UNKNOWN

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 10972, 28 January 1899, Page 5 (Supplement)

UNKNOWN

A DECLARATION FROM PARIS. Has a lovely creature the recognised privilege of placing it beyond the right of universal mankind to admire her? This is the question jealous Parisians ask in print and in private, when one of their popular beauties assumes the obligations of marriage ; and never, perhaps, was this query more persistently propounded, more vigorously assailed and defended than on the occasion of the marriage of Mdlle. Sybil Sanderson a little time ago. Figaro, the most courtly of papers, took upon itself the task of upbraiding the graceful artiste for thus deserting her cohorts of hopeful lovers. How Mdlle. Sanderson's associates on the stage would accept the interference, and what their idea might be upon a matter so momentous was promptly made known by their frank expressions, Everyone among them is so charming in personality that the incumbrance of a husband is probably more difficult to avoid than to acquire. Mdllo. Leonie Yahne is at the same time one of the most beautiful of Parisian actresses and one of the most prominent. „ • , «Jll V V "An artiste marry," said Mdlle. Yahne. "And concern herself with a husband and housekeeping! Is it possible? Listen to what we have to do. In the morning we must exercise in the open air, with perhaps a call at the dressmaker's, the milliner's, or the bootmaker's. In the afternoon we have rehearsal until six o'clock. At half-past seven we must be in our dressing-room preparing for the night performance. We have an hour and a half to ourselves during the day. And all this is for what? To secure a small quantity of self-satisfaction, because we have trained ourselves to portray properly certain characters. And when we meet a man of the world, of unusual intelligence and kindly disposition, who is able to give us the luxury we have become more or less accustomed to, and who makes us susceptible to his attractions, then, 1 understand, we quit the theatre, our associates, success, ovations, everything, and consecrate our lives exclusively to the fireside. Oh, no, there is nothing in it. Mdlle. Charlotte Wyns, star of the Opera Comique, disposes of the affair in a few words: "My idea is that those connected with the theatre should not marry. _ An artistic life is the antithesis of a conjugal life." Mdlle. Paulctte Filliaux, of the Theatre des Nouveautes, is terse and very French: " Should an artiste marry ?" "No. "Why? Because a woman should be true to one lover. The public is the great lover of the artiste; she owes it to herself that she should give her love, her coquetry, her preference to it." Mdlle. Angole Heraud, a fascinating artiste of the variety stage, is emphatic and original in her opposition " No, an actress should not marry; she thereby loses her prestige. I wish that a particular part of the city might be reserved for us; there we could live by ourselves, far from the profane. The public could see us only when we were on our pedestal— boards. There would be total ignorance of our private life. What opinion can the public have of us when, seeing us in the eclat of our beauty or in the triumph of our talent, it knowß that we are married, and, after having been Phedre, Camille, or Cleopatra, we go home to nurse babies and change their clothes!" After such a formidable front of unanswerable argument* why an artiste should remain single, it seems hopeless to expect that any had married, as it would require a rare quality of courage for one of the sisterhood to fly in the face of unanimous opposition and take a husband. However, a woman has been, found, who dared public resentment 'by' possessing a husband, Madame Louise Grandjean has distinguished herself at the Grand Opera, is strikingly handsome, and looks upon marriage as emi- ' nently respectable and desirable.—From M.A.P,