Madame Humbert's triumph over her enemy Cattaui has tended, as might naturally be expected, to improve her already good opinion of herself. In vain docs the examining magistrate go through the form of questioning her. She merely shrugs her shoulders and tells him that he is wasting time, or indulges in sarcasm at his expense. For instance, when she was shown a letter of her own, she remarked, with feigned surprise: "Dear me, did I write that? I must have bad my head all on one side when I wrote it, like you" (the magistrate is afflicted with a boil on his neck). One is tempted to agree with the lady in thinking the magistrate is wasting ime, but having pitted himself against -z, he naturally does not like to give in For one brief: moment, on Wednesday, flattered himself that he had over con her resistance. She began to discuss her motives for keoping out of the way, and the magistrate way hopeful that light wor! gush out of the discussion, as the French put it, but he was soon undeceived. Mme. Humbert's sole object in opening her mouth was to bluff. She roundly asserted that the French Government. knew perfectly well that she was in Madrid. Four French detectives, she said, were constantly on her track, and she concluded that the Government must hare some secret reason for not arresting her. Her object in going under an assumed name and keeping iet_was merely to avoid embarrassing the Government by getting herself prematurely taken into custody: but her den-undation by a neighbour had spoilt. all this. On the magistrate remarking that the Government would hardly have spent largo sums of money in searching for her all over the world if they had known she was in Madrid, the "great Thérdse smiled a pitying smile and said to his Worship: "My dear sir, the Government doesn't. tell you everything. They have been fooling you all along." This is another excellent specimen of her powers, to which I have more than once admiringly. alluded, of drawing a red herring across the scent. She knows very well that most of her countrymen are quite ready to bafieve any turpitude of their own Government, and by strengthening this belief she fortifies her awn position as a martyr.
The medical experts hare come to the conclusion that Maria Daurignac is too feeble of intellect to hare understood her imperious sister's operations and is therefore nat to be considered as an accomplice. As it has been evident all along that Maria's sole concern was to sign papers when che was told to do so, the doctors' opinion will not surprise anyone. Maria Danrignac. like Ere Humbert, is to be released an hail. She is the sixth person concerned in the affair to be let out. of the zrasn of the lave, and people are asking themselves more and more earnestly when ther Mme. Humbert herself will not contrive to find some loophole. Her release on the crannd of mental derangement would he a fitting climax. Tt is said that her counsel. Maitre Henri Robert. when hie first consulted with her. strongly ad-vieed her to dron the fictitious Crawford legacy story and throw all the responsibility on her husband's father, Mf. Guetave Humbert, the deceased Minister of Justice. She declined to take this conrce and her lez adviser soon admitted that che was right. As the danchter of a man wha was subject to hallucinations and otherwise not quite right in his mind, it can always be argued in her favour that her persistent belief in the invisible testa-for and his nephews is a sign of decpseated brain trouble and that she i criminal but a victim of by micro she accuses her victims, Parliament, the Government, and the rest, and the more incoherent her stories are, the better for her; and though she may not sue-ceed in frightening any of her influential friends of former days, she may convince the jury that she is not responsible for her action Sarah as Werther.
Bernhardt. "She is clearly of opinion that There is really no holding Mme. Saralt
she can make the public accept anything she may choose to put upon the stage. Her latest impersonation, Werther, is one of the most daring experiments on the strength of Parisian patience that could possibly be attempted. No one except the divine Sarah would even have ventured upon it. To begin with, the subject is not dramatic. What interest. can an audience be expected to take in a sontimental German student who kills himself because the object of his affections will not leave her husband? Treated as Goethe treated it, the subject became a 2 negative' subject. M. Pierre Deeou masterpiece, but on the stage it is simply celle, whom Mme. Sarah Bernhardt let loose on the adaptation, is not. troubled with excessive respect for his great original. Ho shows unmistakeable skill, of acertain kind, Ho deprives the story of all its latent' philosophy and refined sensitiveness; of everything, in fact, that gives it value from the reader's point of low, He fills up with incidents not imagined by Goethe and even introduces a principal character of his own—the typical conversational, light-hearted Frenchman, whose chief mission appears to be to mako the play endurable to a Parisian audience. He, or Mme. Sarah Bernhardt, gives much prominence to the children, perhaps for the same reason. Seven youngsters, all very pretty, figure in the play. As for Sarah herself, she makes a very presentable Werther, but her roleo of course destroys the illusion which should be created by her masculine garments. She has a great deal to say but is terribly monotonous. She seems to take no interest: in the business on hand. Tu plain English she is played out. Sarah Bornhardt is a wonderful woman, but. even her extraordinary energy must have its limits,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.