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From the demi-mondaine raised in the seraglio of the seduction of her mother and her aunt, both courtesans, to the «Mademoiselle Révolte» who set fire to the Comédie Française with her escapades in order to resign, Sarah Bernhardt knew how to conquer the whole world and received in her spectacular studio-salon the worldly and artistic whole of Paris to admire her person as much as her creations.
Her immoderate taste for the strange and her fascination with death, which she en- countered several times as a child because of her fragile health, hypnotized her entou- rage and her public.
Performer of the greatest playwrights such as Racine and Shakespeare, Sarah Bernhardt continues to triumph on stages around the world.
Her «golden voice» and slender silhouette, atypical at the time, fascinated the public as much as the artistic and literary world, which devoted her a real cult. She is the friend of writers such as Victor Hugo, Edmond Rostand, Victorien Sardou or Sacha Guitry and of musicians such as Reynaldo Hahn.
Paul Nadar,
Sarah Bernhardt in Pierrot assassin, 1883, Silver print © BnF, Paris, France
