nter an attempt to recover
something of that large measure of it which she once possessed; but I
doubt whether it has been completely successful. M. Sarcey has not yet
put forth his notice of her; and when he does so it will be interesting
to see how he treats her. She is not one of his high admirations. She
is a great talent which has passed into eclipse. I call her a great
talent, although I remember the words in which M. Sarcey somewhere
speaks of her: "Mlle. Favart, who, to happy natural gifts, _soutenu par
un travail acharne_, owed a distinguished place," etc. Her talent is
great, but the impression that she gives of a _travail acharne_ and of
an insatiable ambition is perhaps even greater. For many years she
reigned supreme, and I believe she is accused of not having always
reigned generously. However that may be, there came a day when Mlles.
Croizette and Sarah Bernhardt passed to the front, and the elder
actress receded, if not into the background, at least into what
painters call the middle distance. The private history of these events
has, I believe, been rich in heart-burnings; but it is only with the
public history that we are concerned. Mlle. Favart has always seemed to
be a powerful rather than an interesting actress; there is usually
something mechanical and overdone in her manner. In some of her parts
there is a kind of audible creaking of the machinery. If Delaunay is
open to the reproach of having let a mannerism get the better of him,
this accusation is much more fatally true of Mlle. Favart. On the other
hand, she knows her trade as no one does--no one, at least, save Mme.
Plessy. When she is bad she is extremely bad, and sometimes she is
interruptedly bad for a whole evening. In the revival of Scribe's
clever comedy of "Une Chaine," this winter (which, by the way, though
the cast included both Got and Coquelin, was the nearest approach to
mediocrity I have ever seen at the Theatre Francais), Mlle. Favart was,
to my sense, startlingly bad. The part had originally been played by
Mme. Plessy; and I remember how M. Sarcey in his _feuilleton_ treated
its actual representative. "Mlle. Favart does Louise. Who does not
recall the exquisite delicacy and temperance with which Mme. Plessy
rendered that difficult scene in the second act?" etc. And nothing
more. When, however, Mlle. Favart is at her best, she is prodigiously
strong. She rises to great occasions. I doubt whether such parts as the
desperate heroine