The war broke out, and ambulances were soon being established everywhere. Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt decided to fit one up at the Odéon at her own expense, and on September 30 she set to work. Twenty-two beds were erected, long white curtains were hung at the windows and _portières_ over the doors, linen was neatly piled in cupboards, the dispensary was provided with bottles and drugs, and the cellars were filled with wood and coal. All the arrangements having been planned beforehand and carried out without delay, everything was completed in forty-eight hours, and there was nothing more to do but wait for the patients. They came soon enough! Day and night Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt and her aides-de-camp were kept at work. One of her first patients was M. Porel (now the manager of the Vaudeville theatre, and the husband of Mme. Réjane), who was slightly wounded by a fragment of shell. Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt busied herself not only with the infirmary but with the office. The ambulance being a military one, and having to supply daily reports to the central establishment at the Val-de-Grâce hospital, Mlle. Bernhardt carefully noted all particulars of the patients admitted and discharged, and kept all her accounts with remarkable exactitude. The war and the Commune over, the theatres re-opened their doors, and M. André Theuriet entrusted Mlle. Bernhardt with the principal _rôle_ in _Jean Marie_, which had just been accepted at the Odéon. Her success was striking, and she has kept this little piece in her _répertoire_, reviving it time after time in her tours, just as she has done with _Phèdre_. Nothing is more curious and instructive than to note the opinions of the theatrical critics on Sarah Bernhardt from this period onward. Sometimes she was lauded to the skies; at other times attempts were made to crush her by severe and often unjust condemnation. To begin with, let us take this expression of opinion given by the late M. Francisque Sarcey on October 14, 1871-- If I experienced great pleasure in seeing _Jean Marie_, it was because the principal part was taken by Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt. No one could be more innocently poetic than this young lady. She will become a great comedienne, and she is already an admirable artiste. Everything she does has a special savour of its own. It is impossible to say whether she is pretty. She is thin, and her expression is sad, but she has queenly grace, charm, and the inexpressible _je ne sais quoi_. She is an artiste by nature, and an incomparable one. There is no one like her at the Comédie Française. [Illustration: As Cordelia in _King Lear_.]