Rachel (1887 British Edition)/Chapter 2
GIRLHOOD.
In December 1834, Rachel definitely left the school in the Rue Vaugirard. As the months went on, she showed less capacity for singing and more for declamation. Choron had hoped to develop a contralto voice, but hers exceeded the ordinary contralto compass. He determined, therefore, to persuade his friend Pagnon Saint Aulaire, who educated pupils for the stage independently of the Conservatoire, to take her into his class. Like Choron, Saint Aulaire recognised the girl's dramatic genius, and for four years devoted himself to the task of developing it. Not only did he teach her declamation, but he made her read the best French authors, and endeavoured to improve her style of expression in writing and speaking, which, as we have seen, was entirely uncultured. The rôles of Hermione, Iphigenia, and Marie Stuart, were imprinted by him in his pupil's memory, word by word, line by line, intonation by intonation. Master and pupil discussed and fought over every detail. She preferred to study the part of Dorinne in Tartuffe, Philaminte in Les Femmes Savantes, or Lisette in Les Folies Amoureuses. She laughed at those who declared that her voice and appearance were only suited for tragedy, and it was with the greatest difficulty that her master could persuade her of the justice of the decision. It is noteworthy that to the last day she occupied the stage Rachel retained her love of comic parts, in which none of her best dramatic qualities appeared. On the 1st of July 1844, she ventured to act Mariette on the boards where she had just enchanted her Parisian audience with Phêdre, and is said to have affirmed that her representation of the soubrettes' part was better than that of the Greek Queen.
Now and then Saint Aulaire received the reward of his trouble by a flash of genius and comprehension that startled him. He had hired the Salle Molière, and allowed his pupils to act there once a week. The arrangements relating to these performances were unique in their way. A list of the pieces to be played being hung up, anyone by selecting his part and paying for it—the amount charged being in proportion to the importance of the character—could strut his brief hour upon the stage; the amount expended in acting was returned in tickets, so that the aspiring amateurs were always sure of an audience. Here one day Rachel recited the narrative of Salema in l'Abufar of Ducis, describing the anguish of the mother who, while dying of thirst in the desert, gives birth to her child. While uttering the thrilling story, the thin face seemed to lengthen with horror, the small deep-set black eyes dilated with a fixed stare, as though she witnessed the harrowing scene, and the deep guttural tones, despite a slight Jewish accent, awoke a nameless terror in the hearer, carrying him through the imaginary woe with a strange feeling of reality not to be shaken off, as long as the sounds lasted. The audience listened with rapt attention, and the sigh of pent-up agitation with which they greeted her at the end, expressed their emotion better than the loudest applause. Still she had to cope with grave disadvantages. The voice, afterwards Rachel's greatest charm, was then harsh and unmusical; the figure, afterwards so graceful, was then stunted and thin; the face, afterwards so expressive and mobile, was then pale and ugly.
Her appearance at this time is thus graphically described by one, an intimate friend in later years, who saw her for the first time in 1834:—
It was a cold grey November morning. Rachel was dressed in a short calico frock, the pattern of which was the common one of a red ground spotted with white; the trousers were of the same material; the boots of coarse black leather, laced in front, but scrupulously polished. Her hair was parted at the back of the head, and hung down her shoulders in two plaits. Everything about the child was of the cheapest and plainest description, but the "ensemble" conveyed an idea of neatness and even precision—characteristics for which she was always noted. With those older than herself [he goes on to say] little Rachel was punctiliously polite; grave and simple beyond her years, every feature of the long childish face bore the impress of modesty and even dignity, with which education had little to do.
M. Villemont, the correspondent of the Indépendance Belge, also describes Rachel at this period of her life:—
It was at the Salle Molière, where Saint Aulaire made his pupils act, that I first saw her in 1835. One of my friends, a young man of good family, who was possessed with the passion for private theatricals, invited me to witness his performance of the part of Danville in the École des Vieillards. As we entered the theatre, my friend stopped and spoke to a thin half-starved-looking little girl, who leant against a column, under a smoky lamp. "Élisa, would you rather have a bun or fried potatoes?" he asked. "Fried potatoes," was the answer.
My friend, who from being accustomed to play the parts of kings and nobles, had acquired habits of reckless prodigality, handed her a two-sous piece. I followed his example. The child disappeared and returned almost immediately, bearing a paper horn of fried potatoes, temptingly hot and brown. She offered the "horn" to my friend and myself, and this was the only time I ever partook of a meal with Mademoiselle Rachel.
In 1836 Saint Aulaire applied to the then director of the Comédie Française, Jouslin de la Salle, on behalf of his pupil "La petite Diablesse," as he called her. Jouslin gives the following account of the interview:—
Saint Aulaire entered my office one morning and spoke with extreme animation about a poor Jewish girl, whom he described to me as the ideal of tragedy, and the only person capable of recalling the chefs d'ouvres of our tragic repertory. It was Rachel for whom the professor demanded an audience, which I granted on the spot. Mademoiselle Mars, myself, and Mademoiselle Anaïs were the only persons present. Saint Aulaire recited with the débutante, who was then very small. She had selected Hermione in Andromaque and Mariette in the Dépit Amoureux. She commenced with the latter, in which she showed no remarkable talent; but she had hardly finished in Andromaque the ironical passage "The Farewell to Orestes" than we uttered exclamations of surprise. For a very long time we had not heard the verses declaimed with so much precision or such energy. The performance over, Mademoiselle Mars kissed the young girl (who was quite moved by the success she had just achieved) and evinced great interest in her. Upon the remark that she was very short for the parts of queens and great heroines, the characters she had decided on playing, Mars reminded us that Mademoiselle Maillet, the great tragic actress, was still shorter. "Besides," she added, "it is a good fault, the child will grow."
What a scene for a picture! Mars—the beautiful and successful Mars—who had reigned a queen for so long, and who still retained a great deal of the grace and beauty that enchanted the France of the latter end of the preceding century, and the pale dark-faced Jewess, with the eyes of flame, who was destined to take the sceptre that was dropping from the elder woman's grasp. The result of this audience was that Rachel obtained an engagement at the Comédie Française to play children's parts at a salary of eight hundred francs a year. The rôle of her début was even decided on, Louison in La Fausse Agnès; she rehearsed; her dress was ordered, made, and tried on; and then, for some reason which has never been explained, and of which the theatre does not even possess a trace, this first engagement was never fulfilled, and Rachel went off to the Conservatoire.
Here she did not seem to obtain the notice she merited, and made little progress. Samson, then at the height of his reputation, saw her, but refrained from expressing an opinion as to her powers; Michelet declared her voice to be so unmusical as to unfit her for the stage; and Provost—the harsh and violent Provost—informed her in the most offensive manner, after one lesson, that she was only fit to do what she had done before—sell flowers in the streets. The story goes, that some months later, having played Hermione to a crowded house, and having been recalled with storms of applause to receive a perfect ovation of flowers, she bent down, picked up some, and, filling her Greek tunic with them, approached Provost, and with saucy grace held it out, saying, "I have followed your advice, M. Provost, I am selling bouquets, will you buy?"
Meantime, neglected and despised, the poor girl worked on until an insult was put upon her, by the professors, which she would not bear. Tartuffe had been announced for representation by the pupils; she was assigned the part of Flipote the servant-girl, who simply appears upon the scene in the first act, that her ears may be boxed by Madame Pernelle. Humiliation could no further go, and she left the Conservatoire in high dudgeon, only to suffer still further, for a severely inflamed throat necessitated the cutting of her tonsils; and for months she remained at home in enforced idleness.
Disheartened, but animated still oy one idea, one passion, as soon as she was able to speak again she went to her old friend Saint Aulaire, who promised to do what he could for her. Like all their nationality, Rachel's family were superstitious: Madame Félix told fortunes by cards. "I often cried as a child," Rachel would say in later years, "when my mother predicted ill-luck." This evening when she returned to the wretched garret they inhabited in the Rue des Lions-Saint Paul, she asked her mother to tell her fortune. It turned out a brilliant one, and the little girl went to bed full of hopes for the future. Next day she received a message that M. Poirson, manager of the Gymnase Theatre, wished to see her, on the recommendation of M. Saint Aulaire. She went, accompanied by her father, and gave such satisfaction by her acting of the part of Éryphile that Poirson immediately offered to engage her. The following account of the interview is given by M. de Mirecourt:—
"What salary do you expect, Mademoiselle?" asked Poirson.
The young girl looked at her father, who hastened to answer in his German-French patois, "Nous falons teux mille vrancs, gomme un liard."
"You are worth more than that," said Poirson; "I will give you three thousand, with an annual increase of a third of this sum, if you succeed at my theatre."
"Dres pien! che signe dout te suite!" cried old Félix, astonished at this good fortune.
"We must now decide what name Mademoiselle will adopt on the play-bill. Under no circumstances can I allow that of Élisa to appear."
"Do you like the name of Rachel better?" asked the young girl.
"I should think so. It is the very thing! Keep to that."
On the 1st May 1837 Mademoiselle Rachel Félix was announced to appear on the stage of the Gymnase Theatre in a new play in two acts called La Vendéene, written for her by Paul Duport.