notes from an unruly body: Discovering Sarah Bernhardt

Actress, courtesan, and wartime nurse

Few people can claim to have had as exciting a life as the French stage actress Sarah Bernhardt. Born as the illegitimate daughter of the Dutch Jewish courtesan Julie Bernard, Sarah was first educated in a convent school while her mother’s “patrons” in the Parisian nobility included the Duke of Morny, half-brother to the Emperor Napoleon III and the President of the French legislature.