Rostand, in _Sarah Bernhardt_, by Jules Huret. [5] The correct date and place, according to the official record of the _Conservatoire_. The year has sometimes been given 1845. Some accounts have given Holland, others Havre, as the birthplace. Sarah herself says Paris. [6] At Neuilly her aunt Rosine came one day to see her. “I insisted that I wanted to go away at once. In a gentle, tender, caressing voice, but without any real affection, she said all kinds of pretty things. She then went away. I could see nothing but the dark, black hole which remained there immutable behind me, and in a fit of despair I rushed out to my aunt who was just getting into her carriage. After that I knew nothing more. I had managed to escape from my poor nurse and had fallen down on the pavement. I had broken my arm in two places and injured my knee cap. I was two years recovering.” _Memoirs._ [7] _Memoirs._ [8] “One day, when we heard that all the schools in France, except ours, had been given bonbons on the occasion of the baptism of the Prince Imperial, I proposed to several other girls that we should run away, and I undertook to manage it. Being on good terms with the sister in charge of the gate, I went into her lodge and pretended to have a hole in my dress under the armpit. To let her examine the hole I raised my arms toward the cord communicating with the gate, and whilst she was looking at my dress I pulled the cord, my accomplices rushed out, and I followed them. Our entire stock of provisions, ammunition, and sinews of war consisted of a few clothes, three pieces of soap in a bag, and the sum of seven francs fifty centimes in money. This was to take us to the other end of the world! A search had to be made for us, and as the good sisters could hardly undertake it, the police were set on our track. There was not much difficulty in finding us, as you may imagine. I was sent home in disgrace. On another occasion, I had climbed on to the wall separating the convent from the cemetery. A grand funeral was in progress and the Bishop of Versailles was delivering an address. I immediately began to gesticulate, shout and sing at the top of my voice so as to interrupt the ceremony. You can imagine the scene--a child of twelve sitting astride a wall, and a bishop interrupted in the midst of a funeral oration! The scandal was great.”--Huret. [9] “Consequently I entered the _Conservatoire_. The next question was, in which class was I to study? Beauvallet said: ‘She will be a _tragedienne_.’ Regnier maintained: ‘She will be a _comédienne_,’ and Provost put them in agreement by declaring: ‘She will be both.’ I joined Provost’s class.”--Huret. [10] One for tragedy in 1861, and one for comedy in 1862. She never won a first prize. [11] M. Regnier and M. Doucet among them. Both had been her teachers, as had M. Provost and M. Samson, the latter of whom had taught Rachel.