I well remember the first occasion on which I saw Mme. Sarah Bernhardt as Marguerite Gauthier. It was in London, in 1881. She played the part on several consecutive evenings, and every time I was there, interested, delighted, and enthusiastic! The notices I wrote then were simply brimming over with admiration. The Parisians thought me slightly mad! On the 24th January, 1894, _Izeïl_, by MM. Sylvestre and Morand, was brought out. Every act elicited enthusiastic applause from the public. Referring to Sarah, M. Jules Lemaître wrote in the _Journal des Débats_-- We owe to her one of the strongest artistic impressions we have ever experienced. Is it a fact that, for reasons which MM. Sylvestre and Morand know as well as I, and which the reader can doubtless guess, her creative has had still more play than her artistic talent? M. Sarcey says-- In this delightfully picturesque play she is herself the most delightful and most picturesque spectacle. She does not look thirty! The audience was at first quite overcome. Then there was a furious outburst of applause, and the house rose at her. What a triumph! [Illustration: As Gismonda.] These extracts, which might be multiplied _ad infinitum_, show Sarah Bernhardt at her apogee. From this point her supremacy was undisputed, and any show of criticism was always tempered by admiring reservations. This was the attitude henceforth adopted by the entire Press in regard to her creations. _Fédora_ was revived on the 3rd April, 1894. M. Lemaître remarks on it-- I am not quite sure whether Mme. Sarah Bernhardt can say “How do you do?” like any ordinary mortal. To be herself she must be extraordinary, and then she is incomparable. Off to London in June, she played _Izeïl_ with tremendous success. On her return she gave _La Femme de Claude_ on the 19th September. _Gismonda_, which she produced on the 1st November, elicited another poetical outburst of admiration in the Press. The _Figaro_ speaks of her as attaining the perfection of her art. M. Bauer, in the _Echo de Paris_, calls Gismonda the most wonderful of all her creations. M. Lemaître, in the _Journal des Débats_, says that “as all the laudatory adjectives have already been used up in her service, it is difficult to express the adoration evoked by every fresh appearance of this extraordinary woman.” M. Sarcey alone was rather reserved in his praise, and described her as having been applauded with more Italian than French exaggeration; but he amply atoned for this when Sarah revived _Phèdre_ on the 24th December of the same year (1894).