Sarah Bernhardt and Politics: A Fervid Republican

I am French,’ Sarah Bernhardt was to say, ‘I am French by birth, at heart, in spirit, art and love.’ She was in fact the daughter of a Dutch mother (a courtesan, Judith Van Hard) and a French father- a sometime lawyer from Le Havre by the name of Edouard Bernhardt. But Sarah never knew any dual nationality of spirit.

She was born in Paris on October 23rd, 1844. Even in her childhood, she became aware of French politics. The Duc de Morny, who had helped to establish the Second Empire, decided Sarah’s career. The Emperor’s half-brother, he was also, in 1859, the current lover of Judith Van Hard. One September day that year - on the eve of Sarah’s fifteenth birthday - Mme Van Hard assembled some friends to advise her on the girl’s future. It was the Duc de Morny who put an end to the deliberations.

Did he make the suggestion from genuine percipience? Did he see it as a convenient way of ridding his mistress of an unwanted daughter? Or did he merely hazard a guess, at random, because he was growing bored? Whatever his motive, he made the decision. ‘You know what to do with the child?’, he said. ‘Send her to the Conservatoire.’