“Rolling my thoughts like my mustache, going round in groups and rounds, I make truth jingle like a set of spurs.”

Edmond Rostand (1868-1918)
Writer, playwright, poet, and essayist

“One thing I read that was unforgettable for me was L’Aiglon. It happened one morning, around noon at Vendôme, and for this very reason I’ve kept the large Louis XIV-style stool, covered in red velvet, on which Edmund Rostand placed his manuscript in the course of a reading. To make a long story short, he had come – and not without apprehension – to propose the role of Flambeau to my father… (…) From the little salon next door which opened onto the room where the poet had settled himself down in front of the future interpreter of his play, I listened to his reading and was in ecstasy, as you can imagine. He read the first act quickly, having informed my father that “he wasn’t in it.” An absolutely stunning first act, perhaps the most amazing he had ever written, which Lucien Guitry was very enthusiastic about. In like manner the second act blew him away. The truth is, Rostand didn’t read his play: he acted it. He acted it out a bit like Sarah Bernhardt, and he did it admirably. He knew it by heart and he would even sometimes forget to turn the pages. His young glory, his delicate features, his charming voice – everything rendered it absolutely beguiling. The third act, which he read perhaps a bit less well, nevertheless did nothing to destroy the considerable effect of the second act. – Magnificent, magnificent! my father said.”

Sacha Guitry (1885-1957)
Tragic playwright