got an immediate engagement; and in March, 1875, appeared on that stage where to-day she reigns supreme, the Vaudeville, to which she brought back the vaudeville that was no longer played there. She began by alienating the heart of Alphonse Daudet, who, while recognising her clever delivery, found fault with her unemotional gaiety; but, in compensation, another authoritative critic, Auguste Vitu, wrote, after the performance of Pierre: "Mademoiselle Réjane showed herself full of grace and feeling. She rendered Gabrielle's despair with a naturalness, a brilliancy, a spontaneity, which won a most striking success."
Shall I follow her through each of her creations, from her début in La Revuf des Deux-Mondes, up to her supreme triumph in Madame Sans-Géne? Shall I show her as the sly soubrette in Fanny Lear? as the woman in love, "whose ignorance divines all things," in Madame Lili? as the comical Marquise de Menu-Castel in Le Ferglas? Shall I tell of her first crowning success, when she played Gabrielle in Pierre? Shall I recall her stormy interpretation of Madame de Librae, in Le Club? and her dramatic conception of the part of Ida?—which quite reversed the previous iudgments of her critics, wringing praise from her enemy Dauder, and censure from her faithful admirer Vitu. The natural order of things, however, was re-established by her performance of Les Tapageurs; again Daudet found her cold and lacking in tenderness: and Vitu again applauded.
Her successes at the Vaudeville extend from 1875 to 1882; and towards the end of that period, Réjane, always rising higher in her art, created Anita in L'Aurèole, and the Baronne d'Oria in Odette. Next, forgetting her own traditions, she appeared at the Théatre des Panoramas, and at the Ambigu, where she gave a splendid interpretation of Madame Cèzambre in Richepin's La Glu; and at Les Variétés as Adrienne in Ma Camarade. Now
