an air, one is inclined to smile at the mere sight of her. Does she perhaps show a little too much assurance? What of it? ’Tis the result of excessive timidity. But she laughs with such good grace, she has so fresh and true a voice, she articulates so clearly, she seems so happy to be alone and to have talent, that involuntarily one thinks of Chenier’s line: “_Sa bienvenue au jour lui rit dans tous les yeux_.”... I shall be surprised if she does not make her way.’” Second prize or first, it mattered not, really; for she had, almost at once, offers from three theatres: the _Odéon_, the government theatre that by the conditions of the award had a right to her services, and also from the _Vaudeville_ and the _Gymnase_. M. Duquesnel of the _Odéon_ proposed, as Sarcey had predicted, that she take a part in the impending _La Jeunesse de Louis XIV_. Réjane, however, declined to cut short her studies at the _Conservatoire_, which had yet a few weeks to run. Her choice fell to the _Vaudeville_, as the theatre best suiting her methods and sympathies. Also, the pay there was to be four thousand francs per year, and costumes, as against one hundred and fifty francs per month at the _Odéon_. With the directors of the _Vaudeville_ she signed a provisional contract, by the terms of which she was to join their forces if the _Odéon_ did not press home its claim to her. Weeks passed, the October openings came round, and still there was no summons. In her anxiety she went to the office of the Minister of Fine Arts and from him obtained a letter releasing her, in two days’ time, from her obligations to the _Odéon_. Before the two days were up, however, she received from Duquesnel a summons to a rehearsal of _La Jeunnesse_. Réjane hastened to see him. “Well,” he said, “we shall rehearse to-morrow at one.” Réjane replied that she had one at the _Vaudeville_ at the same hour. Duquesnel objected to the loss of his promising recruit and showed an official letter bestowing her services upon the _Odéon_. Gabrielle in turn showed the letter from the Minister. Duquesnel was forced to yield, but afterwards lodged a suit in which the _Odéon_ was awarded damages. “So,” said Réjane to Jules Huret, “if the _Odéon_ can to-day boast its velvet chairs, it has me to thank for them.” And so Réjane began her career, when she was less than eighteen, with a two years’ engagement at the _Vaudeville_. Her first few rôles[98] were unimportant, and in them she attracted no particular notice, but in September (1875) she appeared in _Madame Lili_, a one-act play in verse, to such good purpose that Sarcey wrote of her: “Mademoiselle Réjane is charming, with her roguery, her ingenuousness, her tenderness. This pretty and piquant girl is spirited to her fingertips. What a piece of good luck it is that she cannot sing; for if she had a voice operetta would gobble her up.”