The career of the famous French comedienne furnishes a notable example of the triumph of genius over adverse circumstances. Her real name is Gabrielle Reju, her father being an unsuccessful shopkeeper, who tried acting, and failed, and eventually became a ticket-collector at the Ambigu Theatre, in Paris, while her mother attended to the buffet in the foyer. Life was one long struggle, and when her father died Mme. Rejane lived by making fans at 2s. the dozen. Things grew a little easier, and Mme. Rejane narrowly escaped becoming a school-teacher. She went home from the little boarding-school she attended one day, and found her mother overjoyed. The principal of a local school had come to offer her a position as teacher with a salary of £2 a month, and board. Her mother wished her to accept the offer, for she knew too much of the trials and difficulties of a theatrical life to encourage her child's aspirations to become an actress. But persistence gained the day, and little Gabrielle, more than thirty-six years ago, made her debut at the Vaudeville, Paris, and caught on immediately. Since then she has passed from triumph to triumph, and of all the famous roles she has played, she confesses that Madame Sans-gene is at once her own and the public favourite.

Madame Rejane

Manuel