edie-Francaise, which was by no means the
comfortable or beautiful apartment people imagine, albeit that even in
those days the Comedie had a collection of interesting pictures, busts,
and statues worthy of being housed in a small museum. The chief ornament
of the room was a large glass between the two windows, but if the
apartment had been as bare as a barn, the conversation of Rachel would
have been sufficient to make one forget all about its want of
decoration; for, with the exception of the elder Dumas, I have never met
any one, either man or woman, who exercised the personal charm she did.
I have been told since that Bismarck has the same gift. I was never
sufficiently intimate with the great statesman to be able to judge,
having only met him three or four times, and under conditions that did
not admit of fairly testing his powers in that respect, but I have an
idea that the charm of both lay in their utter indifference to the
effect produced, or else in their absolute confidence of the result of
their simplicity of diction. Rachel's art of telling a story, if art it
was, reminded one of that of the chroniclers of the _Niebelungen_; for
notwithstanding her familiarity with Racine and Corneille, her
vocabulary was exceedingly limited, and her syntax, if not her grammar,
off the stage, not always free from reproach.

I do not pretend, after the lapse of so many years, to give these
stories in her own language, or all of them; there are a few, however,
worth the telling, apart from the fascination with which she invested
them.

One evening she said to me, "Do you know Poirson?"

I had known Poirson when he was director of the Gymnase. He afterwards
always invited me to his soirees, one of which, curiously enough, was
given on the Sunday before the Revolution of '48. So I said, "Yes, I
know Poirson."

"Has he ever told you why he did not re-engage me?"

"Never."

"I'll tell you. People said it was because I did not succeed in 'La
Vendeenne' of Paul Duport; but that was not the cause. It was something
much more ridiculous; and now that I come to think of it, I am not sure
that I ought to tell you, for you are an Englishman, and you will be
shocked."

I was not shocked, I was simply convulsed with laughter, for Rachel, not
content with telling the story, got up, and, gradually drawing to the
middle of the room, enacted it. It was one of those ludicrous incidents
that happen sometimes on the stage, which no amoun