Her last year (1873–4) at the _Conservatoire_ Mme. Réjane remembers not only for its months of hard study but for an incident or two that, trivial in themselves, had considerable importance in her youthfully ambitious mind. One morning Regnier called on her to recite “_La Fille d’Honneur_,” a poem she had memorized by hearing it often spoken by a fellow pupil. She was horribly nervous. Her own two pupils were present, as _auditrices_, and Gabrielle feared the usual frequent interruption of Regnier, who as a rule made his pupils repeatedly go back over imperfectly recited passages. This time, however, he allowed her to proceed to the end, which agitated her still more, and then he said in a solemn tone as if pronouncing a final judgment on her: “_C’est très bien, ma petite; descends, tu seras une grande artiste_.” Réjane says that the intense joy of that instant never was equaled afterwards, even in the moments of her greatest triumphs. The pupils of the _Conservatoire_ were permitted to accept engagements to play on Sundays at the little theatre of the _Tour-d’Auvergne_. There it was that Gabrielle made her first public appearance. The play was _Les Deux Timides_, and in acting it she had the inexpert assistance of Albert Carré. In the middle of the piece M. Carré was seated at a desk, writing a letter, when his nose began to bleed. He bolted from the stage, leaving the _débutante_ alone to face her first audience in the midst of a staggering contretemps. Advice was hoarsely whispered from the wings to do this or that, to walk off, to sit down, to wait for Carré; Gabrielle coolly seated herself and took up the writing of the letter until, a moment later, the bleeding stopped, Carré returned.[97] When the concours of 1874 arrived--the annual prize contest of the _Conservatoire_--Gabrielle’s progress had been such that her fellow-students and her professor all thought her sure of the first prize in comedy. Regnier chose for her one of Roxelane’s scenes in _Les Trois Sultanes_. When she had finished she felt that she had done herself scant justice. Then the unexpected happened. She was also to appear in a dialogue called _La Jeunesse_, by Emile Augier. A youthful couple met at a fountain. The young man says: “Cyprienne!” She exclaims: “Ah! Mon Dieu!” Gabrielle delivered this commonplace speech with such a sincerity and intensity of emotion that the audience broke into applause. Reassured, she played the dialogue through to the end with a command of emotional acting that surprised even her friends, for she had been thought of as only a _comédienne_, a soubrette. When the prizes were announced, Gabrielle found that she had not only missed getting the first comedy prize, but that she was to get only a share of the second; the other half was to go to Mlle. Jeanne Samary, she “of the perfect laugh.”