Thus it may be that she will again rally about her on the stage of Paris the loyal affection that went out to her in the hospital. It is an open secret that for half a dozen years the allegiance of her Paris public has not always been unflagging. She is indubitably old, and her affliction was imperfectly understood. And yet, when her latest play, _Jeanne Doré_, by Tristan Bernard, was produced in December, 1913, a flash of the old enthusiasm broke out again and one correspondent described the occasion as “easily the most brilliant first night of the Paris season so far.” The part, moreover, was an exacting emotional one. In it Madame Sarah seems again to have shown her great power. HELENA MODJESKA The acting of Madame Modjeska is still remembered vividly by American and English theatregoers, yet its beginnings lie as far away in time as the sixties and as distant in place as Poland. She was born on October 12, 1840, in Cracow, the old Polish capital, now the second city of Galitzia, or Austrian Poland. Twenty-five years before, by the agreement of Russia, Prussia, and Austria, it had been proclaimed a free city. In the year when Modjeska was six, however, Austria, greedy then as now, broke her pledge and annexed the city. The Poles were always a passionately patriotic people, and did not submit calmly. Discontent grew to open revolt, but the hopes of the Cracovians were crushed by the bombardment of the city by the Austrians in 1848. [Illustration: HELENA MODJESKA] Thus the little Helcia[43] was born in tragic times, and as a little girl saw scenes of terror and bloodshed. Her mother’s house was struck by the cannon shot, and she saw men and children killed before her very door. The horrors of those days were vividly impressed upon her memory and were perhaps not without their effect upon the nature of the future actress.