loved and applauded him. But is it right that eternal oblivion should be the lot of those who have been the delight of their age and country? Ought we not to talk of them, and try as far as we can to keep their memory alive in the hearts of the generation that revelled in their genius, and the generation that only knows them by hearsay?
Jules Janin endeavours repeatedly, in his life of Rachel, to deprive Samson of all the honour and credit of having trained and cultivated her undeveloped talent. He asserts that "Mademoiselle Rachel put aside his axioms in the higher branches of her art the first time she trod the boards of a stage worthy of her powers. . . . She was uninfluenced by any master, and had only seen an Academician on Sunday, when she paid her money to cross the Pont des Arts. . . . On entering the Comédie Française, the first thing she did was to forget the lessons of her last teacher, Samson, remembering only the explanations of detail he had given her."
The voluble and often inaccurate critic evidently forgets the account he gave of Rachel himself, when he first saw her at the Gymnase in May 1837, and the account he gave of her when he saw her more than a year later, on the 18th of August 1838, in the rôle of Camille. On the first occasion he says:—
This child is not a phenomenon. She never will be a prodigy; but she acts with heart and intelligence, and without skill of any kind. Her voice is hoarse and rough, like a child's voice. Her hands are red, like a child's hands. Her foot is like her hand, unformed; she is not pretty, but she pleases. There is considerable promise in this young actress, and at present she succeeds in exciting tears, interest, and emotion.
Of her appearance at the Français a year later he thus writes:—
