Rachel and some of her fellow-actors — Rachel's true character — Her greediness and spitefulness — Her vanity and her wit — Her powers of fascination — The cost of being fascinated by her — Her manner of levying toll — Some of her victims, Comte DuchÂtel and Dr. VÉron — The story of her guitar — A little transaction between her and M. Fould — Her supposed charity and generosity — Ten tickets for a charity concert — How she made them into twenty — How she could have made them into a hundred — Baron Taylor puzzled — Her manner of giving presents — Beauvallet's precaution with regard to one of her gifts — Alexandre Dumas the younger, wiser or perhaps not so wise in his generation — Rachel as a raconteuse — The story of her dÉbut at the Gymnase — What Rachel would have been as an actor instead of an actress — Her comic genius — Rachel's mother — What became of Rachel's money — Mama FÉlix as a pawnbroker — Rachel's trinkets — Two curious bracelets — Her first appearance before Nicholas I. — A dramatic recital in the open air — Rachel's opinion of the handsomest man in Europe — Rachel and Samson — Her obligations to him — How she repays them — How she goes to Berryer to be coached in the fable of "The Two Pigeons" — An anecdote of Berryer — Rachel's fear of a "warm reception" on the first night of "Adrienne Lecouvreur" — How she averts the danger — Samson as a man and as an actor — Petticoat-revolts at the ComÉdie-FranÇaise — Samson and RÉgnier as buffers — Their different ways of pouring oil upon the troubled waters — Mdlle. Sylvanie Plessy — A parallel between her and Sarah Bernhardt — Samson and RÉgnier's pride in their profession — The different character of that pride — "Apollo with a bad tailor, and who dresses without a looking-glass" — Samson gives a lesson in declamation to a procureur-impÉrial — The secret of RÉgnier's greatness as an actor — A lesson at the Conservatoire — RÉgnier on "make-up" — RÉgnier's opinion of genius on the stage — A mot of Augustine Brohan — Giovanni, the wigmaker of the ComÉdie-FranÇaise — His pride in his profession — M. Ancessy, the musical director, and his three wigs.

There were few authors of my time who came in contact with Rachel without writing about her; there were absolutely none who have represented her in her true character. Either her genius blinded them to her faults, or else they were content to perpetuate the popular belief in her amiability, good nature, generosity, etc. The fact is, that Rachel off the stage was made of very ordinary clay. She had few of the good qualities of her race, and a good many of the bad ones; she was greedy to a degree, and could be very spiteful. All these drawbacks, in the eyes of most of her biographers, were redeemed by her marvellous tragic abilities on the stage, by a wonderful "gift of the gab," by a "happy-go-lucky," "hail-fellow, well-met" manner off the stage to those whom she liked to propitiate. Nevertheless, there were times when she had not a single friend at the ComÉdie-FranÇaise, and though her champions attributed this hostility to jealousy of her great gifts, a moment's consideration would show us that such a feeling could scarcely have influenced the men who to a great extent shared her histrionic triumphs, viz., Beauvallet, RÉgnier, Provost, Samson, and least of all the latter. Still, all these would have willingly kept her out of the ComÉdie-FranÇaise after she had left it in a huff. She was difficult to get on with; her modesty, assumed in everyday life, was a sham, for woe to the host who, deceived by it, did not at once make her the queen of the entertainment! And, in reality, nothing in her warranted such a temporary elevation. She was witty in her way and after her kind—that is, she had the quick-wittedness of the French woman who is not an absolute fool, and who has for many years rubbed elbows with everything distinguished in art and literature. Notwithstanding this intimacy, I am doubtful whether she had ever read, let alone appreciated, any of the masterpieces by the writers of her own days that did not directly bear upon her profession. I exclude fiction—I mean narrative fiction, and especially that of a sensational kind, of which she was probably as fond as the meanest concierge and most romantic milliner-girl.

Nevertheless, provided one did not attempt to analyze it, the power of fascinating the coldest interlocutor was there. To their honor be it said, her contemporaries, especially the men, rarely made such an attempt at analysis. They applauded all she said (off and on the stage), they tolerated all she did, albeit that they paid the cost of many of her so-called "amiable tricks," which were mainly so many instances of greed and nothing else. One evening she was dining at Comte DuchÂtel's, the minister of Louis-Philippe. The table was positively laden with flowers, but Rachel did not care much about them; what she wanted was the splendid silver centre-piece. But she was too clever to unmask her batteries at once, so she began by admiring the contents, then at last she came to the principal point. The host was either in one of his generous or foolish moods, and made her a present of it there and then. Rachel knew, though, that even with a grand seigneur like Comte DuchÂtel, there are "les lendemains de l'enthousiasme," especially when he is a married man, whose wife does not willingly submit to have her home stripped of its art-treasures. The tragÉdienne came in a hackney cab; the comte offered to send her back in his carriage. She struck the iron while it was hot. "Yes, that will do admirably; there will be no fear of my being robbed of your present, which I had better take with me." "Perfectly, mademoiselle," replied the comte; "but you will send me back my carriage, won't you?"

Dr. VÉron was despoiled with even less ceremony. Having taken a fancy to some silver saucers or cups in which the proprietor of the Constitutionnel offered ices to his visitors, she began by pocketing one, and never rested until she had the whole of the set. In short, everything was fish to her net. She made her friends give her bibelots and knickknacks of no particular value, to which she attached some particular legend—absolute inventions for the greatest part—in order to sell them for a thousand times their original cost. One day she noticed a guitar at the studio of one of her familiars. "Give me that guitar; people will think it is the one with which I earned my living on the Place Royale and on the Place de la Bastille." And as such it was sold by her to M. Achille Fould for a thousand louis. The great financier nearly fell into a fit when the truth was told to him at Rachel's death; he, in his turn, having wanted to "do a bit of business." In this instance no Christian suffered, because buyer and vendor belonged to the same race. Of course the panegyrists of Rachel, when the story came to their ears, maintained that the thousand louis were employed for some charitable purpose, without, however, revealing the particular quarter whither they went; but those who judged Rachel dispassionately could not even aver that her charity began at home, because, though she never ceased complaining of her brother's and her sisters' extravagance, both brother and sisters could have told very curious tales about the difficulty of making her loosen her purse-strings for even the smallest sums. As for Rachel's doing good by stealth and blushing to find it fame, it was all so much fudge. Contrary to the majority of her fellow-professionals, in the past as well as the present, she even grudged her services for a concert or a performance in aid of a deserving object, although she was not above swelling her own hoard by such entertainments. The following instance, for the absolute truth of which I can vouch, is a proof of what I say. One day the celebrated Baron Taylor, who had been the director of the ComÉdie-FranÇaise, came to solicit her aid for a charity concert; I am not certain of the object, but believe it was in aid of the Christians in Persia or China. The tickets were to be a hundred francs each. Sontag, Alboni, Rosine Stoltz, Mario, Lablache, Vieuxtemps, and I do not know how many more celebrated artists had promised their services.

It was in 1850 when M. ArsÈne Houssaye was her director, and I am particular about giving the year, because Rachel refused on the pretext that her director would never give her leave to appear on any other stage. Now, it so happened that no woman ever had a more devoted friend and chivalrous champion than Rachel had in ArsÈne Houssaye. His friendship for her was simply idolatry, and I verily believe that if she had asked him to stand on his head to please her, he would have done so, at the risk of making himself supremely ridiculous—he who feared ridicule above everything, who was one of the most sensible men of his time, who was and is the incarnation of good-nature, to whom no one in distress or difficulties ever appealed in vain.

Baron Taylor argued all this, but Rachel remained inflexible. "I am very sorry," he said at last, rising to go, "because I am positive that your name on the bill would have made a difference of several thousand francs in the receipts."

"Oh, if you only want my name," was the answer, "you may have it; you can make an apology at the eleventh hour for my absence on the score of sudden indisposition—the public at charity concerts are used to that sort of thing; besides, you will have so many celebrities that it will make very little difference. By-the-by"—as he was at the door—"I think my name is worth ten or twenty tickets." Taylor knew Rachel too well to be in the least surprised at the demand, and left ten tickets on the mantelpiece.

That same afternoon he met Count Walewski, and as a matter of course asked him to take some tickets.

"Very sorry, cher baron, but I have got ten already. You see, poor Rachel did not know very well how to get rid of the two hundred you burdened her with as a lady patroness; so she wanted me to have twenty, but I settled the matter with ten. As it is, it cost me a thousand francs." Taylor did not say another word—he probably could not; he was struck dumb with astonishment at the quickness with which Rachel had converted the tickets into money. But what puzzled him still more was the fact of her having offered Walewski double the quantity of tickets he had given her. Where had she got the others from? He was coming to the conclusion that she had offered twenty in order to place ten, when he ran against Comte Le Hon, the husband of the celebrated Mdlle. Musselmans, the erstwhile Belgian ambassador to the court of Louis-Philippe, who averred frankly that he was the father of a family, though he had no children of his own.

Taylor thought he would try another chance, and was met with the reply, "Cher baron, I am very sorry, but I have just taken five tickets from Mdlle. Rachel. It appears that she is a lady patroness, and that they burdened her with two hundred; fortunately, she told me, people were exceedingly anxious to get them, and these were the last five."

"Then she had two hundred tickets after all," said Baron Taylor to himself, making up his mind to find out who had been before him with Rachel. But no one had been before him. The five tickets sold to Comte Le Hon were five of the ten she had sold to Comte Walewski. When the latter had paid her, she made him give her five tickets for herself and family, or rather for her four sisters and herself. Of Comte Le Hon she only took toll of one, which, wonderful to relate, she did not sell. This was Rachel's way of bestirring herself in the cause of charity.

"Look at the presents she made to every one," say the panegyrists. They forget to mention that an hour afterwards she regretted her generosity, and from that moment she never left off scheming how to get the thing back. Every one knew this. Beauvallet, to whom she gave a magnificent sword one day, instead of thanking her, said, "I'll have a chain put to it, mademoiselle, so as to fasten it to the wall of my dressing-room. In that way I shall be sure that it will not disappear during my absence." Alexandre Dumas the younger, to whom she made a present of a ring, bowed low and placed it back on her finger at once. "Allow me to present it to you in my turn, mademoiselle, so as to prevent you asking for it." She did not say nay, but carried the matter with one of her fascinating smiles. "It is most natural to take back what one has given, because what one has given was dear to us," she replied.

Between '46 and '53 I saw a great deal of Rachel, generally in the green-room of the ComÉdie-FranÇaise, which was by no means the comfortable or beautiful apartment people imagine, albeit that even in those days the ComÉdie had a collection of interesting pictures, busts, and statues worthy of being housed in a small museum. The chief ornament of the room was a large glass between the two windows, but if the apartment had been as bare as a barn, the conversation of Rachel would have been sufficient to make one forget all about its want of decoration; for, with the exception of the elder Dumas, I have never met any one, either man or woman, who exercised the personal charm she did. I have been told since that Bismarck has the same gift. I was never sufficiently intimate with the great statesman to be able to judge, having only met him three or four times, and under conditions that did not admit of fairly testing his powers in that respect, but I have an idea that the charm of both lay in their utter indifference to the effect produced, or else in their absolute confidence of the result of their simplicity of diction. Rachel's art of telling a story, if art it was, reminded one of that of the chroniclers of the Niebelungen; for notwithstanding her familiarity with Racine and Corneille, her vocabulary was exceedingly limited, and her syntax, if not her grammar, off the stage, not always free from reproach.

I do not pretend, after the lapse of so many years, to give these stories in her own language, or all of them; there are a few, however, worth the telling, apart from the fascination with which she invested them.

One evening she said to me, "Do you know Poirson?"

I had known Poirson when he was director of the Gymnase. He afterwards always invited me to his soirÉes, one of which, curiously enough, was given on the Sunday before the Revolution of '48. So I said, "Yes, I know Poirson."

"Has he ever told you why he did not re-engage me?"

"Never."

"I'll tell you. People said it was because I did not succeed in 'La VendÉenne' of Paul Duport; but that was not the cause. It was something much more ridiculous; and now that I come to think of it, I am not sure that I ought to tell you, for you are an Englishman, and you will be shocked." I was not shocked, I was simply convulsed with laughter, for Rachel, not content with telling the story, got up, and, gradually drawing to the middle of the room, enacted it. It was one of those ludicrous incidents that happen sometimes on the stage, which no amount of foresight on the part of the most skilful and conscientious manager or actor can prevent, but which almost invariably ruins the greatest masterpiece. There were about eight or nine actors and actresses in the room—RÉgnier, Samson, Beauvallet, etc. It was probably the most critical audience in Europe, but every one shook, and Mdlle. AnaÏs Aubert went into a dead faint. RÉgnier often averred that if Rachel had been a man, she would have been the greatest comic actor that ever lived; and it is not generally known that she once played Dorine in "Tartuffe," and set the whole of the house into a perfect roar; but on that evening I became convinced that Rachel, in addition to her tragic gifts, was the spirit of Aristophanesque comedy personified. I am afraid, however, that I cannot tell the story, or even hint at it, beyond mentioning that Poirson is reported to have said that Rachel did not want a stage-manager, but a nurse to take care of her. The criticism was a cruel one, though justified by appearances. It was Mama FÉlix, and not her daughter, who was to blame. The child—she was scarcely more than that—had hurt herself severely, and instead of keeping her at home, she sent her to the theatre, "poulticed all over," as Rachel expressed it afterwards.

Mama FÉlix was the only one who was a match for her famous daughter in money matters. What the latter did with the enormous sums of money she earned has always been a mystery. As I have already said, they were not spent in charity. Nowadays, whatever other theatres may do, the ComÉdie-FranÇaise dresses its pensionnaires as well as its sociÉtaires from head to foot; it pays the bootmaker's as well as the wigmaker's bill, and the laundress's also. Speaking of the beginning of her career, which coincided with the end of Rachel's, Madeleine Brohan, whose language was often more forcible than elegant, remarked, "Dans ma jeunesse, on nous mettait toutes nues sur la scÈne; nous Étions assez jolies pour cela." But Rachel's costumes varied so little throughout her career as to have required but a small outlay on her part. Nor could her ordinary dresses and furniture, which I happened to see in April, 1858, when they were sold by public auction at her apartments in the Place Royale, have made a considerable inroad on her earnings. The furniture was commonplace to a degree; such pictures and knickknacks as were of value had been given to her, or acquired in the manner I have already described; the laces and trinkets were, undoubtedly, not purchased with her own money. It is said that her brother Raphael was a spendthrift. He may have been, but he did not spend his celebrated sister's money; of that I feel certain. Then what became of it? I am inclined to think that Mdlle. Rachel dabbled considerably in stocks, and that, notwithstanding her shrewdness and sources of information, she was the victim of people cleverer than she was. At any rate, one thing is certain—she was nearly always hard up; and, after having exhausted the good will of all her male acquaintances and friends, compelled to appeal to her mother, who had made a considerable hoard for her other four sisters, and perhaps also for her scapegrace son; for, curiously enough, with Mama FÉlix every one of her children was a goddess or god, except the goddess. This want of appreciation on the mother's part reminds me of a story told to me by Meissonier. His granddaughter, on her fifteenth or sixteenth birthday, had a very nice fan given to her. The sticks were exquisitely carved in ivory, and must have cost a pretty tidy sum, but the fan itself, of black gauze, was absolutely plain. The donor probably intended the grandfather's art to enhance the value of the present, and the latter was about to do so, when the young lady stopped him with the cry, "VoilÀ qu'il va me gÂter mon Éventail avec ses mannequins!" The irony of non-appreciation by one's nearest and dearest could no further go.

Mama FÉlix, then, was very close-fisted, and would never lend her daughter any money, except on very good security, namely, on her jewels. In addition to this, she made her sign an undertaking that if not redeemed at a certain date they would be forfeited; and forfeited they were, if the loan and interest were not forthcoming at the stipulated time, notwithstanding the ravings of Rachel. This would probably account for the comparatively small quantity of valuable jewelery found after her death.

Some of the ornaments I have seen her wear had an artistic value utterly apart from their cost, others were so commonplace and such evident imitations as to have been declined by the merest grisette. One day I noticed round her wrist a peculiar bracelet. It was composed of a great number of rings, some almost priceless, others less valuable but still very artistic, others again possessing no value whatsoever, either artistically or otherwise. I asked her to take it off and found it to be very heavy, so heavy that I remarked upon it. "Yes," she replied, "I cannot wear two of the same weight, so I am obliged to wear the other in my pocket." And out came the second, composed of nearly double the number of rings of the first. I was wondering where all those rings came from, but I refrained from asking questions. I was enabled to form my own conclusions a little while afterwards, in the following way:

While we were still admiring the bracelet, Rachel took from her finger a plain gold hoop, in the centre of which was an imperial eagle of the same metal. "This was given to me by Prince Louis NapolÉon," she said, "on the occasion of my last journey to London. He told me that it was a souvenir from his mother, and that he would not have parted with it to any one else but me."

I cannot remember the exact date of this conversation, but it must have been shortly after the Revolution, when the future emperor had just landed in France. About three or four weeks afterwards we were talking to Augustine Brohan, who had just returned from London, where she had fulfilled an engagement of one or two months. Rachel was not there that night, but some one asked her if she had seen Prince Louis in London. "Yes," she replied; "he was going away, and he gave me a present before he went." Thereupon she took from her finger a ring exactly like that of Rachel's. "He told me it was a souvenir from his mother, and that he would not have parted with it to any one but me."

We looked at one another and smiled. The prince had evidently a jeweller who manufactured "souvenirs from his mother" by the dozen, and which he, the prince, distributed at that time, "in remembrance of certain happy hours." The multiplicity of the rings on Rachel's wrist was no longer a puzzle to me. I was thinking of the story in the "Arabian Nights," where the lady with the ninety-eight rings bewitches the Sultans Shariar and Shahzenan, in spite of the jealousy and watchfulness of the monster to whom she belongs, and so makes the hundred complete.

Among the many stories Rachel told me there is one not generally known—that of her first appearance before Nicholas I. Though she was very enthusiastically received in London, and though she always spoke gratefully of the many acts of kindness shown her there, I am inclined to think that she felt hurt at the want of cordiality on the part of the English aristocracy when they invited her to recite at their entertainments. This may be a mere surmise of mine; I have no better grounds for it than an expression of hers one day when we were discussing London society. "Oui, les Anglais, ils sont trÈs aimables, mais ils paraissent avoir peur des artistes, comme des bÊtes sauvages, car ils vous parquent comme elles au Jardin des Plantes." I found out afterwards that it was a kind of grudge she bore the English for having invariably improvised a platform or enclosure by means of silken ropes. Certain is it that, beyond a few casual remarks at long intervals upon London, she seemed reluctant to discuss the subject with me. Not so with regard to Potsdam after her return whence in August, '51. In the beginning of July of that year she told me that she had a special engagement to appear before the court on the 13th of that month. I did not see her until a few weeks after she came back, and then she gave me a full account of the affair. I repeat, after the lapse of so many years, I cannot reproduce her own words, and I could not, even half an hour after her narrative, have reproduced the manner of her telling it; but I can vouch for the correctness of the facts.

"About six o'clock, Raphael [her brother], who was to give me my cues, and I arrived at Potsdam, where we were met by Schneider, who had made the engagement with me. You know, perhaps, that Schneider had been an actor himself, that afterwards he had been promoted to the directorship of the Royal Opera House, and that now he is the private reader to the king, with the title of privy or aulic councillor.

"Schneider is a very nice man, and I have never heard a German speak our language so perfectly. Perhaps it was as well, because I dread to contemplate what would have been the effect upon my nerves and ears of lamentations in Teutonized French."

"Why lamentations?"? I asked.

"Ah, nous voilÀ!" she replied. "You remember I was in mourning. The moment I stepped out of the carriage, he exclaimed, 'But you are all in black, mademoiselle.' 'Of course I am,' I said, 'seeing that I am in mourning.' 'Great Heaven! what am I to do? Black is not admitted at court on such occasions.' I believe it was the birthday of the Czarina, but of course I was not bound to know that.

"There was no time to return to Berlin, and least of all to get a dress from there, so Raphael and he put their heads together; the result of which conference was my being bundled rather than handed into a carriage, which drove off at full speed to the ChÂteau de Glinicke. I could scarcely catch a glimpse of the country around Potsdam, which seemed to me very lovely.

"When we got to Glinicke, which belongs to Prince Charles, I was handed over to some of the ladies-in-waiting of the princess. Handed over is the only word, because I felt more like a prisoner than anything else, and they tried to make 'little Rachel' presentable according to their lights. One of them, after eyeing me critically, suggested my wearing a dress of hers. In length it would have done very well, only I happen to be one of the lean kine, and she decidedly was not, so that idea had to be abandoned. They may be very worthy women, these German ladies, but their inventiveness with regard to dress is absolutely nil. When the idea suggested by the first lady turned out to be impracticable, they were À bout de ressources. You may gather from this, mon ami, that the beginning and the end of their stratÉgie de la toilette are not far apart. There was one thing that consoled me for this sudden exhaustion of their limited ingenuity. Between the half-dozen—for they were half a dozen—they could not find a single word when the first and only device proved impossible of realization. Had there been the same number of French women assembled, it would have been a kind of little madhouse; in this instance there was a deep silence for at least ten minutes, eventually broken by the knocking at the door of one of the maids, with Herr Schneider's compliments, and wishing to know what had been decided upon. The doleful answer brought him to the room, and what six women could not accomplish, he, like the true artist, accomplished at once. 'Get Mdlle. Rachel a black lace mantilla, put a rose in her hair, and give her a pair of white gloves.' In less than ten minutes I was ready, and in another ten, Raphael, Schneider, and I embarked on a pretty little steam-yacht lying ready at the end of the magnificent garden for 'l'Île des PÂons' (Pfauen-Insel, Peacock Island), where we landed exactly at eight. But my troubles and surprises were not at an end. I made sure that there would be at least a tent, an awning, or a platform for me to stand under or upon. Ah, oui! not the smallest sign of either. 'VoilÀ votre estrade,' said Schneider, pointing to a small lawn, separated from the rest of the gardens by a gravelled walk three or four feet wide. I declined at once to act under such conditions, and insisted upon being taken back immediately to the station, and from thence to Berlin. Poor Schneider was simply in despair. In vain did he point out that to any one else the total absence of scenery and adjuncts might prove a drawback, but that to me it would only be an additional advantage, as it would bring into greater relief my own talent; I would not be persuaded. Finding that it was fruitless to play upon my vanity as an artist, he appealed to me as a femme du monde. 'The very absence of all preparations,' he said, 'proves that their majesties have not engaged Mdlle. Rachel of the ComÉdie-FranÇaise to give a recitation, but invited Mdlle. Rachel FÉlix to one of their soirÉes. That Mdlle. Rachel FÉlix should be kind enough, after having partaken of a cup of tea, to recite something, would only be another proof of her well-known readiness to oblige;' and so forth. Let me tell you, mon cher, that I have rarely met with a cleverer diplomatist, and Heaven knows I have seen a lot who imagined themselves clever. They could not hold a candle to this erstwhile actor; nevertheless I remained as firm as a rock, though I was sincerely distressed on Schneider's account."

"What made you give in at last?" I inquired. "Was it the idea of losing the magnificent fee?"

"For once you are mistaken," she laughed, "though Schneider himself brought that argument to bear as a big piece of artillery. 'Remember this, mademoiselle,' he said, when he could think of nothing else; 'remember this—that this soirÉe may be the means of putting three hundred thousand or four hundred thousand francs into your pocket. You yourself told me just now on board the yacht that you were very anxious for an engagement at St. Petersburg. I need scarcely tell you that, if you refuse to appear before their majesties to-night, I shall be compelled to state the reason, and Russia will be for ever closed to you. Apart from pecuniary considerations, it will be said by your enemies—and your very eminence in your profession causes you to have many—that you have failed to please the Empress. After all, the fact that all the ordinary surroundings of the actress have been neglected proves that you are not looked upon as an actress by them, but as une femme du monde.'"

"That persuaded you?" I remarked.

"Not at all."

"Then it was the money."

"Of course you would think so, even if I swore the contrary a hundred times over; but if you were to guess from now till to-morrow, you would never hit upon the real reason that made me stay."

"Well, then, I had better not try, and you had better tell me at once."

"Strange as it may seem to you, it was neither the gratification of being treated en femme du monde nor the money that made me stay; it was the desire to see what I had been told was the handsomest man in Europe. I did see him, and for once in a way rumour had not exaggerated the reality. I had scarcely given my final consent to Schneider, when the yacht carrying the imperial and royal families came alongside the island, and the illustrious passengers landed, amidst an avalanche of flowers thrown from the other vessels. Schneider presented me to the King, who was also good-looking, and the latter presented me to the Czar.

"Immediately afterwards the recital began. At the risk of taxing your credulity still further, I may tell you that I, Rachel, who never knew what 'stage-fright' meant, felt nervous. That man to me looked like a very god. Fortunately for my reputation, the shadows of night were gathering fast; in another twenty minutes it would be quite dark, and I felt almost rejoiced that my audience could scarcely distinguish my features. On the other hand, Raphael, who only knew the part of Hippolyte by heart, and who was obliged to read the others, declared that he could not see a line, and candles had to be brought in. It was a glorious evening, but there was a breeze nevertheless, and as fast as the candles were lighted, they were extinguished by the wind. To put ordinary lamps on the lawn at our feet was not to be thought of for a moment; luckily one of the functionaries remembered that there were some candelabra with globes inside, and by means of these a kind of 'float' was improvised. Still the scene was a curious one. Raphael close to me on the edge of the lawn, with one of these candelabra in his left hand. Behind, to the left and right of us, a serried crowd of generals, court dignitaries in magnificent uniforms. In front, and separated by the whole width of a gravel walk, the whole group of sovereigns and their relations, and behind them the walls of the mansion, against which the tea-table had been set, and around which stood the ladies-in-waiting of the Queen of Prussia and the Empress of Russia. A deep silence around, only broken by the soft soughing of the wind in the trees, and the splashing of a couple of fountains near, playing a dirge-like accompaniment to Raphael's and my voice.

"The recital lasted for nearly an hour; if I had liked I could have kept them there the whole night, for never in my career have I had such an attentive, such a religiously attentive, audience. The King was the first to notice my fatigue, and he gave the signal for my leaving off by coming up and thanking me for my efforts. The Emperor followed his example, and stood chatting to me for a long while. In a few minutes I was the centre of a circle which I am not likely to forget as long as I live. Then came the question how Raphael and I were to get back to Berlin. The last train was gone. But Schneider simply suggested a special, and a mounted messenger was despatched then and there to order it. After everything had been arranged for my comfortable return, the sovereigns departed as they had come, only this time the yacht, as well as the others on the lake, were splendidly illuminated. This was my first appearance before Nicholas I."

There was no man to whom Rachel owed more than to Samson, or even as much; but for him, and in spite of her incontestable genius, the ComÉdie-FranÇais might have remained closed to her for many years, if not forever. FrÉdÉrick LemaÎtre and Marie Dorval were undoubtedly, in their own way, as great as she, yet the blue riband of their profession never fell to their lot. And yet, when she had reached the topmost rung of the ladder of fame, Rachel was very often not only ungrateful to him, but her ingratitude showed itself in mean, spiteful tricks. When LegouvÉ's "Adrienne Lecouvreur" was being cast, Samson, who had forgiven Rachel over and over again, was on such cool terms with her that the authors feared he would not accept the part of the Prince de Bouillon. Nevertheless, Samson, than whom there was not a more honourable and conscientious man, on or off the stage, accepted; he would not let his resentment interfere with what he considered his duty to the institution of which he was so eminent a member. This alone ought to have been sufficient to heal the breach between the tutor and the pupil; any woman with the least spark of generosity, in the position of Rachel towards Samson, would have taken the first step towards a reconciliation. Rachel, as will be seen directly, was perfectly conscious of what she ought to do under the circumstances; she was too great an actress not to have studied the finer feelings of the human heart, and yet she did not do it. On the contrary, she aggravated matters. Every one knows the fable of "The Two Pigeons" which Adrienne recites at the soirÉe of the Princesse de Bouillon. Now, it so happened that the great barrister and orator, Berryer, was considered a most charming reciter of that kind of verse. Berryer, a most simple-minded man, took special delight in sharing the most innocent games of young children. He was especially fond of the game of "forfeits"; and so great was his fame as a diseur, that the penalty generally imposed upon him was the reciting of a fable. But great diseur as he was, he himself acknowledged that Samson could have given him a lesson.

At every new part she undertook, Rachel was in the habit of consulting with her former tutor; this time she went to consult Berryer instead, and, what was worse, took pains that every one should hear of it. "Then my heart smote me," she said afterwards, when by one of those irresistible tricks of hers she had obtained her tutor's pardon once more. It was as deliberate a falsehood as she ever uttered in her life, which in Rachel's case means a good deal. The fact was, the affair, as I have already said, had been bruited about, mainly by herself at first; the public showed a disposition to take Samson's part, and she felt afraid of a "warm reception" on the first night.

Under these circumstances she had recourse to one of her wiles, which, for being theatrical, was not less effective. At the first rehearsal, when Adrienne has to turn to Michonnet, saying, "This is my true friend, to whom I owe everything," she turned, not to RÉgnier, who played Michonnet, and to whom the words are addressed, but to Samson, at the same time holding out her hand to him. Samson, who, notwithstanding all their disagreements, very felt proud of his great pupil, who was, moreover, of a very affectionate disposition, notwithstanding his habitual reserve, fell into the trap. He took her proffered hand; then she flung herself into his arms, and the estrangement was at an end, for the time being. Rachel took great care to make the reconciliation as public as possible.

I was never very intimate with Samson, but the little I knew of him I liked. I repeat, he was essentially an honourable and honest man, and very tolerant with regard to the foibles of the fair sex. There was need for such tolerance in those days. Augustine Brohan, Sylvanie Plessy, Rachel, and half a dozen other women, all very talented, but all very wayward, made Buloz' life (he was the director of the ComÉdie-FranÇaise, as well as the editor of the Revue des Deux Mondes) a burden to him. He who could, and often did, dictate his will to men who already then were famous throughout Europe, frequently found himself powerless against women, who, however celebrated, were, with the exception of Rachel, nothing in comparison with the former. He was, it is true, overbearing to a degree, and disagreeable besides, but his temper proved of no avail with them; it only made matters worse. "AprÈs tout," he said one day to Madame Allan, who was the most amenable of all, "je suis le maÎtre ici." "Ça se peut, monsieur," was the answer, "mais nous sommes les contres maÎtre."[23]

In nearly all such troubles RÉgnier and Samson had to act as buffers between the two contending parties; but, as Augustine Brohan explained once, the two were utterly different in their mode of casting oil upon the troubled waters. "RÉgnier," she said, "c'est le bon Dieu des ChrÉtiens, qui se fait trÈs souvent mener par le nez par des mots. Du reste son nez s'y prÊte.[24] Samson c'est le Dieu juste, mais vengeur des Juifs, qui veut bien pardonner, mais seulement aprÈs soumission complÈte et entiÈre. Samson ne vous promet pas le ciel, il vous offre des compensations solides ici bas."

It would be difficult to paint the contrast between two characters in fewer words. In 1845, when Mdlle. Sylvanie Plessy seceded from the ComÉdie-FranÇaise, RÉgnier wrote a kind epistle, recommending her to come and explain matters either personally or by letter. "Let your letter be kind and affectionate, and be sure that things will right themselves better than you expect."

Samson also wrote, but simply to say that if she did not come back at once all the terrors of the law would be invoked against her. Which was done. The ComÉdie-FranÇaise instituted proceedings, claiming two hundred thousand francs damages, and twenty thousand francs "À titre de provision."[25] The court cast Mdlle. Plessy in six thousand francs provision, deferring judgment on the principal claim. Two years later Mdlle. Plessy returned and re-entered the fold. Thanks to Samson, she did not pay a single farthing of damages, and the ComÉdie bore the costs of the whole of the lawsuit.[26]

Both Samson and RÉgnier were very proud of their profession, but their pride showed itself in different ways. RÉgnier would have willingly made any one an actor—that is, a good actor; he was always teaching a great many amateurs, staging and superintending their performances. Samson, on the other hand, had no sympathy whatsoever with that kind of thing, and could rarely be induced to give it aid, but he was very anxious that every public speaker should study elocution. "Eloquence and elocution are two different things," he said; "and the eloquent man who does not study elocution, is like an Apollo with a bad tailor, and who dresses without a looking-glass. I go further still, and say that every one ought to learn how to speak, not necessarily with the view of amusing his friends and acquaintances, but with the view of not annoying them. I am a busy man, but should be glad to devote three hours a week to teach the rising generation, and especially the humbler ones, how to speak."

In connection with that wish of Samson, that every man whose duties compelled him, or who voluntarily undertook to speak in public, should be a trained elocutionist, I remember a curious story of which I was made the recipient quite by accident. It was in the year '60, one morning in the summer, that I happened to meet Samson in the Rue Vivienne. We exchanged a few words, shook hands, and each went his own way. In the afternoon I was sitting at Tortoni's, when a gentleman of about thirty-five came up to me. "Monsieur," he said, "will you allow me to ask you a question?" "Certainly, monsieur, if it be one I can answer," I replied. "I believe," he said, "that I saw you in the Rue Vivienne this morning talking to some one whose name I do not know, but to whom I am under great obligations. I was in a great hurry and in a cab, and before I could stop the cabman both of you had disappeared. Will you mind telling me his name?" "I recollect being in the Rue Vivienne and meeting with M. Samson of the ComÉdie-FranÇaise," I answered. "I thought so," remarked my interlocutor. "Allow me to thank you, monsieur." With this he lifted his hat and went out.

The incident had slipped my memory altogether, when I was reminded of it by Samson himself, about three weeks afterwards, in the green-room of the ComÉdie-FranÇaise. I had been there but a few moments when he came in. "You are the man who betrayed me," he said with a chuckle. "I have been cudgelling my brain for the last three weeks as to who it could have been, for I spoke to no less than half a dozen friends and acquaintances in the Rue Vivienne on the morning I met you, and they all wear imperials and moustaches. A nice thing you have done for me; you have burdened me with a grateful friend for the rest of my life!"

And then he told me the story, how two years before he had been at Granville during the end of the summer; how he had strolled into the Palais de Justice and heard the procureur-impÉrial make a speech for the prosecution, the delivery of which would have disgraced his most backward pupil at the Conservatoire. "I was very angry with the fellow, and felt inclined to write him a letter, telling him that there was no need to torture the innocent audience, as well as the prisoner in the dock. I should have signed it. I do not know why I did not, but judge of my surprise when, the same evening at dinner, I found myself seated opposite him. I must have scowled at him, and he repaid scowl for scowl. It appears that he was living at the hotel temporarily, while his wife and child were away. I need not tell you the high opinion our judges have of themselves, and I dare say he thought it the height of impertinence that I, a simple mortal, should stare at him. I soon came to the conclusion, however, that if I wanted to spare my fellow-creatures such an infliction as I had endured that day, I ought not to arouse the man's anger. So I looked more mild, then entered into conversation with him. You should have seen his face when I began to criticize his tone and gestures. But he evidently felt that I was somewhat of an authority on the subject, and at last I took him out on the beach and gave him a lesson in delivering a speech, and left him there without revealing my name. Next morning I went away, and never set eyes on him again until three weeks ago, when he left his card, asking for an interview. He is a very intelligent man, and has profited by the first lesson. During the three days he remained in Paris I gave him three more. He says that if ever I get into a scrape, he'll do better than defend me—prosecute me, and I'm sure to get off."

I have never seen Samson give a lesson at the Conservatoire, but I was present at several of RÉgnier's, thanks to Auber, whom I knew very well, and who was the director, and to RÉgnier himself, who did not mind a stranger being present, provided he felt certain that the stranger was not a scoffer. I believe that Samson would have objected without reference to the stranger's disposition; at any rate, Auber hinted as much, so I did not prefer my request in a direct form.

I doubt, moreover, whether a lesson of Samson to his pupils would have been as interesting to the outsider as one of RÉgnier's. Of all the gifts that go to the making of a great actor, RÉgnier had naturally only two—taste and intelligence; the others were replaced by what, for want of a better term, one might call the tricks of the actor; their acquisition demanded constant study. For instance, RÉgnier's appearance off the stage was absolutely insignificant; his voice was naturally husky and indistinct, and, moreover, what the French call nasillarde, that is, produced through the nose. His features were far from mobile; the eyes were not without expression, but these never twinkled with merriment nor shone with passion. Consequently, the smallest as well as largest effect necessary to the interpretation of a character had to be thought out carefully beforehand, and then to be tried over and over again materially. Each of his inflections had to be timed to a second; but when all this was accomplished, the picture presented by him was so perfect as to deceive the most experienced critic, let alone an audience, however intelligent. In fact, but for his own frank admission of all this, his contemporaries and posterity would have been never the wiser, for, to their honour be it said, his fellow-actors were so interested in watching him "manipulate himself," as they termed it, as to never breathe a word of it to the outside world. They all acknowledged that they had learned something from him during rehearsal. For instance, in one of his best-known characters, that of the old servant in Madame de Girardin's "La Joie fait peur,"[27] there is a scene which, as played by RÉgnier and Delaunay, looked to the spectator absolutely spontaneous. The smallest detail had been minutely regulated. It is where the old retainer, while dusting the room, is talking to himself about his young master, Lieutenant Adrien Desaubiers, who is reported dead.

"I can see him now," says NoËl, who cannot resign himself to the idea; "I can see him now, as he used to come in from his long walks, tired, starving, and shouting before he was fairly into the house. 'Here I am, my good NoËl; I am dying with hunger. Quick! an omelette.'" At that moment the young lieutenant enters the room, and having heard NoËl's last sentence, repeats it word for word.

Short as was the sentence, it had been arranged that Delaunay should virtually cut it into four parts.

At the words, "It is I," RÉgnier shivered from head to foot; at "Here I am, my good NoËl," he lifted his eyes heavenwards, to make sure that the voice did not come from there, and that he was not labouring under a kind of hallucination; at the words, "I am dying with hunger," he came to the conclusion that it was a real human voice after all; and at the final, "Quick! an omelette," he turned round quickly, and fell like a log into the young fellow's arms.

I repeat, the whole of the scene had been timed to the fraction of a second; nevertheless, on the first night, RÉgnier, nervous as all great actors are on such occasions, forgot all about his own arrangements, and, at the first sound of Delaunay's voice, was so overcome with emotion that he literally tumbled against the latter, who of course was not prepared to bear him up, and had all his work to do to keep himself from falling also. Meanwhile RÉgnier lay stretched at full length on the stage, and the house broke into tumultuous applause.

"That was magnificent," said Delaunay after the performance. "Suppose we repeat the thing to-morrow?" But RÉgnier would not hear of it; he stuck to his original conception in four tempi. He preferred trusting to his art rather than to the frank promptings of nature.

That is why a lesson of RÉgnier to his pupils was so interesting to the outsider. The latter was, as it were, initiated into all the resources the great actor has at his command wherewith to produce his illusion upon the public. Among RÉgnier's pupils those were his favourites who never allowed themselves to be carried away by their feelings, and who trusted to these resources as indicated to them by their tutor. He was to a certain extent doubtful of the others. "Feelings vary; effects intelligently conceived, studied, and carried out ought never to vary," he said. Consequently it became one of his theories that those most plentifully endowed with natural gifts were not likely to become more perfect than those who had been treated niggardly in that respect, provided the vocation and the perseverance were there. The reverse of Samson, who was proudest of Rachel, RÉgnier was never half as proud of M. Coquelin as of others who had given him far more trouble. Augustine Brohan explained the feeling in her own inimitable way: "RÉgnier est comme le grand seigneur qui s'Énamourache d'une paysanne À qui il faut tout enseigner; si moi j'Étais homme, j'aimerais mieux une demoiselle de bonne famille, qui n'aurait pas besoin de tant d'enseignement."

Mdlle. Brohan exaggerated a little bit. RÉgnier's pupils were not peasant children, to whom he had to teach everything; a great many, like Coquelin, required very little teaching, and all the others had the receptive qualities which make teaching a pleasure. The latter, boys and girls, had to a certain extent become like RÉgnier himself, "bundles of tricks," and, what is perhaps not so surprising to students of psychology and physiology, their features had contracted a certain likeness to his. At the first blush one might have mistaken them for his children. And they might have been, for the patience he had with them. It was rarely exhausted, but he now and then seemed to be waiting for a new supply. At such times there was a frantic clutch at the shock, grey-haired head, or else a violent blowing of the perky nose in a large crimson chequered handkerchief, its owner standing all the while on one leg; the attitude was irresistibly comic, but the pupils were used to it, and not a muscle of their faces moved. Those who imagine that RÉgnier's courses were merely so many lessons of elocution and gesticulation would be altogether mistaken. RÉgnier, unlike many of his great fellow-actors of that period, had received a good education: he had been articled to an architect, he had even dabbled in painting, and there were few historical personages into whose characters he had not a thorough insight. He was a fair authority upon costume and manners of the Middle Ages, and his acquaintance with Roman and Greek antiquities would have done credit to many a professor. He was called "le comÉdien savant" and "le savant comÉdien." As such, whenever a pupil failed to grasp the social or political importance of one of the dramatis personÆ of Racine's or Corneille's play, there was sure to be a disquisition, telling the youngster all about him, but in a way such as to secure the attention of the listener—a way that might have aroused the envy of a university lecturer. The dry bones of history were clothed by a man with an eye for the picturesque.

"Who do you think Augustus was?" he said one day when I was present, to the pupil, who was declaiming some lines of "Cinna." "Do you think he was the concierge or le commissionnaire du coin?" And forthwith there was a sketch of Augustus. Absolutely quivering with life, he led his listener through the streets of Rome, entered the palace with him, and once there, became Augustus himself. After such a scene he would frequently descend the few steps of the platform and drop into his armchair, exhausted.

Every now and then, in connection with some character of MoliÈre or Regnard, there would be an anecdote of the great interpreter of the character, but an anecdote enacted, after which the eyes would fill with tears, and the ample chequered handkerchief come into requisition once more.

RÉgnier was a great favourite with most of his fellow-actors and the employÉs of the ComÉdie-FranÇaise, but he was positively worshipped by Giovanni, the wigmaker of the establishment. They were in frequent consultation even in the green-room, the privilege of admission to which had been granted to the Italian Figaro. The consultations became most frequent when one of the members undertook a part new to him. It was often related of Balzac that he firmly believed in the existence of the characters his brain had created. The same might be said of RÉgnier with regard to the characters created by the great playwrights of his own time and those of the past. Of course, I am not speaking of those who had an historical foundation. But Alceste, Harpagon, Georges Dandin, Sganarelle, and Scapin were as real to him as Orestes and Œdipus, as Augustus and Mohammed. He would give not only their biographies, but describe their appearance, their manners, their gait, and even their complexion. The first time I heard him do so, I made sure that he was trying to mystify Giovanni; but Rachel, who was present, soon undeceived me. And the Italian would sit listening reverently, then start up, and exclaim, "Ze sais ce qu'il vous faut, Monsu RÉgnier, ze vais faire oune parruque À Étonner MoliÈre lui-mÊme." And he kept his word, because he considered that the wig contributed as much to, or detracted from, the success of an actor as his diction, and more than his clothes. When Delaunay became a sociÉtaire his first part was that of the lover in M. Viennet's "Migraine." "VoilÀ Monsu Delaunay, oune vÉritable parruque di sociÉtaire. Zouez À prÉsent, vous Êtes sour de votre affaire."

One day Beauvallet found him standing before the window of Brandus, the music-publisher in the Rue de Richelieu. He was contemplating the portrait of Rossini, and he looked sad.

"What are you standing there for, Giovanni?" asked Beauvallet.

"Ah, Monsu Bouvallet, I am looking at the portrait of MaËstro Giovanni Rossini, and when I think that his name is Giovanni like mine, when I see that abominable wig which looks like a grass-plot after a month of drought, I feel ashamed and sad. But I will go and see him, and make him a wig for love or money that will take twenty years off his age." He went, but Rossini would not hear of it, or rather Madame Rossini put a spoke in his wheel. Giovanni never mentioned his name again. It was Ligier who brought Giovanni to Paris, and for a quarter of a century he worked unremittingly for the glory of the ComÉdie-FranÇaise, and when one of the great critics happened to speak favourably of the "make-up" of an actor, as Paul de St. Victor did when RÉgnier "created NoËl," Giovanni used to leave his card at his house. It was Giovanni who made the wigs for M. Ancessy, the musical director at the OdÉon, who, under the management of M. Edouard Thierry, occupied the same position at the ComÉdie-FranÇaise. M. Ancessy was not only a good chef d'orchestre, but a composer of talent; but he had one great weakness—he was as bald as a billiard-ball and wished to pass for an Absalom. Giovanni helped him to carry out the deception by making three artistic wigs. The first was of very short hair, and was worn from the 1st to the 10th of the month; from the 11th to the 20th M. Ancessy donned one with hair that was so visibly growing as to cover his ears. From the 20th to the last day of the month his locks were positively flowing, and he never failed to say on that last evening in the hearing of every one, "What a terrible nuisance my hair is to me! I must have it cut to-morrow."