it, though, do the right thing, and cement it by your talent, your work, and your kindness. All the spiteful people who have unintentionally provided the first materials for the edifice will kick it, then, in hopes of destroying it. They will be powerless to do this, though, if you choose to prevent them; and that is just what I hope for you, my dear Sarah, as you have an ambitious thirst for glory. I cannot understand that, myself, as I like only rest and shade.” Footnote 4: Prudhon was one of the _artistes_ of the Théâtre Français. [Illustration: SARAH BERNHARDT, FROM AN OIL PAINTING BY MLLE. LOUISE ABBÉMA.] I looked at her with envy, she was so beautiful with her liquid eyes, her face with its pure, restful lines and her weary smile. I wondered in an uneasy way if happiness were not rather in this calm tranquillity, in the disdain of all things. I asked her gently if this were so, for I wanted to know, and she told me that the theater bored her, that she had had so many disappointments. She shuddered when she spoke of her marriage, and as to her motherhood, that had only caused her sorrow. Her love affairs had left her affections crushed and physically disabled. The light seemed doomed to fade from her beautiful eyes, her legs were swollen, and could scarcely carry her. She told me all this in the same calm, half weary tone. What had charmed me only a short time before chilled me to the heart now, for her dislike to movement was caused by the weakness of her eyes and her legs, and her delight in the shade was only the love of that peace which was so necessary to her, wounded as she was by the life she had lived. The love of life, though, took possession of me more violently than ever. I thanked my dear friend, and profited by her advice. I armed myself for the struggle, preferring to die in the midst of the battle rather than to end my life regretting that it had been a failure. I made up my mind not to weep over the base things that were said about me, and not to suffer any more injustices. I made up my mind, too, to stand on the defensive and very soon an occasion presented itself. “L’Etrangère” was to be played for the second time at a matinée, June 21, 1879. The day before I had sent word to Mayer that I was not well and that as I was playing in “Hernani” at night, I should be glad if he could change the play announced for the afternoon if possible. The receipts, however, were more than £400 and the Committee would not hear of it. “Oh, well,” Got said to Mr. Mayer, “we must give the rôle to some one else if Sarah Bernhardt cannot play. There will be Croizette, Madeleine Brohan, Coquelin, Febvre, and myself in the cast, and, hang it all, it seems to me that all of us together will make up for Mlle. Bernhardt.”