I have often seen _Adrienne Lecouvreur_ acted, since that evening whose events I am recalling, with a tremor of the heart simply at the remembrance of the anguish I felt while Camille was performing this mad action. I have always noticed that the audience are gripped by this scene. As regards myself, both before and after the performance by Camille upon the improvised stage at Bonnivet’s house, this scene has always moved me so that I found the action indicated by the book quite natural—I had the curiosity to consult it. Adrienne continues to advance towards the princess, to whom she points with her finger, remaining some time in this attitude, while the ladies and gentlemen who have followed her movements rise as if in affright. It was without any doubt a similar effect on the audience of terror, for ever dishonouring to her rival, that the despised mistress had, in a flash of blind passion, resolved to produce at the risk of the most terrible consequences. I awaited this terrible effect with as frightful a certainty as if I could see in Camille’s hand a loaded weapon pointed at Madam de Bonnivet. To-day, when my mind goes back to those moments in which my heart leapt with apprehension, I cannot help smiling. Every one of the audience without doubt knew _Adrienne Lecouvreur_ if not like I did, at least well enough to recall the situation which was so dramatic as to be easily intelligible. Every one had trembled at the Théâtre Français when they saw Sarah Bernhardt or Bartet advance towards the Princess de Bouillon as Camille advanced towards Madam de Bonnivet. But, except those who were directly interested in this scene, not one of the audience appeared to understand the young actress’ sinister intention. No one, I am certain, instituted, between the scene being enacted before them at that moment and the one they had seen acted ten or twenty times at the theatre, a comparison which would have been a revelation. The actress herself, stupefied at what she had dared to do and the results, mechanically continued the tirade as if in a dream. Automatically, too, the tones of Sarah Bernhardt came back to her as she concluded. She stopped amid a most flattering murmur from all sides, the discreet applause of the fashionable before a wonderful feat marvellously executed. One could hear such phrases as: “Very lifelike! Shutting your eyes you would think you were listening to Sarah! How gifted the little one is! It is not given to every one to possess talent like that!” Madam de Bonnivet, who had been the first to clap, had got up and gone to Camille, to whom she said with a smile, the amiability of which was her crowning insolence— “Exquisite, mademoiselle, exquisite. I am very grateful to you. Was it not exquisite, Molan? Will you give Mademoiselle Favier your arm and take her to the buffet?”