[12] She says she had chosen this device at the age of nine, “after a formidable jump over a ditch which no one could jump, and which my young cousin had dared me to attempt. I had hurt my face, broken my wrist and was in pain all over. While I was being carried home I exclaimed furiously: ‘Yes, I would do it again, _quand-même_, if any one dared me again. And I will always do what I want to all my life.’ In the evening of that day, my aunt, who was grieved to see me in such pain, asked me what would give me any pleasure. My poor little body was all bandaged, but I jumped with joy at this, and quite consoled I whispered in a coaxing way: ‘I should like to have some writing paper with a motto of my own.’ My mother asked me rather slyly what my motto was. I did not answer for a minute, and then, as they were all waiting quietly, I uttered such a furious ‘_Quand-même!_’ that my Aunt Faure started back muttering: ‘What a terrible child!’” [13] The great critic Sarcey’s comments in _L’Opinion Nationale_ were read to her by her mother: “Mlle. Bernhardt, who made her début yesterday in the rôle of Iphigénie, is a tall, pretty girl with a slender figure and a very pleasing expression. The upper part of her face is remarkably beautiful. She holds herself well, and her enunciation is perfectly clear. This is all that can be said for her at present.” “The man is an idiot,” said her mother, “you were charming.”--_Memoirs._ [14] Characteristically, she brought her engagement at the _Gymnase_ to a sudden close by quietly going to Spain the day after the first performance of a play in which she disliked her part. [15] Thin she was, and thin she remained. She once said, in after years: “As for me, if I should cease to be thin, what would become of some of the Paris journalists? Scarcely a day but they have some _mot_ about me personally. Really I am almost the _raison d’être_ of some of these small wits!” [16] She played at the _Odéon_: Albine in _Britannicus_; Sylvia in _Le Jeu de l’Amour et du Hasard_; Zacharie in _Athalie_; the Baroness in _Le Marquis de Villemer_; Mariette in _François le Champi_; Hortense in _Le Testament de César Girodôt_; Anna Damby in _Kean_ (Dumas’ _Sullivan_); in _La Loterie du Mariage_; Zanetto in _Le Passant_ by Coppée; in _L’Autre_ by George Sand; Armande in _Les Femmes Savantes_; Cordelia in _King Lear_; in _Le Bâtard_; _L’Affranchi_; _Jean-Marie_, by Andre Theuriet; _Les Arrêts_ by de Boissières, _Le Legs_; _Le Drame de la Rue de la Paix_; _Fais ce que dois_, by Coppée; _La Baronne_ by Edmond and Foussier; _Mlle. Aïsse_; and the Queen of Spain in _Ruy Blas_ by Victor Hugo.