Page:Rachel (1887 Nina H. Kennard).djvu/58

 showered on her. After the termination of the piece Védel went behind the scenes at once to congratulate the Roxane of the evening; but already her room, that had been nearly deserted after the first representation of Bajazet, was so crowded that she could hardly make her way towards him through the crowd. Throwing herself into his arms, she whispered, "Thank you, my dear friend; I knew you were right."

From this day forth Rachel had no further need to fear her enemies or seek the suffrages of her friends. Elle dominait son parterre. That supreme tribunal in all questions of dramatic art, the public, unmoved by favouritism or prejudice, knew nothing of Classicism or Romanticism. Once touched, they cared no longer for the interests of the sociétaires, the rapacity of Félix, or the susceptibility of Janin. They only recognised that this girl gave expression to the thoughts and words sanctified by tradition, and compelled them to smile and weep when she chose. From that moment her authority was supreme. Regardless of tenets or schools, they proclaimed her queen by the right divine of her genius. It is true that, like all kings and queens crowned by the mobile, changeable, passionate race she ruled, she was worshipped and implicitly obeyed at times, and at others decried and calumniated; but that was in later years, when she, perhaps by her own capriciousness and tyranny, had exhausted the not very long-suffering patience of her subjects. Now, if a cloud did dim the sunshine of her popularity for an instant, it melted away under the influence of her fascination and consummate dramatic power. She not only ruled on the stage, but in social circles. The great ladies of the Faubourg Saint Germain chose to caress and make much of her; and she who had gone