L'Affaire Barsac, or:
the True Identity of Bébé's Maid
the True Identity of Bébé's Maid
In his book Maître des lions et des vampires, on Louis Feuillade, Francis Lacassin relates the following anecdote to illustrate how draconian Feuillade could be when he had decided to get rid of an actor:
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In the 'Bébé' series and in the first 'Bout de Zan' films, the rôle of the maid Julie was played by the opulent and fat-cheeked Jane Saint-Bonnet (whose real name was, it seemed, Barsac or Barjac). Feuillade had finally grown tired of the sourness this woman spread around her (brought on, according to Fescourt, by stomach pains). One day, in the middle of a shoot, there was a knock at the door of the living-room. 'Go and open it', ordered Feuillade. Then Julie saw before her the young, slim brunette Mademoiselle Le Brun, wearing the same servant's uniform as her: pleated bonnet with ribbons, little white apron. 'I'm the new maid', she said, 'I've come to replace you.' Filmed by the ever faithful Albert [Sorgius], the fury of Madame Saint Bonnet was not, for once, 'just cinema'. |
The replacement of one maid by another seems to have taken place at the end of 1913: the actress he calls Jane Saint-Bonnet is in Bout de Zan et le lion, first shown November 21 1913, but not in Les Etrennes de Bout de Zan (January 2 1914), where the maid is Mademoiselle Le Brun:
Lacassin doesn't seem to have discovered the first name of Mademoiselle Le Brun. The source of the name of the actress she replaced seems to be the anecdote cited above, told to him by the filmmaker Henri Fescourt. In Fescourt's memoirs La Foi et les Montagnes (1959) he mentions her only once, as 'la corpulente Madame Saint-Bonnet', with no first name. Either he added the 'Jane' when interviewed by Lacassin in 1962, or Lacassin added it when he published his book on Feuillade in 1995. In two earlier books, from 1964 and 1966, Lacassin referred to her only as Mme de Saint-Bonnet or Mme Saint-Bonnet. In a filmography published in 1971 Lacassin calls her Jeanne Saint-Bonnet. In the filmography of his 1995 book, oddly, Lacassin calls her Jane de Saint-Bonnet.
When, in the 1920s, the veteran Feuillade actors Renée Carl and René Poyen reminisced about these films, they referred to the woman who played the maid Julie only as Mme Saint-Bonnet, without mention of a first name. The Jeanne or Jane is added later to filmographies, I suspect out of simple confusion with another actress of the time whose name was Jeanne Saint-Bonnet.
This woman is clearly not the actress who plays the maid in Feuillade's Bébé films. This Jeanne Saint-Bonnet - also referred to as Jane Saint-Bonnet - was a stage actress and singer, real name Marie Jeanne Bianco (1889-1984). She often appeared with and eventually married the actor Max Dearly. Her film appearances were few, though she is credited with many by the IMDB and Wikipedia. The dates and places of birth and death given in the biographical entries are hers, but almost all of the films attributed to her featured, rather, the other Mme Saint-Bonnet:
The Wikipedia filmography, above right, is as it was before I corrected it by removing the films she wasn't in. I haven't yet corrected the IMDB filmography.
The photograph used on Wikipedia to illustrate the clearly beautiful Jeanne Saint-Bonnet is of the right woman; the photograph used on the IMDB is of the wrong woman. It shows Bébé's maid's behind with a target attached to it, from Bébé tire à la cible (1912):
The photograph used on Wikipedia to illustrate the clearly beautiful Jeanne Saint-Bonnet is of the right woman; the photograph used on the IMDB is of the wrong woman. It shows Bébé's maid's behind with a target attached to it, from Bébé tire à la cible (1912):
The Encyclopédie multimédia de la comédie musicale théâtrale en France, 1918-1944 gives a detailed account of Jeanne Saint-Bonnet's theatrical career, and reproduces several photographs of stage productions. It does also, however, think she played in films by Feuillade, confusing her - as everyone has - with the other Mme Saint-Bonnet.
Jeanne Saint-Bonnet did appear in two of the full-length films listed on IMDB, Le Crime du Bouif (1922) and Azaïs (1932). In the latter she sings the song 'Je n'ai pas de cervelle', the sheet music of which shows her in a scene from the film, a scene also used for a poster:
Jeanne Saint-Bonnet did appear in two of the full-length films listed on IMDB, Le Crime du Bouif (1922) and Azaïs (1932). In the latter she sings the song 'Je n'ai pas de cervelle', the sheet music of which shows her in a scene from the film, a scene also used for a poster:
This scene caught the attention of the critic of the Revue du Cinéma (no.27, October 1 1931, p.48), whose review of the film is entertainingly damning. I reproduce most of it here but only in French as I don't have the verve to translate it. The comment on Jeanne Saint-Bonnet's physique is astonishingly rude - 'Who can have advised her to show her breasts? It can't have been her mirror':
Of the other two full-length films listed on IMDB, I don't have any information on Jeanne Saint-Bonnet's performance in Le Crime du Bouif, though I know that she is playing a young person so again this couldn't be the person called Jeanne Saint-Bonnet by Lacassin and others since. She is also credited by the IMDB with an 'uncredited' appearance in Feu Mathias Pascal. I have looked closely at this film and have not been able to recognise anyone who looks like Jeanne Saint-Bonnet; she may be one of the young women in the casino scene. If you recognise her among these women do let me know:
Jeanne Saint-Bonnet may have appeared in at least one other film not listed on IMDB. In a 1916 Pathé-Eclectic film called Virginie a dit: je danserai 'Jeanne de Saint-Bonnet' is credited as the young maid who becomes a ballerina.
A striking coincidence, or even a possible further source of confusion between the real Jeanne Saint-Bonnet and the actress who played the maid in Feuillade's Bébé films, is that, in December 1913, Jeanne Saint-Bonnet starred with her future husband Max Dearly in a theatrical farce called Mon Bébé.
Whether Henri Fescourt or Francis Lacassin was responsible for the confusion of the two Mmes Saint-Bonnet, the most unfortunate consequence of the confusion is the entry for Jeanne Saint-Bonnet in Jacques Richard's Dictionnaire des acteurs du cinéma muet (Paris: Editions du Fallois, 2011).
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Richard not only fuses the filmographies of the two women, he creates a fantastic biography that incorporates into the known career of the younger, slimmer woman imagined details of the career of the older, more corpulent one:
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'When she married Max Dearly, a big star old enough to be her father [rfl: actually he was only fifteen years older], Jeanne Saint-Bonnet was a little, cheery actress who had had a few successes in comedy and operetta. The notoriety of her husband allowed her to become a presence in Boulevard theatre [rfl: actually she had been a substantial star for almost fifteen years when they married in 1925], but it was apparently solely her personal comicality that from 1910 onwards allowed her to impose herself in silent cinema, almost exclusively at Gaumont, while her husband steered clear of the new art [rfl: in fact by 1910 Dearly had already made four films for Pathé's Film d'Art].
'Louis Feuillade quickly determined to make the most of her pleasant rondeur, in particular by having Jeanne Saint-Bonnet (sometimes called 'Jane de Saint-Bonnet') play the rôle of Julie Rabouin, the buxom maid in the Bébé series, a position maintained from the end of 1912 to the end of 1913 in a new series, Bout de Zan, where Margureite Lavigne and Edmond Bréon replaced Renée Carl and Paul Manson as the parents of the enfant terrible. 'After Bout-de-Zan a la gale, released in January 1914, and a comic sketch with Landrin during the War [rfl: i.e. Virginie a dit: je danserai], years passed without Jeanne Saint-Bonnet appearing on screen. She made her return in 1921 as Estelle Bicard in Le Crime du Bouif. Three years later in Feu Mathis Pascal [rfl: released 1926, not 1924] she was a barely identifiable silhouette. Jeanne Saint-Bonnet was compensated by the theatre and the music-hall, and so in 1926-27 she was, alongside Maurice Chevalier, a star of the Casino's revue Paris. Only one rôle was accorded her in sound cinema, when in 1931 she played opposite her husband in René Hervil's Azaïs. Max Dearly died in Neuilly in 1943, Jeanne Saint-Bonnet managed to survive him until 1985 [rfl: actualy she died in 1984].' |
If the Mme Saint-Bonnet who played the maid in Feuillade's films had indeed been the Mme Saint-Bonnet who married Max Dearly and lived on till 1984, she would have been a hundred and twenty years old at her death.
Jacques Richard, died 2018, was a great film historian and his Dictionnaire is a precious resource with, I am sure, very few lapses of this kind (though there are issues with his entry for the actress Pâquerette, see here).
Jacques Richard, died 2018, was a great film historian and his Dictionnaire is a precious resource with, I am sure, very few lapses of this kind (though there are issues with his entry for the actress Pâquerette, see here).
the theatrical career of Madame Saint-Bonnet [not Jeanne or Jane], aka Madame Barsac or Barjac
Lacassin mentions that the real name of the Madame Saint-Bonnet who worked for Feuillade was 'Barsac or Barjac'. He doesn't say anything more about her identity.
Saint-Bonnet was her married name: her husband was the actor and theatrical manager Pierre Saint-Bonnet. Her maiden name was Rivoire.
He was born Pierre Saint-Bonnet in Bordeaux in 1852 (June 6), she was born Huberte Louise Eléonore Rivoire in Lyon in 1864 (January 22). They married in Paris, 11e, in 1897 (August 14). They remained together for thirty-three years, both dying in 1934 (he on March 1st, she on April 5th).
Barsac was Huberte Rivoire's stage name, which she seems to have adopted c.1906; sometimes she is referred to as Berthe Barsac, but mostly she is Mlle or Mme Barsac. By the time she started to work for Gaumont in 1910 she had a considerable reputation as a comic performer in revues and straight theatre.
She seems to have started performing around 1890; the first trace I can find is a stage show in Troyes, in which she appeared with Pierre Saint-Bonnet. He had been performing since at least 1884. They sometimes performed together, but mostly not.
Saint-Bonnet was her married name: her husband was the actor and theatrical manager Pierre Saint-Bonnet. Her maiden name was Rivoire.
He was born Pierre Saint-Bonnet in Bordeaux in 1852 (June 6), she was born Huberte Louise Eléonore Rivoire in Lyon in 1864 (January 22). They married in Paris, 11e, in 1897 (August 14). They remained together for thirty-three years, both dying in 1934 (he on March 1st, she on April 5th).
Barsac was Huberte Rivoire's stage name, which she seems to have adopted c.1906; sometimes she is referred to as Berthe Barsac, but mostly she is Mlle or Mme Barsac. By the time she started to work for Gaumont in 1910 she had a considerable reputation as a comic performer in revues and straight theatre.
She seems to have started performing around 1890; the first trace I can find is a stage show in Troyes, in which she appeared with Pierre Saint-Bonnet. He had been performing since at least 1884. They sometimes performed together, but mostly not.
In October 1911 they were at the Casino de Paris in a comic sketch called Artis's, and also in a more substantial show called Kal-Fin-O, in which they played husband and wife. in December 1911 they were both appearing at the Apollo in Bordeaux, in a 'fantaisie-opérette' called Madame Cantharide. In August 1912 they were together in a show at the Apollo in Paris:
There are many more mentions of Mme Barsac and M. Saint-Bonnet working in theatrical productions independently of each other, in this period and up until the late 1920s.
In Le Progrès théâtrale (03.01.07), in a list of artists available for the winter season, her speciality is given as 'duègne-desclauzas (cachets)':
'Desclauzas' indicates that her performance style resembled that of Marie Desclauzas (1841-1912), 'a buxom and eventually hefty star of the opérette stage who became the most admired musical character comedienne of her era' (according to the Operetta Research Center).
An 1894 review of a performance had described Mlle Rivoire as 'very thin', but by 1898 reviewers were calling her 'plantureuse'. By 1908 (Comoedia 19.08.08) she is described as 'the champion of fat comics':
An 1894 review of a performance had described Mlle Rivoire as 'very thin', but by 1898 reviewers were calling her 'plantureuse'. By 1908 (Comoedia 19.08.08) she is described as 'the champion of fat comics':
She was a fixture of Paris theatre through the 1910s and '20s, mostly in comic rôles:
The photograph above, of Le Garde à corps at the Comédie royale in 1913, is for me evidence that the Madame Barsac of the Paris stage was the Madame Saint-Bonnet of Gaumont films such as, below centre and right, Bébé colle des timbres (May 1912) and Bout de Zan vole un éléphant (May 1913):
There isn't, I'll admit, very much more evidence than this. No historian writing about the woman in Gaumont comedies seems to know that she had a stage career, and in reviews of her theatrical work in the 1920s no one mentions that she had previously been in films, nor indeed - as we shall see below - that she was still appearing in films occasionally. The obituary notice in Comoedia
(9.4.1934), right, summarises her theatrical career but makes no mention of the films. I have found one newspaper that mentions Madame Barsac's connection with filmmaking at Gaumont. A retrospective article on the star Simone Vaudry (Les Spectacles, 26.2.1926) describes how she began as a child actress at Gaumont, after her parents accepted 'an insistent offer from Mme Barsac of the Casino de Paris to engage little Simone at the Gaumont studios'. Madame Barsac would have known Simone's father Henri Vaudry from her time at the Châtelet in 1906, where he was stage manager. The article about Simone Vaudry suggests that Madame Barsac was in a position to make recommendations to the management at Gaumont, even if she had only just started making films there. When she married Saint-Bonnet in 1897 she was living with her mother on the Rue Fessart, very near the studios, so perhaps her connection with Gaumont stemmed from their being neighbours. Her mother still lived in the vicinity when she was making films there. Simone, aged 4, made at least two films for Gaumont, Le Crime de Grandpère and Le Garde barrière, both in 1910, both by Léonce Perret. She then moved on to other studios and eventually to a career as a adult. |
Madame Barsac's career at Gaumont
Louis Feuillade made over seventy Bébé films between 1910 and 1913. In most of those that featured a maid she was played by Mme Saint-Bonnet, i.e. Mme Barsac.
Feuillade replaced Bébé with Bout de Zan in 1913 and for a while Mme Barsac continued as the put-upon maid, that is until Feuillade dispensed with her in the manner described by Lacassin, quoted at the beginning of this post. There had been about twenty Bout de Zan films before her departure, and she would not have been in all of those. Here she is in six of those Bout de Zan films:
The place she has in the history of the Gaumont's company, as told so far, is as the maid in Feuillade's two child-centred series, but there is evidence that she also worked for other filmmakers at Gaumont, even if that would always have been under Feuillade's ultimate control as head of production. Here she is a maid in Léonce Perret's Séance de spiritisme (1910):
In Emile Cohl's Rien n'est impossible à l'homme (1910) she is a maid from whose charge a baby is stolen while she flirts with a policeman, the which is filmed by an animated cinematographer. We then see his film of the incident projected:
And here, in a departure from her usual screen persona, she is the organiser of a fairground boxing contest in Jean Durand's Calino s'endurcit la figure (1912):
My guess is that she will be discovered in the cast of more Gaumont comedies, at least up to the point in 1913 when Feuillade got rid of her.
In 1913 Feuillade also got rid of Bébé, who then went to make films at Pathé with different directors and a different supporting cast, but in scenarios very similar to his Gaumont films. One of these Pathé films is Bébé joue au cinéma, erroneously listed everywhere as a Gaumont film by Feuillade (see here for a discussion of this misattribution). I had originally thought that the maid we see in this film was played by the same actress who played the maid in the Gaumont films. She looks similar, certainly, but now I am inclined to think that this is a different, unnamed actress. Whoever she was, she isn't the maid in the few other Pathé-made Bébé films I have seen.
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Madame Barsac in films after Gaumont
A recent restoration by the Cinémathèque Royale de Belgique of a 1914 film called Le Paradis allows us to see something of the next stage in Madame Barsac's film career, briefly, after being sacked by Feuillade.
Le Paradis, directed by Gaston Leprieur, was a production by Georges Lordier under the heading 'Les Grands Films Populaires'. Lordier's company, based at the former Lux studios on the Boulevard Jourdan, specialised at the time in films of theatrical successes, and this was an adaptation of an 1896 play by Maurice Hennequin. A title page lists the male members of the cast, signalling in each case the theatre with which they are associated.
Though there is no title crediting Madame Barsac with her rôle as Madame Pontbichot, she is definitely in the film and in good company among her fellow theatricals. Others in the cast had also made films, such as Fernand Rivers, a frequent Pathé player, and Léon Lorin, the star of the 'Oscar' films made by Léonce Perret at Gaumont. One of the female stars, 'Jeanne Fabert', was actually - according to Jacques Richard - Jane Faber, who had played the Princesse Damidoff in Feuillade's Juve contre Fantômas (1913).
On the IMDB there is a filmography for someone just called Barsac (below), and one for an actress called Mireille Barsac (right):
I explain the attribution of the name Mireille to the Madame Barsac who played in 1920s' films as a confusion by someone compiling filmographies, thinking the young Mireille Barsac c.1950 must be the same actress as the not-young Mme Barsac from twenty and more years earlier.
A filmography at DvdToile combines the films from the 1920s listed in the two filmographies above:
I think this is Berthe Barsac (née Huberte Rivoire), the stage performer, and I think that Berthe Barsac is the Mme Barsac who was married to Pierre Saint-Bonnet, and who got called Mme Saint-Bonnet (but not Jeanne or Jane Saint-Bonnet) when she was working for Feuillade at Gaumont, playing Bébé's maid.
In other words I think these images, from 1913 and 1930, are of the same woman:
In other words I think these images, from 1913 and 1930, are of the same woman:
Accordingly, in my view, the IMDB, Wikipedia and other accounts of this actress should read something like this:
Berthe Barsac, stage name of Huberte Rivoire (22 January 1864 - 5 April 1934), theatrical performer. In films she is sometimes credited as Barsac and as Mme Barsac, and sometimes erroneously referred to as Mireille Barsac and as Jeanne or Jane (de) Saint-Bonnet.
The filmography should include the following:
Berthe Barsac, stage name of Huberte Rivoire (22 January 1864 - 5 April 1934), theatrical performer. In films she is sometimes credited as Barsac and as Mme Barsac, and sometimes erroneously referred to as Mireille Barsac and as Jeanne or Jane (de) Saint-Bonnet.
The filmography should include the following:
Bébé apache (Louis Feuillade 1910)
Bébé fume (Louis Feuillade 1910)
Bébé pêcheur (Louis Feuillade 1910)
Rien n'est impossible à l'homme (Emile Cohl 1910)
Séance de spiritisme (Léonce Perret 1910)
La Trouvaille de Bébé (Louis Feuillade 1910)
Bébé devient féministe (Louis Feuillade 1911)
Bébé marie sa bonne (Louis Feuillade 1911)
Bébé persécute sa bonne (Louis Feuillade 1911)
Bébé protège sa soeur (Louis Feuillade 1911)
Bébé tire à la cible (Louis Feuillade 1911)
Bébé adopte un petit frère (Louis Feuillade 1912)
Bébé artiste capillaire (Louis Feuillade 1912)
Bébé colle des timbres (Louis Feuillade 1912)
Bébé en vacances (Louis Feuillade 1912)
Bébé est au silence (Louis Feuillade 1912)
Bébé et la lettre anonyme (Louis Feuillade 1912)
Bébé fait du spiritisme (Louis Feuillade 1912)
Bébé marie sa bonne (Louis Feuillade 1912)
Bébé persécute sa bonne (Louis Feuillade 1912)
Bébé roi des policiers (Louis Feuillade 1912)
Bébé se suicide (Louis Feuillade 1912)
Bébé s'habille tout seul (Louis Feuillade 1912)
Bébé soigne son père (Louis Feuillade 1912)
Bout de Zan revient du cirque (Louis Feuillade 1912)
Calino s'endurcit la figure (Jean Durand 1912)
L'Education de Bout de Zan (Louis Feuillade 1912)
La Tirelire de Bout de Zan (Louis Feuillade 1912)
Bout de Zan a la gale (Louis Feuillade 1913)
Bout de Zan au bal masqué (Louis Feuillade 1913)
Bout de Zan et le chemineau (Louis Feuillade 1913)
Bout de Zan et le crocodile (Louis Feuillade 1913)
Bout de Zan et le lion (Louis Feuillade 1913)
Bout de Zan fait des commissions (Louis Feuillade 1913)
Bout de Zan vole un éléphant (Louis Feuillade 1913)
Le Paradis (Gaston Leprieur 1915)
L'Empereur des pauvres (René Leprince 1922)
Le Château des fantômes (Pierre Marodon 1923)
Feu Mathias Pascal Marcel l'Herbier 1926)
Nitchevo (Jacques de Baroncelli 1926)
Au bonheur des dames (Julien Duvivier 1930)
- and probably Un peu d'amour (Hans Steinhoff 1932), for which IMDB credits Berthe Barsac in the rôle of Madame Beurre.
Bébé fume (Louis Feuillade 1910)
Bébé pêcheur (Louis Feuillade 1910)
Rien n'est impossible à l'homme (Emile Cohl 1910)
Séance de spiritisme (Léonce Perret 1910)
La Trouvaille de Bébé (Louis Feuillade 1910)
Bébé devient féministe (Louis Feuillade 1911)
Bébé marie sa bonne (Louis Feuillade 1911)
Bébé persécute sa bonne (Louis Feuillade 1911)
Bébé protège sa soeur (Louis Feuillade 1911)
Bébé tire à la cible (Louis Feuillade 1911)
Bébé adopte un petit frère (Louis Feuillade 1912)
Bébé artiste capillaire (Louis Feuillade 1912)
Bébé colle des timbres (Louis Feuillade 1912)
Bébé en vacances (Louis Feuillade 1912)
Bébé est au silence (Louis Feuillade 1912)
Bébé et la lettre anonyme (Louis Feuillade 1912)
Bébé fait du spiritisme (Louis Feuillade 1912)
Bébé marie sa bonne (Louis Feuillade 1912)
Bébé persécute sa bonne (Louis Feuillade 1912)
Bébé roi des policiers (Louis Feuillade 1912)
Bébé se suicide (Louis Feuillade 1912)
Bébé s'habille tout seul (Louis Feuillade 1912)
Bébé soigne son père (Louis Feuillade 1912)
Bout de Zan revient du cirque (Louis Feuillade 1912)
Calino s'endurcit la figure (Jean Durand 1912)
L'Education de Bout de Zan (Louis Feuillade 1912)
La Tirelire de Bout de Zan (Louis Feuillade 1912)
Bout de Zan a la gale (Louis Feuillade 1913)
Bout de Zan au bal masqué (Louis Feuillade 1913)
Bout de Zan et le chemineau (Louis Feuillade 1913)
Bout de Zan et le crocodile (Louis Feuillade 1913)
Bout de Zan et le lion (Louis Feuillade 1913)
Bout de Zan fait des commissions (Louis Feuillade 1913)
Bout de Zan vole un éléphant (Louis Feuillade 1913)
Le Paradis (Gaston Leprieur 1915)
L'Empereur des pauvres (René Leprince 1922)
Le Château des fantômes (Pierre Marodon 1923)
Feu Mathias Pascal Marcel l'Herbier 1926)
Nitchevo (Jacques de Baroncelli 1926)
Au bonheur des dames (Julien Duvivier 1930)
- and probably Un peu d'amour (Hans Steinhoff 1932), for which IMDB credits Berthe Barsac in the rôle of Madame Beurre.
Note:
The listings of certain Gaumont films in Frédéric Zarch's Catalogue des films projetés à Saint-Etienne avant la première guerre mondiale (Université de Saint-Etienne, 2000) are somewhat odd, regarding this filmography. Jeanne Saint-Bonnet is credited as 'Julie la bonne' for Bébé apache, Bébé fume, Bébé pêcheur, Bébé fait visiter Marseille à Toto, Bébé et sourd, Bébé millionnaire, Bébé fait chanter sa bonne, Bébé roi and Bébé marie son oncle. However, for every one of these films Mme Barsac is also given a credit, with no rôle specified. No one has realised that Mmes Barsac and Saint-Bonnet (not Jeanne) are the same person, but somewhere there is Gaumont-related documentation identifying Mme Barsac as a player in these films. I'd like to know what that documentation is.
The listings of certain Gaumont films in Frédéric Zarch's Catalogue des films projetés à Saint-Etienne avant la première guerre mondiale (Université de Saint-Etienne, 2000) are somewhat odd, regarding this filmography. Jeanne Saint-Bonnet is credited as 'Julie la bonne' for Bébé apache, Bébé fume, Bébé pêcheur, Bébé fait visiter Marseille à Toto, Bébé et sourd, Bébé millionnaire, Bébé fait chanter sa bonne, Bébé roi and Bébé marie son oncle. However, for every one of these films Mme Barsac is also given a credit, with no rôle specified. No one has realised that Mmes Barsac and Saint-Bonnet (not Jeanne) are the same person, but somewhere there is Gaumont-related documentation identifying Mme Barsac as a player in these films. I'd like to know what that documentation is.