On the 10th February, 1898, Mme. Sarah Bernhardt telephoned to me to come and see her. The occasion was a serious one. She told me that on the following day she would leave her house in the Boulevard Pereire and enter a private hospital in the Rue d’Armaillé, where she was to undergo a painful operation. For some time past she had suffered from a dull, aching pain, and during a performance of _Les Mauvais Bergers_, in which she had to fall flat on her face, she experienced a sharper pang than usual. She ought to have at once begun to take care of herself and avoid all fatigue, but when she returned to her dressing-room, her first act was to fall on her face again to make sure that what she had felt was not mere imagination. She went on making sure in this way through the remaining forty performances of _Les Mauvais Bergers_. Finally, however, she called in Dr. Pozzi, who immediately discovered serious internal trouble, and informed her that an operation must be performed in June. In spite of this, Mme. Sarah Bernhardt organized a provincial tour; but her condition suddenly became worse, and Dr. Pozzi decided that the operation must take place almost immediately. A few days before the date fixed, the actress decided to break the news to her son. She did this on the eve of his duel with M. Champsaur, of which, of course, he had not told her. “You can imagine what a blow it was to him,” Mme. Sarah Bernhardt remarked to me. “Were you not afraid?” I asked--I don’t exactly know why, the great artiste being as gay and alert as usual. “Afraid?” she replied. “No; there’s no danger with Pozzi. It’s just a stroke of bad luck,” she added bravely, with a smile. “I had a wonderful run of success last year, too much in fact, and now this is a set-off.” “When is the operation to be?” I asked. “On Wednesday. Don’t forget to come and see me when I am convalescent. I will tell you all sorts of fine stories, so that you won’t get bored.” The operation was perfectly successful, and on the 1st of May, Mme. Sarah Bernhardt, who was then quite out of danger, was allowed to see her friends on condition that they should be very few and their visits very short. As one of these friends, I spent half-an-hour in the sick-room.