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 This letter, Védel confessed, remained unanswered. Rachel then made up her mind to ask Samson, who had taught her at the Conservatoire, to take her again as pupil in tragic parts. Samson, who had always a certain opinion of her powers, promised to help her as well as he could, and Rachel's career was from that moment decided. She now learnt to give movement and warmth to what hitherto had been conned as a task; every tone, every look, was studied and practised until it became a portion of her own personality, and the expression of her own individuality. That industry and energy which, as M. Legouvé tells us, made her study one short sentence in his play of Louise de Lignerolles three hours, reading it over and over with different intonations and expressions—that industry which Choron pronounced her to be deficient in—seemed now awakened, and in three months she presented herself again to the Comédie Française the most accomplished and marvellous actress the world has ever seen.

It will be interesting here to give Samson's account, as told in his Memoirs, of the beginning of his celebrated pupil's career, and of the state of dramatic art when she first appeared:—

Talma when he died, in 1826, seemed to have carried classic tragedy away with him. The elder generation mourned the loss; but their children not only did not share their regrets, but longed for the total destruction of the past. While the political horizon was dark with storm clouds, a literary revolution was taking place, one to a certain extent being caused by the other. The author of Hernani had gained the day. Corneille, Racine, and Voltaire were played at distant intervals to empty houses, and these rare representations only showed more effectually how indifferent was the public to this kind of representation. After two centuries of triumph and success, the classic drama was banished to the silence and dust of library shelves. But suddenly, in 1838, twelve years after the death of our great tragedian, an unexpected event took place; a reaction, which asto-