Page:Rachel (1887 Nina H. Kennard).djvu/59

about singing for her daily bread, half-clothed and ill-fed, and who had stood many a night eating fried potatoes under a column outside the Salle Molière, was a match in bearing and manner for any Duchess in Paris. Dr. Véron says, not without hidden satire: "What taste and tact were required to enable her to bear with dignity this sudden transition from obscurity to splendour, from misery to filling the position of the spoiled child of fortune. This society, which later exaggerated her faults and accused her unjustly of many things, only chose at the beginning of her career to see perfection in every act, and a heart above all the evil sentiments and violent passions which she knew so well how to portray. The success which Mademoiselle Rachel obtained in the drawing-rooms of the great, the favour full of tenderness which she knew how to win from distinguished women of the world, can only be explained by the rare qualities—I do not say of the actress, but of a young girl who was spirituelle, amiable, and always mistress of herself." Her social perception was instinctive. She who a few hours before had held hundreds rapt, watching every smile and frown, and hanging on every word she spoke, now retired and entrenched herself behind the most charming repose and reserve of manner, never venturing to assert her superior intellectual powers, or obtrude her personality in any way. Her taste in dress was exquisite, simple, unostentatious, but perfect in every detail. Théodore de Banville, the poet, says: "Her most marvellous creation was neither Hermione, nor Phèdre, nor Thisbé. It was that chef d'œuvre, worthy of Balzac and Gavarni, Rachel Parisienne." In her grace, in her distinction, she was essentially well-bred, essentially refined; and this is