He taught French to foreign pupils: he also gave lessons in Latin, history and mathematics to students, and wrote articles for cheap encyclopaedias.

He had begun studying medicine, but had to desist for want of funds. With all these occupations, he hardly succeeded in making a livelihood, and when he retired to his native country, Victorien was left on his own resources. He was in succession a book-keeper at a commercial establishment, a professor of book-keeping, the head of a provincial school, then a private tutor and a schoolmaster in Paris, besides editing grammars, dictionaries and treatises on various subjects. Victorien's father, Antoine Léandre Sardou, came to Paris in search of employment. A night's frost killed all the trees and the family was ruined.

The Sardous were settled at Le Cannet, a village near Cannes, where they owned an estate, planted with olive trees. Victorien Sardou was born at 16 rue Beautreillis ( pronounced ), Paris on 5 September 1831. Commemorative plaque at the house in the 4th arrondissement of Paris, where Sardou was born

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