hand covered with blood. He had opened his eyes and fixed them on O’Connor.
SARAH BERNHARDT IN RIDING HABIT.
“Ah, it’s you, Versailles dog!” he said. “It was you who shot me! I missed you, but—” He tried to pull out the revolver from his belt, but the effort was too great, and his hand fell down inert. O’Connor, on his side, had cocked his revolver, but I placed myself in front of the man and besought him to leave the poor fellow in peace. I could scarcely recognize my friend, for this nice-looking, fair-haired man, so correct, rather a snob, but very charming, seemed to have turned into a brute. Leaning forward toward the unfortunate man, his under jaw advancing, he was muttering under his teeth some inarticulate words; his clenched hand seemed to be grasping his anger, just as one does an anonymous letter, before flinging it away in disgust.
“O’Connor, let this man alone, please!” I said.
He was as gallant a man as he was a good soldier. He gave way and seemed to become aware of the situation again. “Good!;” he said, helping me to mount once more. “When I have taken you back to your hotel, I will come back with some men to pick up this wretch.” Half an hour later we were back home, without having exchanged another word during our ride.
I kept up my friendship with O’Connor, but I could never see him again without thinking of that scene. Suddenly, when he was talking to me, the brutelike mask, under which I had seen him for a second, would fix itself again over his laughing face. Quite recently, in March, 1905, General O’Connor, who was commanding in Algeria, came to see me one evening in my dressing-room at the theater. He told me about his difficulties with some of the great Arab chiefs.
“I fancy,” he said, laughing, “that we shall have to have a brush together.”
The captain’s mask, for me, then fixed itself on the general’s face. I never saw him again, for he died six months afterwards.
We were at last able to go back to Paris. The abominable and shameful peace had been signed, the wretched Commune crushed. Everything was supposed to be in order again. But what blood and ashes! what women in mourning! what ruins!
The bitter odor of smoke was what we inhaled in Paris. All that I touched at home left on my fingers a somewhat greasy and almost imperceptible color. A general uneasiness beset France, and more especially Paris. The theaters, however, opened their doors once more, and that was a general relief.
One morning I received from the Odéon a notice of rehearsal. I shook out my hair, stamped my feet, and sniffed the air like a young horse snorting. The race ground was to be opened for us again. We should be able to gallop afresh through our dreams. The lists were open. The contest was beginning. Life was commencing again. It is truly strange that man’s mind should have made of life a perpetual strife. When there is no longer War there is Battle, for there are a hundred thousand of us for the same object, God has created the earth and man for each other. The earth is vast. What ground there is uncultivated! Miles upon miles, acres upon acres of new land, waiting for arms that will take from its bosom the treasures of inexhaustible nature. And we remain grouped round each other; crowds of famishing people watching other groups, which are also lying in wait.
The Odéon opened its doors to the public, offering them its repertory. Some new pieces were given us to study. One of these, more particularly, had great success. It was André Theuriet’s “Jean-Marie,” and was given in October, 1871. This little one-act play is a veritable masterpiece, and it took its author straight to the Academy. Porel, who played the part of Jean-Marie, had huge success. He was at that time slender, nimble, and full of youthful ardor. He needed a little more poetry, but the joyous laughter of his thirty-two teeth made up in ardor for what was wanting in poetic desire. It was very good, anyhow.
My rôle of the young Breton girl, submissive to the elderly husband forced upon her, and living eternally with the memory of the fiancé who was absent, perhaps dead, was pretty, poetical, and touching through the final sacrifice. There was even a certain grandeur in the end of the piece. It had, I must repeat, an immense success and increased my growing reputation.
I was, however, awaiting the event which was to consecrate me a star. I did not quite know what I was expecting, but I knew that my Messiah had to come. And it was the greatest poet of the last century who was to place on my head the crown of the Elect.
At the end of that year, 1871, we were told, in rather a mysterious and solemn way, that we were going to play a piece of Victor Hugo’s. My mind, at that time of my life, was still closed to great ideas. What with my somewhat cosmopolitan family, their rather snobbish acquaintances and friends, and the acquaintances and friends I had chosen in my independent life as an artiste, I was living in rather a bourgeois atmosphere. I had heard Victor Hugo spoken of ever since my childhood as a rebel and a renegade, and his works, which I had read with passion, did not prevent my judging him with very great severity. And I blush to-day with anger and shame, when I think of all my absurd prejudices, nourished by the imbecile or insincere little court which flattered me. I had a great wish, nevertheless, to play in “Ruy Blas.” The rôle of the queen seemed so charming to me.
I mentioned my wish to Duquesnel, who said he had already thought of it. Jane Essler, an artiste then in vogue, but a trifle vulgar, had great chances, though, against me. She was on very friendly terms with Paul Meurice, Victor Hugo’s intimate friend and adviser. A friend brought Auguste Vacquerie to my house. He was the other friend, and even a relative of the “illustrious master.”
Auguste Vacquerie promised to speak for me to Victor Hugo, and two days later he came again, assuring me that I had every chance in my favor. Paul Meurice himself, a very straightforward man with a delightful mind, had proposed me to the author. Then, too, Geffroy, the admirable artiste taken from the Comédie Française to play “Don Salluste,” had said, it appears, that he could see only one little Queen of Spain worthy to wear the crown, and I was that one. I did not know Geffroy, and I did not know Paul Meurice, and was rather astonished that they should know me.
The reading was to be at Victor Hugo’s the next day at two o’clock. I was very much spoiled and very much praised and flattered, so that I felt hurt at the unceremoniousness of a man who did not condescend to disturb himself, but asked women to go to his house, when there was neutral ground, the theater, for the reading of plays. I told this unheard of thing at five o’clock to my little court, and men and women alike exclaimed: “What! That man who was only the other day an outlaw! That man who has only just been pardoned! That nobody dares to ask the little Idol, the Queen of Hearts, the Fairy of Fairies to inconvenience herself!”
All my little sanctuary was in a tumult, men and women alike could not keep still. “She must not go,” they said. “Write him this ... write him that.” And they were composing impertinent, disdainful letters when Marshal Canrobert was announced. He belonged at that time to my little five o’clock court, and he was soon posted by my turbulent visitors. He was furiously angry at the imbecilities uttered against the great poet.
“You must not go to Victor Hugo’s,” he said to me, “for it seems to me that he has no reason to deviate from the regular customs. But make an excuse of sudden illness—follow my advice, and show the respect for him that we owe to genius.”
I followed my great friend’s counsel and sent the following letter to the poet:
MONSIEUR: The Queen has taken a chill and her Camerara Mayor forbids her to go out. You know better than anyone else the etiquette of this Spanish Court. Pity your Queen, Monsieur.
I sent the letter, and the following is the poet’s reply:
I am your valet, Madame.
VICTOR HUGO.
The next day the play was read on the stage to the artistes. I believe that the reading did not take place, or at least not entirely, at the master’s house.
I then made the acquaintance of the monster. Ah, what a grudge I had for a long time against all those silly people who had prejudiced me!
The monster was charming, so witty and refined, and so gallant, with a gallantry that was an homage and not an insult. He was so good, too, to the humble, and always so gay. He was not, certainly, the ideal of elegance, but there was a moderation in his gestures, a gentleness in his way of speaking, which savored of the old French peer. He was quick at repartee, and his observations were gentle but persistent. He recited poetry badly, but adored hearing it well recited.
He often spoke in verse when he wanted to reprimand an artiste. One day, during a rehearsal, he was trying to convince poor Tallien about his bad elocution. I was bored by the length of the colloquy, and sat down on the table swinging my legs. He understood my impatience and, getting up from the middle of the orchestra, exclaimed:
“Une Reine d’Espagne honnête et respectable
Ne devrait point ainsi s’asseoir sur une table.”
I sprang from the table, slightly embarrassed, and wanted to answer him in rather a piquant or witty way—but I could not find anything to say, and remained there, confused and in a bad temper.
One day when the rehearsal was over an hour earlier than usual, I was waiting, my forehead pressed against the window pane, for the arrival of Mme. Guérard, who was coming to fetch me. I was gazing idly at the footpath opposite, which is bounded by the Luxembourg railings. Victor Hugo had just crossed the road and was about to walk on. An old woman attracted his attention. She had just put a heavy bundle of linen down on the ground and was wiping her forehead, on which were great beads of perspiration.
In spite of the cold, her toothless mouth was half open, as she was panting, and her eyes had an expression of distressing anxiety, as she looked at the wide road she had to cross, with carriages and omnibuses passing each other. Victor Hugo approached her, and after a short conversation, he drew a piece of money from his pocket, handed it to her, then taking off his hat he confided it to her and, with a quick movement and a laughing face, lifted the bundle to his shoulder and crossed the road, followed by the bewildered woman. I rushed downstairs to embrace him for it, but by the time I had reached the passage, jostled against De Chilly, who wanted to stop me, and descended the staircase, Victor Hugo had disappeared. I could see only the old woman’s back, but it seemed to me that she hobbled along now more briskly.
The next day I told the poet that I had witnessed his delicate, good deed. “Oh,” said Paul Maurice, his eyes wet with emotion, “every day that dawns is a day of kindness for him!” I embraced Victor Hugo and we went to the rehearsal.
Oh, those rehearsals of “Ruy Blas”! I shall never forget them, for there was such good grace and charm about everything. When Victor Hugo arrived everything brightened up. His two satellites, Auguste Vacquerie and Paul Maurice, scarcely ever left him, and when the master was absent they kept up the divine fire. Geffroy, severe, sad, and distinguished, often gave me advice. Then, during the intervals of rest, I posed for him in various attitudes, for he was a painter. In the foyer of the Comédie Française there are two pictures representing the members of both sexes for two generations. The pictures are not of very original composition, neither are they of beautiful coloring, but they are faithful likenesses, it appears, and rather happily grouped.
Lafontaine, who was playing Ruy Blas, often had long discussions with the master, in which Victor Hugo never yielded. And I must confess that he was always right. Lafontaine had conviction and self-assurance, but his elocution was very bad for poetry. He had lost his teeth, and they were replaced by a set of false ones. This gave a certain slowness to his delivery, and there was a little odd, clacking sound between his real palate and his artificial rubber palate, which often distracted the ear listening attentively to catch the beauty of the poetry.
As to that poor Tallien, who was playing Don Guritan, he made a hash of it every minute. He had understood his rôle quite wrongly. Victor Hugo explained it to him clearly and intelligently. Tallien was a well-intentioned comedian, a hard worker, always conscientious, but as stupid as a goose. What he did not understand at first, he never understood. It was finished for life. But, as he was straightforward and loyal, he put himself into the hands of the author, and gave himself up then in complete self-abnegation. “That is not as I understood it,” he would say, “but I will do as you tell me.”
He would then rehearse, word by word and gesture by gesture, with the inflexions and movements required. This got on my nerves in the most painful way, and was a cruel blow dealt at the solidarity of my artistic pride. I often took this poor Tallien aside and tried to urge him on to rebellion, but it was all in vain. He was tall, and his arms were too long and his eyes tired, his nose was weary with having grown too long, and it sank over his lips with heartrending dejection. His forehead was covered with thick hair, and his chin seemed to be running away in a hurry from this ill-built face. A great kindliness was diffused all over his being, and this kindliness was just himself. Everyone was therefore infinitely fond of him.
The 26th of January, 1872, was an artistic fête for the Odéon. The Tout-Paris of first nights and all youthful Paris were to meet in the large, solemn, dusty theater. Ah, what a splendid, stirring performance it was! What a triumph for Geffroy, pale, sinister, and severe looking in his black costume as Don Salluste! Mélingue rather disappointed the public as Don César de Bazan, and the public was in the wrong.... The rôle of Don César de Bazan is a treacherously good rôle, which always tempts artistes by the brilliancy of the first act; but the fourth act, which belongs entirely to him, is distressingly heavy and useless. It might be taken out of the piece, just like a periwinkle out of its shell, and the piece would be none the less clear and complete.
This 26th of January rent asunder, though, for me, the thin veil which still made my future hazy, and I felt that I was destined for celebrity. Until that day I had remained the students’ little Fairy. I became then the Elect of the Public.
Breathless, dazed, and yet delighted by my success, I did not know to whom to reply, in the ever-changing stream of men and women admirers. All at once, I saw the crowd separating and forming two lines, and I caught a glimpse of Victor Hugo and Girardin coming toward me. In a second all the stupid ideas I had had about this immense genius flashed across me. I remembered my first interview, when I had been stiff and barely polite to this kind, indulgent man. At that moment, when all my life was opening its wings, I should have liked to cry out to him my repentance, and to tell him of my devout gratitude.
Before I could speak, though, he was down on his knee, and, raising my two hands to his lips, he murmured: “Thank you! Thank you!”
And so it was he who said thank you. He, the great Victor Hugo, whose mind was so fine, whose universal genius filled the world! He, whose generous hands flung pardons like gems to all his insulters. Ah, how small I felt, how ashamed and yet how happy! He then rose, shook the hands that were held out to him, finding for everyone the right word.
He was so handsome that night, with his wide forehead, which seemed to retain the light, his thick, silvery fleece of hair, and his laughing, luminous eyes.
Not daring to fling myself in Victor Hugo’s arms, I fell into Girardin’s, the sure friend of my first steps, and burst into tears. He took me aside in my dressing-room. “You must not let yourself be intoxicated with this great success, now,” he said. “There must be no more risky jumps, now that you are crowned with laurels. You will have to be more yielding, more docile, more sociable.”
“I feel that I shall never be yielding nor docile, my friend,” I answered, looking at him. “I will try to be more sociable, but that is all I can promise. As to my crown, I assure you that in spite of my risky jumps—and I feel that I shall always be making jumps—the crown will not shake off.”
Paul Maurice, who had come up to me, overheard this conversation and reminded me of it on the evening of the first performance of “Angelo,” at the Sarah Bernhardt Theater, on the 7th of February, 1905.