It is clear that she was a precocious, clever child. She was already, indeed, an actress. Her evening walk would invariably take her past her beloved _Ambigu_. She made an event of this passage, putting on her best attitudes and smiles for the artists who might be seated in the terrace of the café. This café of the _Ambigu_ was the scene of one of the oft-repeated episodes of Réjane’s childhood. The proprietor, a relative of some sort, was in the habit of beating his wife. One evening, Gabrielle, who knew what to expect, happened--as was not unusual--to be in the café. Soon the poor woman’s cries were heard as her lord and master belabored her. A patron demanded of Gabrielle what the terrible noises meant. “Oh, that, Monsieur,” she said. “Why, they’re rehearsing upstairs.” Soon the mother changed her work, and took up the painting of fans. Between sessions of the school, and all day on Thursdays, little Gabrielle helped in this work and proved herself adept. They received for this work about fifty cents per dozen fans. Madame Réju seems to have been sensitive as to her new work. She and her young daughter, too proud to have it known that they were doing work of that sort, or perhaps for fear of offending certain rich relatives, took a neighbor into their confidence and paid her for delivering the fans to _la maison Meyer_. If mother and daughter had continued to live in the immediate neighborhood of the _Ambigu_ it is not unlikely that the already lively ambition of the girl would have found its outlet at that theatre. We have seen something of her enthusiasm for the _Ambigu_ and her close relationship with its entourage. Once launched upon her career there as an actress of popular drama, she would very likely have remained there and missed the valuable training that she was to receive at the _Conservatoire_. As it happened, however, when she was about ten her mother moved from _Rue de Lancry_ to 17 _Rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette_, and in large measure the influence of the _Ambigu_ was removed. On the same floor with Madame Réju and her daughter in their new quarters lived a lady with whom they gradually formed a close friendship. When the war of 1870 broke out, the new friend left Paris, leaving her apartment in charge of Mme. Réju and Gabrielle. There the windows, unlike those of Mme. Réju’s own suite, overlooked the street. When the Commune brought the terrors of civil war to Paris, it was from these windows that the child witnessed what was to her a terrible and long-remembered sight, a street battle between the government troops and the Communists. The bodies of slain men, carried past under those windows, gave her her first glimpse of death.