Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-11-09


PARIS, November On. Victorien sar-
dou. one of the most famous of French
dramatists, died at } o'clock yesterday
morning in consequence of congestion OF
the lungs, at his Paris apartment. No
Ga Boulevard de Courcelles. aged sixty
seven. NJ Sardou had been removed ia
Paris from his chateau at Marty week
ago.
Pulmonary congestion had enfeebled
him for several months.
His sons notified President Fallieres
Prime Minister Clemenceau and the di-
rector of the French academy of their
fathers decease.
NJ. Sardou's death makes the sixth va
cancy that has occurred this year in the
academy. the total membership of which
should be forty. All six chairs remain to
be filled.
Jules Claretie. writing for the Temps
pays a tribute to NJ Sardou's marvellous
craftsmanship. He was, M. Claretie says
the theater incarnate. He had its pas
sion. fever. ardor, genius. Everything
he saw in life became for him Immediate
~ dramatic scene.
He was worker of prodigious pa
tience, yet in one moment of desperation
he resolved to leave Paris and seek his
fortune in America. AS he started from
his lodgings for the boat train a great
stone dropped from builders scaffold
and killed man beside him. NJ. Sardou
said:
If I were not killed it was because
/ ought to remain here. Paris owes me
revenge"
Carer of Great Dramatist.
Inseparably interviewer with the career
1,.pr tfc<t to I,o
romance of his life. the life Of one of the
last of the great romanticists of French
literature. Full of contradictions, yet con-
sistent, strong Willed. a skeptic and a
scoffer. it has been said that he began
by resembling Bonaparte and would end
by resembling Voltaire.
When young man and penniless his
confidence in his destiny was such that
when he had no more prospect of get
ting a breakfast than he had of getting a
dinner he amused himself by designing
the furniture Of the palace which he in
tended to buy when he should become
wealthy. The sequel justified his sublime
assurance.
Victorien Sardou was born in Paris
September Z, 1881. His father was An
tome Leandre Sardou, a poor professor,
who occasionally eked out his small in
come by doing literary hack work.
Victorien was brought up under the
paternal eye and became a proficient
scholar in mathematics. history and phi
losOphy When he became of proper age
it was Thought best that he should study
medicine. but after little time the strait
ened circumstances OF the family conf
PEELED him to abandon his studies and
turn to profit the knowledge he already
possessed.
His Start in Literature.
He therefore gave occasional lectures on
the subjects his father had taught him
and also attempted to win both bread and
renown in the field of literature He be-
gan to write for newspapers and reviews.
Like Johnson he became a bookseller s
hack and worked on the encyclopedia of
Firmindidot.
He lived in the Quai des Augustins in
a smoky garnet. His landlord was cob
bier. who sublet to him one of the two
rooms which formed his lodging. To his
last day Sardou remembered the sicken-
ing cdor OF damp leather and cobbleHs
wax which pervaded those wretched
rooms.
Even then he had his fixed idea. that OF
becoming famous, and, above all, of be-
coming wealthy, for that always was his
chief aim. He worked and struggled and
suffered, but he always believed nrmly
in the future.
In ls5; he wrote his first drama, La
Taverne des Etudiants." and offered II
to the Odeon. 1t was accepted and per-
formed the following year. but 1t was a
failure and the young author. convinced
that he had no vocation for stage work,
went back to his pupils and his miserable
garnet.
There he was attacked by typhoid fever.
young actress, Mile. de Brecourt, living
in the same house, learning of his illness
and poverty, nursed him out of pure char
ity. On his recovery Sardou offered her
his hand, and the couple began lie on
nothing
1t happened. however. that his wife was
a friend of Virginia Dejazet, who was
about to open her theater in the Boule-
ward du Temple. She offered to him the
aid of her talent. which had known MOTH
a farce adapted from Voltaire's philosopd1-
icaI tale, and she accepted 1t at once,
predicting a triumph. The prophecy was
realized.
Realization Of Fame.
Five years from that day he had be-
come the most popular dramatic author in
France He had seen his bust placed In
the foyer of the Vaudeville before that OF
Theodore Barriere, while at the Gymnase
His authority at least equaled that OF
Angler. George Sand, Dumas fills or Oc-
tave Feuiliet.
His skill in writing had stood him in
good stead, for 1t made him produce plays
where incidents succeeded each other at
an unhalting pace. There were few re-
Elections and no long soliloquies the dia-
loeue was sharp and preciDitate; the ac-
ton full of unexpected surprises and in
genious theatrical devices.