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the 23rd November 1838, Rachel appeared as Roxane in Racine's tragedy of Bajazet. She had already undertaken six different classical rôles on the stage of the Théâtre Français: Camille in Les Horaces, Émilie in Cinna, Hermione in Racine's Andromaque, Aménaïde in Voltaire's Tancrède, Éryphile in Racine's Iphigénie, and Monime in Racine's Mithridate. Roxane, next to Phèdre, is the most difficult of Racine's heroines to portray. She is a slave in love with a man who despises her, and threatens him with death if he refuse to forsake her rival Atalide for her sake.

"The desire to hear her in this new part," Védel tells us, "was enormous." The mob struggled at the door, and the receipts rose to more than six thousand francs. But the actress had no success, and even the famous "Sortez!" was received in sullen silence by the public. When, at the beginning of her career, she had acted night after night to empty houses, Rachel, filled with determination and impelled by the strong artistic instinct within her, had been unconcerned and fearless; now, that the tide of success had set in, she was