Rachel, the child of poverty, the itinerant of the Parisian boulevards, infused with genius, suddenly became the idol of courts and of princes, being as devoutly worshipped by the lovers of art on the banks of the Neva and the Thames as on the shores of her beautiful Seine. How strange were the vicissitudes of this wonderful artist, this frail child of genius! An actress of transcendent dramatic power, she leaves us the souvenir of a splendid star of histrionic art extinguished when it burned the brightest. One day, when Rachel was thus singing and reciting on the public street, a benevolent-looking man, with pitying eyes, was attracted, in passing, by the child's intelligent look, and put a five-franc piece in her hand. She took the silver with a grateful courtesy and watched him until he passed out of sight. A citizen who had seen the generous act said, "That was Victor Hugo;" and the child-actress remembered the name ever after. But little did the great poet anticipate what the pale-faced child was destined to become in that world of art of which he was so distinguished a disciple. Edwin Forrest, our own famous tragedian, was in Paris in 1836, and was invited by the manager to see an actress who was to make her début at one of the theatres on a certain evening. The manager asked him, in the course of the performance, what he thought of the débutante. Forrest replied that he feared she would never rise above mediocrity, and added, "But that Jewish-looking girl, that little bag of bones, with the marble face and the flaming eyes,--there is demoniacal power in her. If she lives and does not burn out too soon, she will make a great actress." He referred to Rachel, then in her fifteenth year. We all know how that genius developed. Parsimony was a fixed trait of her character; she could not help it. "Is it any wonder," she once said to a friend, "that I should be fond of money, considering the suffering I went through in my youth to earn a few sous?"