Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 8.djvu/268

 884 ARTISTS AND AUTHORS bursts of passion, were such that her audience, as they hung upon her lips, forgot the capnces and eccentricities by which she was already characterized in private life. It seemed, however, that Sarah's ambition was to gain personal notoriety even more than theatrical fame ; and by her performances of one kind or another outside the theatre make herself the talk of society. She affected to paint, to chisel, and to write ; sent pictures to the Salon, published eccentric books, and exhib- ited busts. She would receive her friends palette in hand, and in the dress of a male artist. She had a luxurious coffin made for her, covered with velvet, in which she loved to recline ; and she more than once went up in a balloon. Her caprice, whether in private or public, was altogether unrestrained. In 1 880 Emile Augier's admirable comedy," L'Aventuriere," was revived at the Com£die Francaise, and the author confided the part of Clorinde to Sarah Bernhardt After the first representation, however, she was so enraged by an uncompliment- ary newspaper criticism that she sent in her resignation to M. Emile Perrin, di- rector of the theatre, quitted Paris, and went to England, where she gave a series of representations, and, appearing there for the first time, caused a veritable sen- sation in London society. Meanwhile, M. Perrin instituted against her, in the name of the Comedie Francaise, a lawsuit for breach of contract, with damages laid at three hundred thousand francs. It was at this juncture that Sarah ac- cepted the offers of an enterprising manager for a tour in America, where she achieved no less phenomenal successes than in Europe. A sensational account of this American tour was afterward published by one of her associates, Mile. Marie Colombier, under the title of " Sarah Bernhardt en Amerique." This was followed by a second volume from the same pen, en- titled " Sarah Barnum." The latter book, as its title suggests, was not intended as a compliment ; and Sarah Bernhardt brought an action against the writer, by which she was compelled to expunge from her scandalous volume all that was offensive. The rest of Sarah's career is too recent to be traced in detail. Nor can the life of an actress of our own time be dealt with so freely as that of a Sophie Arnould or an Adrienne Lecouvreur. From America Sarah returned to Paris, where she revived all her old successes, and where, in 1888, at the Odeon, she produced a one-act comedy from her own pen, entitled " L'Aveu," which met with a somewhat frigid reception. She has appeared in several of Shakespeare's plays with great success, but her most ambi- tious and perhaps most admirable productions of late years have been her Cleo- patra, first produced in Paris in 1890, and her Joan of Arc. Among her numerous eccentricities, Mile. Bernhardt once got married ; London, by reason of the facilities it affords for this species of recreation, being chosen as the scene of the espousals. The hero of the matrimonial comedy, which was soon followed by a separation, to which, after many adventures on the part of both husband and wife, a reconciliation succeeded, was M. Damala, a Greek gentleman, possessed of considerable histrionic talent, who died in 1880.