2023-07-27 17:27:32
The photo is of poor quality, but it says a lot. We see Sarah Bernhardt, injured among the wounded. But also flamboyant, in this war setting, with her wide hat and thick fur, her gaze confident. An empress, on her stretcher chair.
The photo dates from 1916, it was taken in Dieulouard, on the Eastern Front, where the actress came to support the morale of the soldiers. Around her, dozens of soldiers, Poiret helmets and greatcoats, who for two years have been facing the horrors of the Great War; and if Sarah knows neither the misery of the trenches nor the fire of grapeshot, she has, on the other hand, the experience of the mutilated body. A few months earlier, at age 70, her right leg had been amputated. Another photo taken in Dieulouard shows her standing in front of the lens, in fragile balance, supported by a cane. On his left leg, the only one he has left.
“We are currently cutting so many nimble legs”
It was she who had begged the doctor to relieve her of terrible knee pain, following a fall – the consequences of bone tuberculosis are also mentioned (1). “So many nimble legs of young men are being cut off, arms made for hugging are being cut off and you would deny me that”, she writes to Professor Pozzi, who has already operated on her but who, this time, does not care: the operation is risky, the actress is old. So, in her letter, she implores: “Why condemn me to inactivity. With a well-made wooden leg, I can say my verses, (…) come and go without pain. I don’t have the instinct for self-preservation and I’m fighting my leg, let her go where she wants! » Panache and derision, always. Sarah Bernhardt has no intention of feeling sorry for herself.
Sarah Bernhardt came to support the morale of the soldiers on the Eastern front, in Dieulouard, in 1916. The actress knows, like some soldiers, the experience of the mutilated body. A few months earlier, at age 70, her right leg had been amputated. / ECPAD
Professor Denucé, at the beginning of 1915, finally agrees to operate on him. He is offered a prosthesis and a wooden leg. She doesn’t want it. The actress chooses instead “a stretcher chair, white and caned, very narrow, which can easily slip into a car or into an elevator”, says Lysiane, her granddaughter, chair in which “she wanders (…) behind the scenes as in the city ». And when, after the surgery, her friend Suze Rueff starts to cry, Sarah keeps her panache: “Don’t be sad Suzeshe told him. I walked for seventy years, that’s enough. From now on, I will wear myself as a Byzantine Empress. »
In Dieulouard, on this day in 1916, she is there to perform. The theater of armies, the Great Sarah wants to be, amputated or not! On a third photo, we find her in an improvised lodge, at the Boucq camp, next to Béatrix Dussane, from the Comédie-Française. The actors play everywhere, in castles, hospitals, barns, in front of thousands of soldiers who can then escape for a moment. Imagine, when they discover the “Divine”, in flesh and bone! On these outdoor scenes, in discomfort, sadness and fear, the miracle operates. “Sarah old, mutilated, still enlightened a crowd with the radiance of her geniustestifies Béatrix Dussane. This fragile, wounded and immobile being could still, by the magic of his words, sound heroism to the soldiers coming out of action. »
“A Demolition”
For the artist, 1915 nevertheless marked a turning point. If she overcomes the trauma and continues to perform on stage, her body is hindering her. Her repertoire is impoverished, she plays in a “relative immobility” to use her words, often seated, in rooms like Daniel or Regine Armand, by Louis Verneuil. No masterpiece, Phaedrus et L’Aiglon seem far away… The society columnist, Abbé Mugnier, goes so far as to write that “Sarah Bernhardt is nothing more than a demolition”.
VIDEO???? From the actress who died a hundred years ago, we think we know everything. But what do we know about the intimate Sarah? Difficult to apprehend the sensual, carnal and loving life of the actress.
“Sarah Bernhardt body and soul”, a series to be found in La Croix ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/GcJ0O3r3iO
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The line is severe. Undoubtedly a little easy and very exaggerated, to look at it closely. In September 1916, shortly after the amputation, she went on tour in the United States; she also tries herself in the cinema, in patriotic films like French mothers or documentaries, in front of the camera of the young Sacha Guitry. A “demolition” ? The images show another reality.
On these mute and damaged reels, so precious today, the silhouette of the sacred monster comes to life… Under the watchful eye of Sacha Guitry, we discover an actress of great elegance under a veiled hat, endearing, full of vitality . Something of his bearing and his charm crosses the screen and the years. We would like to be able to sit down for a few moments on the bench beside him.
If Abbé Mugnier describes Sarah Bernhardt as “demolition”, following her amputation, the actress does not give up her career. She notably appeared in several documentaries, directed by Sacha Guitry (1885-1957), here at her side (around 1910). / adoc-photos
Strength, fragility, throughout her life, the artist forged herself in a paradox: that of delicate health – at least presented as such – and the will not to give in to it. The anthropologist Gilles Boëstsch, who worked on the representations of the sick body, is thus struck by the attitude of the actress, who undoubtedly suffered from tuberculosis.
“Many women were concerned in the 19th century. But Sarah, she contrasts with the imagery of the “poisonous”, the “suffering”, whose fragility is then underlined. Pale, evanescent women”as in the table Opheliaby the English painter John E. Millais, at the turn of the 1850s. On the contrary, Sarah Bernhardt refers, according to the researcher, “to a certain masculinity” – in the codes of then –, “by refusing the disease and taking one’s destiny in hand”.
Poor health
In fact, to read his memoirs, the artist was not spared. From the first pages, she describes herself as “fairly weak in health, the bones small and friable”victim of several painful episodes, fall, pleurisy, anemia… Returning to her early childhood, she even recounts having fallen one day “into the crackling fire” with his Breton nurse. “They threw me, all steaming, into a large bucket of milk which had just been drawn”she assures, before recounting having been treated with a butter mask, renewed every hour, which earned her the nickname of “Flower-of-milk” (2).
Sarah Bernhardt, left, alongside Sacha Guitry and Yvonne Printemps (right), on the occasion of their wedding, April 10, 1919, in Paris. / Meurisse press agency / Photographic agency/BnF
Thus, her biographer, Claudette Joannis, assures her: Sarah Bernhardt was a ” force of nature. She also slept very little, always working, rehearsing until the middle of the night, when the troupe couldn’t take it anymore! » Faced with a sick actor, she has no concern : “Take a pill and go on stage. » And, learning that a 50-year-old man had just died – this time, it’s Sacha Guitry who says, with his sense of comedy –, she only sighs: “Does he have to be stupid. »
No doubt, there is also in these stories, these carefully recorded misadventures, a way of constructing the legend. A woman of weak constitution, “skinny enough to make the geese cry », victim of blows of fate, but who always gets up. Hadn’t she chosen the motto “all the same”? A maxim that she had inscribed everywhere, on her linen, her crockery, her furniture and “up to the pavilion that floats on the roof of his property in Belle-Île”recalls his biographer.
“One lung, one kidney…”
To forge this image, Sarah could also count on a weighty ally. In 1952, when he decided to add a commentary to his 1915 film, Sacha Guitry confided: “She was 72 that day. She lived for fifty years with only one lung, for thirty years with only one kidney and for fifteen days, alas, with only one leg. She was courage personified. » Just that… Claudette Joannis is amused and enraged at the same time, because the legend is tenacious. “The leg is true, but the lung and the kidney are completely false. Sacha Guitry is a man of the theater, he adds to it! »
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Crapahutant on the rocks of Belle-Île
A resort scene, in Brittany, as Sarah Bernhardt liked them. She, always impeccable, colorful dress close to the body and veiled hat, surrounded by her loved ones, on a steep rock of Belle-Île. Since falling in love with Pointe des Poulains in 1893, she has settled there every summer with her trunks and her tribe, in an austere fort, open to all winds.
Sarah Bernhardt and her family enjoy the Pointe des Poulains in Brittany every year, as here in 1893. Despite her knee pain, the actress walks the wild paths with a stick or cane in hand. / BNF
And now, all bewildered in the costumes of the Belle Époque, she trudges with a stick or cane in her hand on the wild paths, in defiance of her knee pain, which will lead to her amputation. All her life, the actress has thus shown extraordinary physical courage, she who continued to go on stage after this operation, at the beginning of 1915.
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