BERNHARDT 



BERNHARDT 



Saint Bernard dominated 'the affairs of the 

 Church for the rest of his life and in 1128 

 gave the rules of government to the newly- 

 founded Order of Knights Templars. His stir- 

 ring eloquence inspired the Christians to under- 

 take the second Crusade (see CRUSADES), but 

 of the innumerable host that marched to the 

 holy war only a remnant ever returned, and 

 his disappointment over this failure was a blow 

 from which he never recovered. 



He wrote a large number of epistles, sermons 

 and treatises, and his beautiful hymns, Jesus, 

 the Very Thought of Thee and 0, Sacred Head, 

 Now Wounded, are sung in Christian churches 

 to-day. Martin Luther's words concerning him 

 are famous : "If there ever lived a God-fearing 

 and holy monk, it was Saint Bernard of Clair- 

 vaux." 



BERNHARDT, ROSINE, known as SARAH 

 (1845- ), one of the world's greatest 

 actresses, who through fifty years of almost 

 uninterrupted work retained unimpaired her 

 vitality and her artistic gifts. The impression 

 that her art has 

 made on people 

 is expressed in 

 the name so fre- 

 quently applied 

 to her "the Di- 

 vine Sarah." 



She was born in 

 Paris, and though 

 of Jewish descent 

 was baptized with 

 Christian rites, in 

 accordance with 

 her father's wish, 

 and spent the early years of her life in a con- 

 vent. At the Paris Conservatory, where she 

 studied from 1858 to 1862, she won second 

 prizes for tragedy and comedy, but her first 

 appearance on the stage in 1862, in a small 

 part in Racine's Iphigenia, was in no way 

 exceptional. After an unsuccessful trial of 

 burlesque she turned to serious parts, and as 

 Cordelia in King Lear, as the queen in Hugo's 

 Ruy Bias and as Zanetto in The Passer-by, she 

 made it known to the theatrical world that a 

 new actress of rare promise had appeared. 



Joining the company at the French Comedy 

 Theater in 1872, she achieved a series of 

 triumphs, one of her most remarkable perform- 

 ances being the role of Dona Sol in Hugo's 

 Hernani (1877). In 1879 she acted with great 

 success at the London Gaiety Theater. On 

 her return to Paris she suddenly terminated an 



SARAH BERNHARDT 



engagement with the management of the 

 French Comedy Theater, a breach of contract 

 which cost her $20,000. During 1880 and 1881 

 she toured Denmark, Russia and America, in- 

 cluding in her repertoire the famous Camille 

 of Dumas. In 1882, in London, she married 

 a Greek actor, Jaques Damala, from whom she 

 was separated a year later. Her next appear- 

 ances on the stage were in a number of plays 

 by Sardou, who wrote for her especial use 

 Theodora, La Tosco and Cleopatra. 



American Tours. Bernhardt's first American 

 tour began in 1886, and she was everywhere 

 received with great enthusiasm. Between 1891 

 and 1893 she visited North and South America, 

 Australia, and the chief countries of Europe, 

 and on her return to Paris in 1893 she became 

 manager of the Theater of the Renaissance. 

 Five years later she established the Sarah 

 Bernhardt Theater, of which she is still the 

 manager, and which she opened with a revival 

 of La Tosca. She revisited America in 1900, 

 1911 and 1913, the first of these tours being 

 devoted to Rostand's L'Aiglon, with the famous 

 Coquelin in the leading male role. Her 1913 

 tour consisted of vaudeville performances of 

 single acts from a number of plays, and the 

 presentation of a new one-act play entitled 

 A Christmas Night During the Reign of Terror. 



During the American engagement of 1913 

 she suffered from an accident which later 

 developed into blood poisoning and made 

 necessary the amputation of a leg in February, 

 1915. Yet she learned to walk on an artificial 

 leg and resolutely returned to activity, al- 

 though not to the stage. In 1914 she appeared 

 in a moving-picture production of Queen Eliz- 

 abeth, which she said gave her great joy be- 

 cause it would make her live a thousand years. 



In October, 1916, this great actress returned 

 to the United States to appear during the 

 following winter in the principal cities. She 

 was accorded the greatest reception which ever 

 marked her American experiences. 



Her services to America have been aptly 

 summarized by a writer in these words: "Of 

 French literature we knew nothing. She opened 

 that great treasure-house to us. She made liv- 

 ing realities of great dramatists and created an 

 intellectual sympathy between France and 

 America." The countries of Europe which the 

 great Bernhardt has visited owe her a similar 

 tribute. 



Estimate of the Actress. Bernhardt is also a 

 gifted painter and sculptor, and has written a 

 volume of Memoirs and two plays. In recogni- 



