met" manner off the stage to those
whom she liked to propitiate. Nevertheless, there were times when she
had not a single friend at the Comedie-Francaise, and though her
champions attributed this hostility to jealousy of her great gifts, a
moment's consideration would show us that such a feeling could scarcely
have influenced the men who to a great extent shared her histrionic
triumphs, viz., Beauvallet, Regnier, Provost, Samson, and least of all
the latter. Still, all these would have willingly kept her out of the
Comedie-Francaise after she had left it in a huff. She was difficult to
get on with; her modesty, assumed in everyday life, was a sham, for woe
to the host who, deceived by it, did not at once make her the queen of
the entertainment! And, in reality, nothing in her warranted such a
temporary elevation. She was witty in her way and after her kind--that
is, she had the quick-wittedness of the French woman who is not an
absolute fool, and who has for many years rubbed elbows with everything
distinguished in art and literature. Notwithstanding this intimacy, I am
doubtful whether she had ever read, let alone appreciated, any of the
masterpieces by the writers of her own days that did not directly bear
upon her profession. I exclude fiction--I mean narrative fiction, and
especially that of a sensational kind, of which she was probably as fond
as the meanest concierge and most romantic milliner-girl.

Nevertheless, provided one did not attempt to analyze it, the power of
fascinating the coldest interlocutor was there. To their honor be it
said, her contemporaries, especially the men, rarely made such an
attempt at analysis. They applauded all she said (off and on the stage),
they tolerated all she did, albeit that they paid the cost of many of
her so-called "amiable tricks," which were mainly so many instances of
greed and nothing else. One evening she was dining at Comte Duchatel's,
the minister of Louis-Philippe. The table was positively laden with
flowers, but Rachel did not care much about them; what she wanted was
the splendid silver centre-piece. But she was too clever to unmask her
batteries at once, so she began by admiring the contents, then at last
she came to the principal point. The host was either in one of his
generous or foolish moods, and made her a present of it there and then.
Rachel knew, though, that even with a grand seigneur like Comte
Duchatel, there are "les lendemains de l'enthousiasme," esp