Page:Rachel (1887 Nina H. Kennard).djvu/43

 and Hermione. It needed a critic more appreciative than Souliè, therefore, to draw attention to the young actress, and that critic was found in Véron, "the self-elected Maecenas" of the French literary world, who wrote under the pseudonym of the "Bourgeois de Paris." He thus describes the impression the young actress made upon him the first time be saw her at the Français:—

In spite of the prophecy of the enthusiastic "Bourgeois de Paris," however, the select twelve or fifteen hundred, la Clique in fact, did not appear, and Rachel continued to act to empty houses.