they had seen Rachel, and then sauntered off to enjoy the feats of the "Raval" brothers, and the man who swallowed a sword at a circus close by. She missed the appreciative, cultivated Parisian public, product of centuries, who hung en every word and gesture, and, when the curtain went down, discussed the points with sympathy and comprehension. The newspapers were full of her praises; the enthusiasm among the general public was great. A restaurant-keeper in Broadway, De Beauvallet tells us, invented a pudding "à la Rachel"; a shoemaker, "Les Guêtres à la Rachel"; ten different hair-dressers, "Les Coiffures à la Rachel"; but they did not crowd to see her, except in Adrienne Lecouvreur and Angelo, and then it was rather because of the richness and picturesqueness of the dresses and scenery than because they cared for the play. There is little doubt that, had not Rachel's state of health put an end to the representations, financial considerations would have induced her and her brother to relinquish an expedition which threatened to end in complete disaster.
At first the climate of America seemed to suit Rachel, "et j'engraisse!" she wrote to her mother, "J'espère avoir la vie aussi dure que mes vieilles tantes." She was full of vivacity and brightness in spite of the smallness of the receipts.
On the 8th September she wrote to the President, sending him 1,000 dollars for the relief of the unfortunate sufferers from yellow fever in Norfolk and Portsmouth. This gift was much laughed at in Paris; Augustine Brohan, her comrade, propounded maliciously the following riddle: "Pourquoi Rachel est-elle comme le vin de Madère?" "Parcequ'elle s'améliore en voyageant."
