Editing Sarah Bernhardt (section)

==Personal life==
===Paternity, date of birth, ancestry, name===
The identity of Bernhardt's father is not known for certain. Her original birth certificate was destroyed when the Paris Commune burned the Hotel de Ville and city archives in May 1871. In her autobiography, ''Ma Double Vie'',<ref>{{harvnb|Bernhardt|2000}}</ref> she describes meeting her father several times, and writes that his family provided funding for her education, and left a sum of 100,000 francs for her when she came of age.{{Sfn|Bernhardt|2000}} She said he frequently travelled overseas, and that when she was still a child, he died in Pisa "in unexplained circumstances which remain mysterious."{{Sfn|Bernhardt|2000|page=67}} In February 1914, she presented a reconstituted birth certificate, which stated that her legitimate father was one Édouard Bernhardt.{{Sfn|Tierchant|2009|page=322}} On 21 May 1856, when she was baptised, she was registered as the daughter of "Edouard Bernhardt residing in Le Havre and Judith Van Hard, residing in Paris."{{Sfn|Tierchant|2009|page=27}}

A more recent biography by Hélène Tierchant (2009) suggests her father may have been a young man named De Morel, whose family members were notable shipowners and merchants in Le Havre. According to Bernhardt's autobiography, her grandmother and uncle in Le Havre provided financial support for her education when she was young, took part in family councils about her future, and later gave her money when her apartment in Paris was destroyed by fire.{{Sfn|Bernhardt|2000}}

Her date of birth is also uncertain due to the destruction of her birth certificate. She usually gave her birthday as 23 October 1844, and celebrated it on that day. However, the reconstituted birth certificate she presented in 1914 gave the date as 25 October.{{Sfn|Tierchant|2009|page=15}}{{sfn|Skinner|1967|page=1}} Other sources give the date 22 October,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.biography.com/people/sarah-bernhardt-9210057|title=Sarah Bernhardt|website=Biography.com|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170425092034/http://www.biography.com/people/sarah-bernhardt-9210057|archive-date=25 April 2017|access-date=3 June 2017}}</ref> or either 22 or 23 October.<ref name=":0" />

Bernhardt's mother Judith, or Julie, was born in the early 1820s. She was one of six children, five daughters and one son, of a Dutch-Jewish itinerant eyeglass merchant, Moritz Baruch Bernardt, and a German laundress,{{sfn|Tierchant|2009|page=14}} Sara Hirsch (later known as Janetta Hartog or Jeanne Hard). Judith's mother died in 1829, and five weeks later, her father remarried.{{Sfn|Snel|2007}} His new wife did not get along with the children from his earlier marriage. Judith and two of her sisters, Henriette and Rosine, left home, moved to London briefly, and then settled in Le Havre, on the French coast.{{Sfn|Tierchant|2009|page=14}} Henriette married a local in Le Havre, but Julie and Rosine became courtesans, and Julie took the new, more French name of Youle and the more aristocratic-sounding last name of Van Hard. In April 1843, she gave birth to twin girls to a "father unknown." Both girls died in the hospice in Le Havre a month later. The following year, Youle was pregnant again, this time with Sarah. She moved to Paris, to 5 rue de l'École-de-Médecine, where in October 1844, Sarah was born.{{Sfn|Tierchant|2009|pages=13–15}}

===Lovers and friends===
Early in Bernhardt's career, she had an affair with a Belgian nobleman, Charles-Joseph Eugène Henri Georges Lamoral de Ligne (1837–1914), eldest son of [[Eugène, 8th Prince of Ligne]], with whom she bore her only child, Maurice Bernhardt (1864–1928). Maurice did not become an actor, but worked for most of his life as a manager and agent for various theatres and performers, frequently managing his mother's career in her later years, but rarely with great success. Maurice and his family were usually financially dependent, in full or in part, on his mother until her death. Maurice married a [[Polish people|Polish]] princess, Maria Jablonowska, of the [[Jablonowski|House of Jablonowski]], with whom he had two daughters: Simone, who married Edgar Gross, son of a wealthy Philadelphia soap manufacturer; and Lysiana, who married the playwright [[Louis Verneuil]].

From 1864 to 1866, after Bernhardt left the Comédie-Française, and after Maurice was born, she frequently had trouble finding roles. She often worked as a [[courtesan]], taking wealthy and influential lovers. The French police of the Second Empire kept files on high-level courtesans, including Bernhardt; her file recorded the wide variety of names and titles of her patrons; they included Alexandre Aguado, the son of Spanish banker and Marquis [[Alejandro María Aguado, 1st Marquis of the Guadalquivir Marshes|Alejandro María Aguado]]; the industrialist Robert de Brimont; the banker Jacques Stern; and the wealthy Louis-Roger de Cahuzac.{{Sfn|Tierchant|2009|page=57}} The list also included [[Khalil Bey]], the Ambassador of the Ottoman Empire to the Second Empire, best known today as the man who commissioned [[Gustave Courbet]] to paint ''[[L'Origine du monde]]'', a detailed painting of a woman's anatomy that was banned until 1995, but now on display at the [[Musée d'Orsay]]. Bernhardt received from him a diadem of pearls and diamonds. She also had affairs with many of her leading men, and with other men more directly useful to her career, including Arsène Houssaye, director of the Théâtre-Lyrique, and the editors of several major newspapers. Many of her early lovers continued to be her friends after the affairs ended.{{Sfn|Tierchant|2009|pages=58–59}}

During her time at the Odéon, she continued to see her old lovers, as well as new ones including French marshals [[Francois Canrobert|François-Certain Canrobert]] and [[Achille Bazaine]], the latter a commander of the French army in the [[Crimean War]] and in Mexico; and Prince Napoleon, son of Joseph Bonaparte and cousin of French Emperor [[Louis-Napoleon]]. She also had a two-year-long affair with Charles Haas, son of a banker and one of the more celebrated Paris [[dandies]] in the Empire, the model for the character of Swann in the novels by [[Marcel Proust]].{{Sfn|Tierchant|2009|pages=71–73}} Indeed, Swann even references her by name in ''[[In Search of Lost Time|Remembrance of Things Past]]''. Sarah Bernhardt is probably one of the actresses after whom Proust modelled Berma, a character present in several volumes of ''Remembrance of Things Past''.{{citation needed|date=March 2021}}

Bernhardt took as lovers many of the male leads of her plays, including Mounet-Sully and Lou Tellegen. She possibly had an affair with the Prince of Wales, the future [[Edward VII]], who frequently attended her London and Paris performances and once, as a prank, played the part of a [[cadaver]] in one of her plays.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.geocities.com/jesusib/EdwardVII.html| title=Edward VII biography| access-date=18 October 2007| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060525070548/http://www.geocities.com/jesusib/EdwardVII.html | archive-date=25 May 2006}}</ref> When he was King, he travelled on the royal yacht to visit her at her summer home on Belle-Île.{{Sfn|Skinner|1967|page=273}}

Her last serious love affair was with the Dutch-born actor [[Lou Tellegen]], 37 years her junior, who became her co-star during her second American farewell tour (and eighth American tour) in 1910. He was a very handsome actor who had served as a model for sculpture ''[[Eternal Springtime]]'' by [[Auguste Rodin]]. He had little acting experience, but Bernhardt signed him as a leading man just before she departed on the tour, assigned him a compartment in her private railway car, and took him as her escort to all events, functions, and parties. He was not a particularly good actor, and had a strong Dutch accent, but he was successful in roles, such as [[Hippolytus of Athens|Hippolyte]] in ''[[Phèdre|Phedre]]'', where he could take off his shirt. At the end of the American tour, they had a dispute, he remained in the United States, and she returned to France. At first, he had a successful career in the United States and married operatic soprano and film actress [[Geraldine Farrar]], but when they split up his career plummeted. He committed suicide in 1934.{{Sfn|Skinner|1967|pages=310–313}}

Bernhardt's broad circle of friends included the writers [[Victor Hugo]], [[Alexandre Dumas]], his son [[Alexandre Dumas fils|Alexandre Dumas ''fils'']], [[Émile Zola]], and the artist [[Gustave Doré]]. Her close friends included the painters [[Georges Clairin]] and [[Louise Abbéma]], a French [[Impressionism|impressionist painter]], some nine years her junior. This relationship was so close, the two women were rumoured to be lovers. In 1990, a painting by Abbéma, depicting the two on a boat ride on the lake in the bois de Boulogne, was donated to the Comédie-Française. The accompanying letter stated that the painting was ''"Peint par Louise Abbéma, le jour anniversaire de leur liaison amoureuse"''<ref>Guibert et al. (2000) ''Portrait(s) de Sarah Bernhardt''. Bibliothèque Nationale de France. {{ISBN|2-7177-2113-4}}</ref> (loosely translated: "Painted by Louise Abbéma on the anniversary of their love affair") Clairin and Abbéma spent their holidays with Bernhardt and her family at her summer residence at Belle-Île, and remained close with Bernhardt until her death.{{Sfn|Skinner|1967|page=272-274}}

===Marriage with Jacques Damala===
[[File:Damala.jpg|thumb|[[Jacques Damala]] and [[Jane Hading]] in ''Le Maître des Forges'' at the [[Théâtre du Gymnase]], in Marseille (c. 1883)]]

In 1882, in Paris, Bernhardt met a Greek diplomat, Aristide Damala (known in France by his stage name Jacques Damala), who was 11 years her junior, and notorious for his romantic affairs. Bernhardt's biographer described him as "handsome as Adonis, insolent, vain, and altogether despicable."{{Sfn|Skinner|1967|page=208}} His affairs with married women had already led to one suicide and two divorces, and the French government had asked him to leave Paris, transferring him to the Greek Embassy in St. Petersburg. She already had a lover at the time, Philippe Garnier, her leading man, but when she met Damala, she fell in love with him, and insisted that her tour be modified to include a stop in St. Petersburg. Garnier politely stepped aside and let her go to St. Petersburg without him. Arriving in St. Petersburg, Bernhardt invited Damala to give up his diplomatic post to become an actor in her company, as well as her lover, and before long, they decided to marry. During a break in the tour, they were married on 4 April 1882 in London. She told her friends that she married because marriage was the only thing she had never experienced.{{Sfn|Skinner|1967|pages=210–213}} Upon returning to Paris, she found a minor role for Damala in ''La Dame aux Camélias'' and a leading role in another play without her, ''Les Mères Ennemies'' by Catulle Mendès. Critics dismissed him as handsome, but without noticeable talent. Damala began taking large quantities of morphine, and following Bernhardt's great success in ''Fedora'', Damala took every opportunity to criticise and humiliate her. She later discovered that he was using the money she gave him to buy presents for other women. In early December 1882, when she confronted him, he declared that he was going to North Africa to join the [[French Foreign Legion|Foreign Legion]], and disappeared.{{Sfn|Skinner|1967|pages=208–214}}

[[File:Funerary Portrait of Jacques Damala MET DP224154.jpg|thumb|left|Funerary bust made of Damala by Sarah Bernhardt (1889)]]
In early 1889, Damala reappeared at Bernhardt's door haggard, ill, and penniless. Bernhardt instantly forgave him, and offered him the role of Armand Duval in a new production of ''La Dame aux Camélias'' at the Variétés. They performed together from 18 May until 30 June. He looked exhausted and old, confused his diction, and forgot his lines. The critic for ''[[Le Rappel]]'' wrote: "Where is, alas, the handsome Armand Duval who was presented to us for the first time a few years ago at the Gaîté?" The critic Francisque Sarcey wrote simply, "he makes us feel sick." When his contract ended, he was able to get another contract as an actor at a different theater, and continued to harass Bernhardt. He attended one of her performances sitting in the first row, and made faces at her. Her current lover, Philippe Garnier, saw him and beat him. Later, he entered her house and ravaged the furniture. Bernhardt was a Roman Catholic, and did not want to divorce him.{{Sfn|Skinner|1967|page=224}} He continued to act, sometimes with success, particularly in a play by [[Georges Ohnet]], ''Le Maître des Forges,'' in 1883. However, his morphine addiction continued to worsen. In August 1889, Bernhardt learned that he had taken an overdose of morphine in Marseille. She hurried to his bedside and nursed him until he died on 18 August 1889, at the age of 34. He was buried in Athens. Bernhardt sent a bust she had made of him to be placed on his tomb, and when she toured in the Balkans, always made a detour to visit his grave. Until the end of her life, she continued to sign official documents as "Sarah Bernhardt, widow of Damala".{{Sfn|Tierchant|2009|page=202}}

===Belle-Île===
[[File:Belle-Ile fort de Sarah Bernard juillet.jpg|thumb|Bernhardt's converted fort on [[Belle-Île]]]]

After her 1886–87 tour, Bernhardt recuperated on [[Belle-Île]], a small island off the coast of [[Brittany]], {{convert|10|mi|abbr=on}} south of the [[Quiberon]] peninsula. She purchased a ruined 17th-century fortress, located at the end of the island and approached by a drawbridge, and turned it into her holiday retreat. From 1886 to 1922, she spent nearly every summer, the season when her theatre was closed, on Belle-Île. She built bungalows for her son Maurice and her grandchildren, and bungalows with studios for her close friends, the painters Georges Clairin and Louise Abbéma. She also brought her large collection of animals, including several dogs, two horses, a donkey, a hawk given to her by the Russian Grand Duke Alexis, an Andean wildcat, and a [[boa constrictor]] she had brought back from her tour of South America. She entertained many visitors at Belle-Île, including King Edward VII, who stopped by the island on a cruise aboard the royal yacht. Always wrapped in white scarves, she played tennis (under house rules that required that she be the winner) and cards, read plays, and created sculptures and ornaments in her studio. When the fishermen of the island suffered a bad season, she organised a benefit performance with leading actors to raise funds for them. She gradually enlarged the estate, purchasing a neighboring hotel and all the land with a view of the property, but in 1922, as her health declined, she abruptly sold it and never returned.{{Sfn|Skinner|1967|pages=237–279}} During the [[Second World War]], the Germans occupied the island, and in October 1944, before leaving the island, they dynamited most of the compound. All that remains is the original old fort, and a seat cut into the rock where Bernhardt awaited the boat that took her to the mainland.{{Sfn|Tierchant|2009|page=258}}

===Vegetarianism===

Bernhardt was described as a strict vegetarian (what would later be termed [[Veganism|vegan]]), as she avoided dairy, eggs and meat.<ref name="The Literary Digest">[https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo.31924103078907&view=1up&seq=448 ''Notable Vegetarians'']. (1913). ''The Literary Digest'' 42 (2): 1196–1199.</ref><ref name="Iacobbo 2004">Iacobbo, Karen; Iacobbo, Michael. (2004). ''Vegetarian America: A History''. Praeger Publishing. p. 132. {{ISBN|978-0-275-97519-7}}</ref> Her diet consisted of cereal, fruit, nuts and vegetables.<ref name="Iacobbo 2004"/> In 1913, ''[[The Literary Digest]]'' reported that she became vegetarian to lose weight and regain her figure.<ref name="The Literary Digest"/><ref name="Iacobbo 2004"/> However, a 1923 biography of Bernhardt noted that she consumed fish and in her older years favoured [[Gruyère cheese|Gruyère]] or [[Pont-l'Évêque cheese]].<ref>Berton, Thérèse Meilhan. (1923). [https://archive.org/details/sarahbernhardtas00bertuoft/page/309 ''Sarah Bernhardt as I Knew Her'']. London: Hurst & Blackett. p. 309</ref>