Everybody being safe and sound, we set out for Paris, but on arriving at St. Denis we found there were no more trains. It was four o’clock in the morning. The Germans were masters of all the suburbs of Paris, and trains only ran for their service. After an hour spent in running about, in discussions and rebuffs, I met with an officer of higher rank, who was better educated and more agreeable. He had a locomotive prepared to take me to the Gare du Hâvre (Gare St. Lazare).

The journey was very amusing. My mother, my aunt, my sister Régina, Mlle. Soubise, the two maids, the children, and I all squeezed into a little square space, in which there was a very small, narrow bench, which I think was the place for the signalman in those days. The engine went very slowly, as the rails were frequently obstructed by carts or railway carriages.

We left at five in the morning and arrived at seven. At a place which I cannot locate our German conductors were exchanged for French conductors. I questioned them, and learnt that revolutionary troubles were beginning in Paris.

The stoker with whom I was talking was a very intelligent and very advanced individual.

“You would do better to go somewhere else, and not to Paris,” he said, “for before long they will come to blows there.”

We had arrived. But as no train was expected in at that hour, it was impossible to find a carriage. I got down with my tribe from the locomotive, to the great amazement of the station officials.

I was no longer very rich, but I offered twenty francs to one of the men if he would see to our six bags. We were to send for my trunk and those belonging to my family later on.

There was not a single carriage outside the station. The children were very tired, but what was to be done? I was then living at No. 4 Rue de Rome, and this was not far away, but my mother scarcely ever walked, for she was delicate and had a weak heart. The children, too, were very, very tired. Their eyes were puffed up and scarcely open, and their little limbs were benumbed by the cold and immobility. I began to get desperate, but a milk cart was just passing by, and I sent a porter to hail it. I offered twenty francs if the man would drive my mother and the two children to 4 Rue de Rome.

“And you too, if you like, young lady,” said the milkman. “You are thinner than a grasshopper, and you won’t make it any heavier.”

I did not want inviting twice, although rather annoyed by the man’s speech.

When once my mother was installed, in spite of her hesitation, by the side of the milkman, and the children and I were in amongst the full and empty milk-pails, I said to our driver, “Would you mind coming back to fetch the others?” I pointed to the remaining group, and added, “You shall have twenty francs more.”

“Right you are!” said the worthy fellow. “A good day’s work! Don’t you tire your legs, you others. I’ll be back for you directly!”

He then whipped up his horse and we started at a wild rate. The children rolled about and I held on. My mother set her teeth and did not utter a word, but from under her long lashes she glanced at me with a displeased look.

On arriving at my door the milkman drew up his horse so sharply that I thought my mother would have fallen out on to the animal’s back. We had arrived, though, and we got out. The cart started off again at full speed. My mother would not speak to me for about an hour. Poor, pretty mother, it was not my fault.

I had gone away from Paris eleven days before, and had then left a sad city. The sadness had been painful, the result of a great and unexpected misfortune. No one had dared to look up, fearing to be blown upon by the same wind which was blowing the German flag floating yonder towards the Arc de Triomphe.

I now found Paris effervescent and grumbling. The walls were placarded with multi-coloured posters; and all these posters contained the wildest harangues. Fine noble ideas were side by side with absurd threats. Workmen on their way to their daily toil stopped in front of these bills. One would read aloud, and the gathering crowd would begin to read over again.

And all these human beings, who had just been suffering so much through this abominable war, now echoed these appeals for vengeance. They were very much to be excused.

This war, alas! had hollowed out under their very feet a gulf of ruin and of mourning. Poverty had brought the women to rags, the privations of the siege had lowered the vitality of the children, and the shame of the defeat had discouraged the men.

Well, these appeals to rebellion, these anarchist shouts, these yells from the crowd, shrieking: “Down with thrones! Down with the Republic! Down with the rich! Down with the priests! Down with the Jews! Down with the army! Down with the masters! Down with those who work! Down with everything!”—all these cries roused the benumbed hearers. The Germans, who fomented all these riots, rendered us a real service without intending it. Those who had given themselves up to resignation were stirred out of their torpor. Others, who demanded revenge, found an aliment for their inactive forces. None of them agreed. There were ten or twenty different parties, devouring each other and threatening each other. It was terrible.

But it was the awakening. It was life after death. I had among my friends about ten of the leaders of different opinions, and all of them interested me, the maddest and the wisest of them.

I often saw Gambetta at Girardin’s, and it was a joy to me to listen to this admirable man. What he said was so wise, so well-balanced, and so captivating.

This man, with his heavy stomach, his short arms, and huge head, had a halo of beauty round him when he spoke.

Gambetta was never common, never ordinary. He took snuff, and the gesture of his hand when he brushed away the stray grains was full of grace. He smoked huge cigars, but could smoke them without inconveniencing any one. When he was tired of politics and talked literature it was a real charm, for he knew everything and quoted poetry admirably. One evening, after a dinner at Girardin’s, we played together the whole scene of the first act of Hernani with Dona Sol. And if he was not as handsome as Mounet-Sully, he was just as admirable in it.

On another occasion he recited the whole of “Ruth and Boaz,” commencing with the last verse.

But I preferred his political discussions, especially when he criticised the speech of some one who was of the opposite opinion to himself. The eminent qualities of this politician’s talent were logic and weight, and his seductive force was his chauvinism. The early death of so great a thinker is a disconcerting challenge flung at human pride.

I sometimes saw Rochefort, whose wit delighted me. I was not at ease with him, though, for he was the cause of the fall of the Empire, and, although I am very republican, I liked the Emperor Napoleon III. He had been too trustful, but very unfortunate, and it seemed to me that Rochefort insulted him too much after his misfortune.

I also frequently saw Paul de Rémusat, the favourite of Thiers. He had great refinement of mind, broad ideas, and fascinating manners. Some people accused him of Orleanism. He was a Republican, and a much more advanced Republican than Thiers. One must have known him very little to believe him to be anything else but what he said he was. Paul de Rémusat had a horror of untruth. He was sensitive, and had a very straightforward, strong character. He took no active part in politics, except in private circles, and his advice always prevailed, even in the Chamber and in the Senate. He would never speak except when in committee. The Ministry of Fine Arts was offered to him a hundred times, but he refused it a hundred times. Finally, after my repeated entreaties, he almost allowed himself to be appointed Minister of Fine Arts, but at the last moment he declined, and wrote me a delightful letter, from which I quote a few passages. As the letter was not written for publication, I do not consider that I have a right to give the whole of it, but there seems to be no harm in publishing these few lines:

“Allow me, my charming friend, to remain in the shade. I can see better there than in the dazzling brilliancy of honours. You are grateful to me sometimes for being attentive to the miseries you point out to me. Let me keep my independence. It is more agreeable to me to have the right to relieve every one than to be obliged to relieve no matter whom.... In matters of art I have made for myself an ideal of beauty, which would naturally seem too partial....”

It is a great pity that the scruples of this delicate-minded man did not allow him to accept this office. The reforms that he pointed out to me were, and still are, very necessary ones. However, that cannot be helped.

I also knew and frequently saw a mad sort of fellow, full of dreams and Utopian follies. His name was Flourens, and he was tall and nice-looking. He wanted every one to be happy and every one to have money, and he shot down the soldiers without reflecting that he was commencing by making one or more of them unhappy. Reasoning with him was impossible, but he was charming and brave. I saw him two days before his death. He came to see me with a very young girl who wanted to devote herself to dramatic art. I promised him to help her. Two days later the poor child came to tell me of the heroic death of Flourens. He had refused to surrender, and, stretching out his arms, had shouted to the hesitating soldiers, “Shoot, shoot! I should not have spared you!” And their bullets had killed him.

Another man, not so interesting, whom I looked upon as a dangerous madman, was a certain Raoul Rigault. For a short time he was Prefect of Police. He was very young and very daring, wildly ambitious, determined to do anything to succeed, and it seemed to him more easy to do harm than good. That man was a real danger. He belonged to a group of students who used to send me verses every day. I came across them everywhere, enthusiastic and mad. They had been nicknamed in Paris the Saradoteurs (Sara-dotards). One day he brought me a little one-act play. The piece was so stupid and the verses were so insipid that I sent it him back with a few words, which he no doubt considered unkind, for he bore me malice for them, and attempted to avenge himself in the following way. He called on me one day, and Madame Guérard was there when he was shown in.

“Do you know that I am all-powerful at present?” he said.

“In these days there is nothing surprising in that,” I replied.

“I have come to see you, either to make peace or declare war,” he continued.

This way of talking did not suit me, and I sprang up. “As I can foresee that your conditions of peace would not suit me, cher Monsieur, I will not give you time to declare war. You are one of the men one would prefer, no matter how spiteful they might be, as enemies rather than friends.” With these words I rang for my footman to show the Prefect of Police to the door. Madame Guérard was in despair. “That man will do us some harm, my dear Sarah, I assure you,” she said.

She was not mistaken in her presentiment, except that she was thinking of me and not of herself, for his first vengeance was taken on her, by sending away one of her relatives, who was a police commissioner, to an inferior and dangerous post. He then began to invent a hundred miseries for me. One day I received an order to go at once to the Prefecture of Police on urgent business. I took no notice. The following day a mounted courier brought me a note from Sire Raoul Rigault, threatening to send a prison van for me. I took no notice whatever of the threats of this wretch, who was shot shortly after and died without showing any courage.

Life, however, was no longer possible in Paris, and I decided to go to St. Germain-en-Laye. I asked my mother to go with me, but she went to Switzerland with my youngest sister.

The departure from Paris was not as easy as I had hoped. Communists with gun on shoulder stopped the trains and searched in all our bags and pockets, and even under the cushions of the railway carriages. They were afraid that the passengers were taking newspapers to Versailles. This was monstrously stupid.

The installation at St. Germain was not an easy thing either. Nearly all Paris had taken refuge in this little place, which is as pretty as it is dull. From the height of the terrace, where the crowd remained morning and night, we could see the alarming progress of the Commune.

On all sides of Paris the flames rose, proud and destructive. The wind often brought us burnt papers, which we took to the Council House. The Seine brought quantities along with it, and the boatmen collected these in sacks. Some days—and these were the most distressing of all—an opaque veil of smoke enveloped Paris. There was no breeze to allow the flames to pierce through.

The city then burnt stealthily, without our anxious eyes being able to discover the fresh buildings that these furious madmen had set alight.

I went for a ride every day in the forest. Sometimes I would go as far as Versailles, but this was not without danger. We often came across poor starving wretches in the forest, whom we joyfully helped, but often, too, there were prisoners who had escaped from Poissy, or Communist sharpshooters trying to shoot a Versailles soldier.

One day, on the way back from Triel, where Captain O’Connor and I had been for a gallop over the hills, we entered the forest rather late in the evening, as it was a shorter way. A shot was fired from a neighbouring thicket, which made my horse bound so suddenly towards the left that I was thrown. Fortunately my horse was quiet. O’Connor hurried to me, but I was already up and ready to mount again. “Just a second,” he said; “I want to search that thicket.” A short gallop soon brought him to the spot, and I then heard a shot, some branches breaking under flying feet, then another shot not at all like the two former ones, and my friend appeared again with a pistol in his hand.

“You have not been hit?” I asked.

“Yes, the first shot just touched my leg, but the fellow aimed too low. The second he fired haphazard. I fancy, though, that he has a bullet from my revolver in his body.”

“But I heard some one running away,” I said.

“Oh,” replied the elegant captain, chuckling, “he will not go far.”

“Poor wretch!” I murmured.

“Oh no,” exclaimed O’Connor, “do not pity them, I beg. They kill numbers of our men every day; only yesterday five soldiers from my regiment were found on the Versailles road, not only killed, but mutilated,” and gnashing his teeth, he finished his sentence with an oath.

I turned towards him rather surprised, but he took no notice. We continued our way, riding as quickly as the obstacles in the forest would allow us. Suddenly, our horses stopped short, snorting and sniffing. O’Connor took his revolver in his hand, got off, and led his horse. A few yards from us there was a man lying on the ground.

“That must be the wretch who shot at me,” said my companion, and bending down over the man he spoke to him. A moan was the only reply. O’Connor had not seen his man, so that he could not have recognised him. He lighted a match, and we saw that this one had no gun. I had dismounted, and was trying to raise the unfortunate man’s head, but I withdrew my hand, covered with blood. He had opened his eyes, and fixed them on O’Connor.

“Ah, it’s you, Versailles dog!” he said. “It was you who shot me! I missed you, but——” He tried to pull out the revolver from his belt, but the effort was too great, and his hand fell down inert. O’Connor on his side had cocked his revolver, but I placed myself in front of the man, and besought him to leave the poor fellow in peace. I could scarcely recognise my friend, for this handsome, fair-haired man, so polite, rather a snob, but very charming, seemed to have turned into a brute. Leaning towards the unfortunate man, his under-jaw protruded, he was muttering under his teeth some inarticulate words; his clenched hand seemed to be grasping his anger, just as one does an anonymous letter before flinging it away in disgust.

“O’Connor, let this man alone, please!” I said.

He was as gallant a man as he was a good soldier. He gave way, and seemed to become aware of the situation again. “Good!” he said, helping me to mount once more. “When I have taken you back to your hotel, I will come back with some men to pick up this wretch.”

Half an hour later we were back home, without having exchanged another word during our ride.

I kept up my friendship with O’Connor, but I could never see him again without thinking of that scene. Suddenly, when he was talking to me, the brute-like mask under which I had seen him for a second would fix itself again over his laughing face. Quite recently, in March 1905, General O’Connor, who was commanding in Algeria, came to see me one evening in my dressing-room at the theatre. He told me about his difficulties with some of the great Arab chiefs.

“I fancy,” he said, laughing, “that we shall have a brush together.”

Again I saw the captain’s mask on the general’s face.

I never saw him again, for he died six months afterwards.

We were at last able to go back to Paris. The abominable and shameful peace had been signed, the wretched Commune crushed. Everything was supposed to be in order again. But what blood and ashes! What women in mourning! What ruins!

In Paris, we inhaled the bitter odour of smoke. All that I touched at home left on my fingers a somewhat greasy and almost imperceptible colour. A general uneasiness beset France, and more especially Paris. The theatres, however, opened their doors once more, and that was a general relief.

One morning I received from the Odéon a notice of rehearsal. I shook out my hair, stamped my feet, and sniffed the air like a young horse snorting.

The race-ground was to be opened for us again. We should be able to gallop afresh through our dreams. The lists were ready. The contest was beginning. Life was commencing again. It is truly strange that man’s mind should have made of life a perpetual strife. When there is no longer war there is battle, for there are a hundred thousand of us aiming for the same object. God has created the earth and man for each other. The earth is vast. What ground there is uncultivated! Miles upon miles, acres upon acres of new land waiting for arms that will take from its bosom the treasures of inexhaustible Nature. And we remain grouped round each other, crowds of famishing people watching other groups, which are also lying in wait.

The Odéon opened its doors to the public with a repertory programme. Some new pieces were given us to study. One of these met with tremendous success. It was André Theuriet’s Jean-Marie, and was produced in October 1871. This one-act play is a veritable masterpiece, and it took its author straight to the Academy. Porel, who played the part of Jean-Marie, met with an enormous success. He was at that time slender, nimble, and full of youthful ardour. He needed a little more poetry, but the joyous laughter of his thirty-two teeth made up in ardour for what was wanting in poetic desire. It was very good, anyhow.

My rôle of the young Breton girl, submissive to the elderly husband forced upon her, and living eternally with the memory of the fiancé who was absent, and perhaps dead, was pretty, poetical, and touching by reason of the final sacrifice. There was even a certain grandeur in the concluding part of the piece. It had, I must repeat, an immense success, and increased my growing reputation.

I was, however, awaiting the event which was to consecrate me a star. I did not quite know what I was expecting, but I knew that my Messiah had to come. And it was the greatest poet of the last century who was to place on my head the crown of the elect.