Page:Rachel (1887 Nina H. Kennard).djvu/197

 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 RaphaelRaphaël [sic]'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. YbarLatour de Saint-Ybars [sic]'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:—

None knew better than Rachel the utter failure she