imaient d'amour tendre,
L'un d'eux, s'ennuyant au logis"--

than Auber stopped her with a gesture. "Enough," he said. "Come here,
my child." The little girl, who was pale and thin, but whose eyes
gleamed with intelligence, approached him with an air of assurance.
"Your name is Sarah?" he said.

"Yes, sir." was the reply.

"You are a Jewess?"

"Yes, sir, by birth; but I have been baptized."

"She has been baptized," said Auber, turning to his colleagues. "It
would have been a pity if such a pretty child had not. She said her
fable of the 'Two Pigeons' very well. She must be admitted."

[Illustration: Sarah Bernhardt.]

Thus Sarah Bernhardt, for it was she, entered the Conservatoire. She
was a Jewess of French and Dutch parentage, and was born at Paris in
1844. Her father, after having her baptized, had placed her in a
convent; but she had already secretly determined to become an actress.
In her course of study at the Conservatoire she so distinguished
herself that she received a prize which entitled her to a _debut_ at
the Theatre Francais. She selected the part of Iphigenie, in which she
appeared on August 11, 1862; and at least one newspaper drew special
attention to her performance, describing her as "pretty and elegant,"
and particularly praising her perfect enunciation. She afterward
played other parts at the Theatre Francais, but soon transferred
herself from that house to the Gymnase, though not until she had made
herself notorious by having, as was alleged, slapped the face of a
sister-actress in a fit of temper.

The director of the Gymnase did not take too serious a view of his new
actress, who turned up late at rehearsals, and sometimes did not turn
up at all. Nor did her acting make any great impression at the
Gymnase, where, it is true, she was only permitted to appear on
Sundays. At this theatre she lost no time in exhibiting that
independence and caprice to which, as much as to her talent, she owes
her celebrity. The day after the first representation of a piece by
Labiche, "Un Mari qui Lance sa Femme," in which she had undertaken an
important part, she stealthily quitted Paris, addressing to the author
a letter in which she begged him to forgive her.

After a tour in Spain, Sarah returned to Paris, and appeared at the
Odeon. Here she created a certain number of characters, in such plays
as "Les Arrets," "Le Drame de la Rue de la Paix," and "Le Batard," but
chiefly distinguished herself in "