again at Nohant, the scenes began once more. Dudevant's irritability was
increased by the fact that he was always short of money, and that he was
aware of his own deplorable shortcomings as a financial administrator.
He had made speculations which had been disastrous. He was very
credulous, as so many suspicious people are, and he had been duped by
a swindler in an affair of maritime armaments. He had had all the more
faith in this enterprise because a picture of the boat had been shown
him on paper. He had spent ninety thousand francs of the hundred
thousand he had had, and was now living on his wife's income. Something
had to be decided upon. George Sand paid his debts first, and the
husband and wife then signed an agreement to the effect that their
respective property should be separated. Dudevant regretted having
signed this afterwards, and it was torn up after a violent scene which
took place before witnesses in October, 1835. The pretext of this scene
had been an order given to Maurice. In a series of letters, which have
never hitherto been published, George Sand relates the various incidents
of this affair. We give some of the more important passages. The
following letter is to her half-brother Hippolyte, who used to be
Casimir's drinking companion.
_"To Hippolyte Chatiron._
"My friend, I am about to tell you some news which will reach you
indirectly, and that you had better hear first from me. Instead of
carrying out our agreement pleasantly and loyally, Casimir is acting
with the most insane animosity towards me. Without my giving him any
reason for such a thing, either by my conduct or my manner of treating
him, he endeavoured to strike me. He was prevented by five persons, one
of whom was Dutheil, and he then fetched his gun to shoot me. As you can
imagine, he was not allowed to do this.
"On account of such treatment and of his hatred, which amounts to
madness, there is no safety for me in a house to which he always has the
right to come. I have no guarantee, except his own will and pleasure,
that he will keep our agreement, and I cannot remain at the mercy of a
man who behaves so unreasonably and indelicately to me. I have therefore
decided to ask for a legal separation, and I shall no doubt obtain this.
Casimir made this frightful scene the evening before leaving for
Paris. On his return here, he found the house empty, and me staying at
Dutheil's, by permission of the President of La Chatre. He also found a
summons awaiting him on the mantelshelf. He had to make the best of it,
for he knew it was no use attempting to fight against the result of his
own folly, and that, by holding out, the scandal would all fall on him.
He made the following stipulations, promising to adhere to them. Duthell
was our intermediary. I am to allow him a pension of 3,800 francs,
which, with the 1,200 francs income that he now has, will make 5,000
francs a year for him. I think this is all straightforward, as I am
paying for the education of the two children. My daughter will remain
under my guidance, as I understand. My son will remain at the college
where he now is until he has finished his education. During the holidays
he will spend a month with his father and a month with me. In this
way, there will be no contest. Dudevant will return to Paris very
soon, without making any opposition, and the Court will pronounce the
separation in default."(23)
(23) Communicated by M. S. Rocheblave.
The following amusing letter on the same subject was written by George
Sand to Adolphe Duplomb in the _patois_ peculiar to Berry:
"DEAR HYDROGEN,
"You have been misinformed about what took place at La Chatre. Duthell
never quarrelled with the Baron of Nohant-Vic. This is the true story.
The baron took it into his head to strike me. Dutheil objected. Fleury
and Papet also objected. The baron went to search for his gun to kill
every one. Every one did not want to be killed, and so the baron said:
'Well, that's enough then,' and began to drink again. That was how it
all happened. No one quarrelled with him. But I had had enough. As I do
not care to earn my living and then leave _my substance_ in the hands of
the _diable_ and be bowed out of the house every year, while the village
hussies sleep in my beds and bring their fleas into my house, I just
said: 'I ain't going to have any more of that,' and I went and found the
big judge of La Chatre, and I says, says I: 'That's how it is.' And
then he says, says he: 'All right.' And so he unmarried us. And I am not
sorry. They say that the baron will make an appeal. I ain't knowin'.
We shall see. If he does, he'll lose everything. And that's the whole
story."(24)
(24) Communicated by M. Charles Duplomb.
The case was pleaded in March, 1836, at La Chatre, and in July at
Bourges. The Court granted the separation, and the care of the children
was attributed to George Sand.
This was not the end of the affair, though. In September, 1837, George
Sand was warned that Dudevant intended to get Maurice away from her. She
sent a friend on whom she could count to take her boy to Fontainebleau,
and then went herself to watch over him. In the mean time, Dudevant, not
finding his son at Nohant, took Solange away with him, in spite of the
child's tears and the resistance of the governess. George Sand gave
notice to the police, and, on discovering that her little daughter was
sequestered at Guillery, near Nerac, she went herself in a post-chaise
to the sub-prefect, a charming young man, who was no other than
Baron Haussmann. On hearing the story, he went himself with her, and,
accompanied by the lieutenant of the constabulary and the sheriff's
officer on horseback, laid siege to the house at Guillery in which the
young girl was imprisoned. Dudevant brought his daughter to the door
and handed her over to her mother, threatening at the same time to take
Maurice from her by legal authority. The husband and wife then separated
. . . delighted with each other, according to George Sand. They very
rarely met after this affair. Dudevant certainly did not impress people
very favourably. After the separation, when matters were being
finally settled, he put in a claim for fifteen pots of jam and an iron
frying-pan. All this seems very petty.
The first use George Sand made of the liberty granted to her by the law,
in 1836, was to start off with Maurice and Solange for Switzerland to
join her friends Franz Liszt and the Comtesse d'Agoult. George Sand had
made Liszt's acquaintance through Musset. Liszt gave music-lessons to
Alfred's sister, Herminie. He was born in 1811, so that he was seven
years younger than George Sand. He was twenty-three at the time he first
met her, and their friendship was always platonic. They had remarkable
affinities of nature. Liszt had first thought of becoming a priest.
His religious fervour was gradually transformed into an ardent love
of humanity. His early education had been neglected, and he now read
eagerly. He once asked Monsieur Cremieux, the advocate, to teach him
"the whole of French literature." On relating this to some one, Cremieux
remarked: "Great confusion seems to reign in this young man's mind." He
had been wildly excited during the movement of 1830, greatly influenced
by the Saint-Simon ideas, and was roused to enthusiasm by Lamennals,
who had just published the _Paroles d'un Croyant_. After reading
Leone Leoni, he became an admirer of George Sand. Leone Leoni is a
transposition of Manon Lescaut into the romantic style. A young girl
named Juliette has been seduced by a young seigneur, and then discovers
that this man is an abominable swindler. If we try to imagine all the
infamous things of which an _apache_ would be capable, who at the same
time is devoted to the women of the pavement, we then have Leone Leoni.
Juliette, who is naturally honest and straightforward, has a horror of
all the atrocities and shameful things she sees. And yet, in spite of
all, she comes back to Leone Leoni, and cannot love any one else. Her
love is stronger than she is, and her passion sweeps away all scruples
and triumphs over all scruples. The difference between the novel of the
eighteenth century, which was so true to life, and this lyrical fantasy
of the nineteenth century is very evident. Manon and Des Grieux always
remained united to each other, for they were of equal value. Everything
took place in the lower depths of society, and in the mire, as it were,
of the heart. You have only to make a good man of Des Grieux, or a
virtuous girl of Manon, and it is all over. The transposing of Leone
Leoni is just this, and the romanticism of it delighted Liszt.
He had just given a fine example of applying romanticism to life. Marie
d'Agoult, _nee_ de Flavigny, had decided, one fine day, to leave her
husband and daughter for the sake of the passion that was everything to
her. She accordingly started for Geneva, and Liszt joined her there.
Between these two women a friendship sprang up, which was due rather
to a wish to like each other than to a real attraction or real
fellow-feeling. The Comtesse d'Agoult, with her blue eyes, her
slender figure, and somewhat ethereal style, was a veritable Diana, an
aristocrat and a society woman. George Sand was her exact opposite. But
the Comtesse d'Agoult had just "sacrificed all the vanities of the world
for the sake of an artist," so that she deserved consideration. The
stay at Geneva was gay and animated. The _Piffoels_ (George Sand and her
children) and the _Fellows_ (Liszt and his pupil, Hermann Cohen) enjoyed
scandalizing the whole hotel by their Bohemian ways. They went for an
excursion to the frozen lake. At Lausanne Liszt played the organ. On
returning to Paris the friends did not want to separate. In October,
1836, George Sand took up her abode on the first floor of the Hotel de
France, in the Rue Laffitte, and Liszt and the Corntesse d'Agoult took
a room on the floor above. The trio shared, a drawing-room between
them, but in reality it became more the Comtesse d'Agoult's _salon_ than
George Sand's. Lamennais, Henri Heine, Mickiewicz, Michel of Bourges
and Charles Didier were among their visitors, and we are told that this
_salon_, improvised in a hotel was "a reunion of the _elite_, over which
the Comtesse d'Agoult presided with exquisite grace." She was a true
society woman, a veritable mistress of her home, one of those who could
transform a room in a hotel, a travelling carriage, or even a prison
into that exquisite thing, so dear to French polite society of yore--a
_salon_.
Among the _habitues_ of Madame d'Agoult's _salon_ was Chopin. This is
a new chapter in George Sand's life, and a little later on we shall be
able to consider, as a whole, the importance of this intercourse with
great artists as regards her intellectual development.
Before finishing our study of this epoch in her life, we must notice how
much George Sand's talent had developed and blossomed out. _Mauprat_ was
published in 1837, and is undoubtedly the first of her _chefs-d'oeuvre_.
In her uninterrupted literary production, which continued regularly in
spite of and through all the storms of her private life, there is much
that is strange and second-rate and much that is excellent. _Jacques_
is an extraordinary piece of work. It was written at Venice when she was
with Pagello. George Sand declared that she had neither put herself nor
Musset into this book. She was nevertheless inspired by their case,
and she merely transposed their ideal of renunciation. _Andre_ may be
classed among the second-rate work. It is the story of a young noble who
seduces a girl of the working-class. It is a souvenir of Berry, written
in a home-sick mood when George Sand was at Venice. _Simon_ also belongs
to the second-rate category. The portrait of Michel of Bourges can
easily be traced in it. George Sand had intended doing more for Michel
than this. She composed a revolutionary novel in three volumes, in his
honour, entitled: _Engelwald with the high forehead_. Buloz neither
cared for _Engelwald_ nor for his high forehead, and this novel was
never published.
According to George Sand, when she wrote _Mauprat_ her idea was
the rehabilitation of marriage. "I had just been petitioning for a
separation," she says. "I had, until then, been fighting against the
abuses of marriage, and, as I had never developed my ideas sufficiently,
I had given every one the notion that I despised the essential
principles of it. On the contrary, marriage really appeared to me in all
the moral beauty of those principles, and in my book I make my hero, at
the age of eighty, proclaim his faithfulness to the only woman he has
ever loved."
"She is the only woman I have ever loved," says Bernard de Mauprat. "No
other woman has ever attracted my attention or been embraced by me. I am
like that. When I love, I love for ever, in the past, in the present and
in the future."
_Mauprat_, then, according to George Sand, was a novel with a purpose,
just as _Indiana_ was, although they each had an opposite purpose.
Fortunately it is nothing of the kind. This is one of those explanations
arranged afterwards, peculiar sometimes to authors. The reality about
all this is quite different.
In this book George Sand had just given the reins to her imagination,
without allowing sociological preoccupations to spoil everything. During
her excursions in Berry, she had stopped to gaze at the ruins of an old
feudal castle. We all know the power of suggestion contained in those
old stones, and how wonderfully they tell stories of the past they
have witnessed to those persons who know how to question them. The
remembrance of the _chateau_ of Roche Mauprat came to the mind of the
novelist. She saw it just as it stood before the Revolution, a fortress,
and at the same time a refuge for the wild lord and his eight sons,
who used to sally forth and ravage the country. In French narrative
literature there is nothing to surpass the first hundred pages in which
George Sand introduces us to the burgraves of central France. She is
just as happy when she takes us to Paris with Bernard de Mauprat, to
Paris of the last days of the old _regime_. She introduces us to the
society which she had learnt to know through the traditions of her
grandmother. It is not only Nature, but history, which she uses as a
setting for her story. How cleverly, too, she treats the analysis which
is the true subject of the book, that of education through love. We see
the untamed nature of Bernard de Mauprat gradually giving way under the
influence of the noble and delicious Edmee.
There are typical peasants, too, in _Mauprat_. We have Marcasse, the
mole-catcher, and Patience, the good-natured Patience, the rustic
philosopher, well up in Epictetus and in Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who has
gone into the woods to live his life according to the laws of Nature and
to find the wisdom of the primitive days of the world. We are told that,
during the Revolution, Patience was a sort of intermediary between the
_chateau_ and the cottage, and that he helped in bringing about the
reign of equity in his district. It is to be hoped this was so.
In any case, it is very certain that we come across this Patience again
in Russian novels with a name ending in _ow_ or _ew_. This is a proof
that if the personage seems somewhat impossible, he was at any rate
original, new and entertaining.
We hear people say that George Sand is no longer read. It is to be hoped
that _Mauprat_ is still read, otherwise our modern readers miss one of
the finest stories in the history of novels. This, then, is the point
at which we have arrived in the evolution of George Sand's genius. There
may still be modifications in her style, and her talent may still be
refreshed under various influences, but with _Mauprat_ she took her
place in the first rank of great storytellers.
VI
A CASE OF MATERNAL AFFECTION IN LOVE
CHOPIN
We have passed over George Sand's intercourse with Liszt and Madame
d'Agoult very rapidly. One of Balzac's novels gives us an opportunity of
saying a few more words about it.
Balzac had been introduced to George Sand by Jules Sandeau. At the time
of her rupture with his friend, Balzac had sided entirely with him. In
the _Lettres a l'Etrangere_, we see the author of the _Comedie humaine_
pouring out his indignation with the blue stocking, who was so cruel in
her love, in terms which were not extremely elegant. Gradually, and when
he knew more about the adventure, his anger cooled down. In March, 1838,
he gave Madame Zulma Carraud an account of a visit to Nohant. He found
his comrade, George Sand, in her dressing-gown, smoking a cigar by her
fireside after dinner.
"She had some pretty yellow slippers on, ornamented with fringe,
some fancy stockings and red trousers. So much for the moral side.
Physically, she had doubled her chin like a canoness. She had not a
single white hair, in spite of all her fearful misfortunes; her dusky
complexion had not changed. Her beautiful eyes were just as bright, and
she looked just as stupid as ever when she was thinking. . . ."
This is George Sand in her thirty-fifth year, as she was at the time of
the fresh adventure we are about to relate.
Balzac continues by giving us a few details about the life of the
authoress. It was very much like his own, except that Balzac went to bed
at six o'clock and got up at midnight, and George Sand went to bed at
six in the morning and got up at noon. He adds the following remark,
which shows us the state of her feelings:
"She is now in a very quiet retreat, and condemns both marriage and
love, because she has had nothing but disappointment in both herself.
Her man was a rare one, that was really all."
In the course of their friendly conversation, George Sand gave him the
subject for a novel which it would be rather awkward for her to
write. The novel was to be _Galeriens_ or _Amours forces_. These
"galley-slaves" of love were Liszt and the Comtesse d'Agoult, who had
been with George Sand at Chamonix, Paris and Nohant. It was very evident
that she could not write the novel herself.
Balzac accordingly wrote it, and it figures in the _Comedie humaine as
Beatrix_. Beatrix is the Comtesse d'Agoult, the inspirer, and Liszt is
the composer Conti.
"You have no idea yet of the awful rights that a love which no longer
exists gives to a man over a woman. The convict is always under the
domination of the companion chained to him. I am lost, and must return
to the convict prison," writes Balzac in this book. Then, too, there is
no mistaking his portrait of Beatrix. The fair hair that seems to give
light, the forehead which looks transparent, the sweet, charming face,
the long, wonderfully shaped neck, and, above and beyond all, that air
of a princess, in all this we can easily recognize "the fair, blue-eyed
Peri." Not content with bringing this illustrious couple into his novel,
Balzac introduces other contemporaries. Claude Vignon (who, although
his special work was criticism, made a certain place for himself in
literature) and George Sand herself appear in this book. She is Felicite
des Touches, and her pen name is Camille Maupin. "Camille is an artist,"
we are told; "she has genius, and she leads an exceptional life such as
could not be judged in the same way as an ordinary existence." Some one
asks how she writes her books, and the answer is: "Just in the same way
as you do your woman's work, your netting or your tapestry." She is said
to have the intelligence of an angel and even more heart than talent.
With her fixed, set gaze, her dark complexion and her masculine ways,
she is the exact antithesis of the fair Beatrix. She is constantly being
compared to the latter, and is evidently preferred to her. It is very
evident from whom Balzac gets his information, and it is also evident
that the friendship between the two women has cooled down.
The cause of the coolness between them was George Sand's infatuation
for Chopin, whom she had known through Liszt and Madame d'Agoult. George
Sand wrote to Liszt from Nohant, in March, 1837: "Tell Chopin that I
hope he will come with you. Marie cannot live without him, and I adore
him." In April she wrote to Madame d'Agoult: "Tell Chopin that I idolize
him." We do not know whether Madame d'Agoult gave the message, but
she certainly replied: "Chopin coughs with infinite grace. He is an
irresolute man. The only thing about him that is permanent is his
cough." This is certainly very feminine in its ferociousness.
At the time when he came into George Sand's life, Chopin, the composer
and virtuoso, was the favourite of Parisian _salons_, the pianist in
vogue. He was born in 1810, so that he was then twenty-seven years
of age. His success was due, in the first place, to his merits as
an artist, and nowhere is an artist's success so great as in Paris.
Chopin's delicate style was admirably suited to the dimensions and to
the atmosphere of a _salon_.(25)
(25) As regards Chopin, I have consulted a biography by
Liszt, a study by M. Camille Bellaigue and the volume by M.
Elie Poiree in the _Collection des musiciens celebres_,
published by H. Laurens.
He confessed to Liszt that a crowd intimidated him, that he felt
suffocated by all the quick breathing and paralyzed by the inquisitive
eyes turned on him. "You were intended for all this," he adds, "as, if
you do not win over your public, you can at least overwhelm it."
Chopin was made much of then in society. He was fragile and delicate,
and had always been watched over and cared for. He had grown up in a
peaceful, united family, in one of those simple homes in which all
the details of everyday life become less prosaic, thanks to an innate
distinction of sentiment and to religious habits. Prince Radziwill had
watched over Chopin's education. He had been received when quite young
in the most aristocratic circles, and "the most celebrated beauties had
smiled on him as a youth." Social life, then, and feminine influence had
thus helped to make him ultra refined. It was very evident to every one
who met him that he was a well-bred man, and this is quickly observed,
even with pianists. On arriving he made a good impression, he was well
dressed, his white gloves were immaculate. He was reserved and somewhat
languid. Every one knew that he was delicate, and there was a rumour
of an unhappy love affair. It was said that he had been in love with a
girl, and that her family had refused to consent to her marriage with
him. People said he was like his own music, the dreamy, melancholy
themes seemed to accord so well with the pale young face of the
composer. The fascination of the languor which seemed to emanate from
the man and from his work worked its way, in a subtle manner, into the
hearts of his hearers. Chopin did not care to know Lelia. He did not
like women writers, and he was rather alarmed at this one. It was Liszt
who introduced them. In his biography of Chopin, he tells us that the
extremely sensitive artist, who was so easily alarmed, dreaded "this
woman above all women, as, like a priestess of Delphi, she said so many
things that the others could not have said. He avoided her and postponed
the introduction. Madame Sand had no idea that she was feared as a
sylph. . . ." She made the first advances. It is easy to see what
charmed her in him. In the first place, he appealed to her as he did to
all women, and then, too, there was the absolute contrast of their two
opposite natures. She was all force, of an expansive, exuberant nature.
He was very discreet, reserved and mysterious. It seems that the Polish
characteristic is to lend oneself, but never to give oneself away, and
one of Chopin's friends said of him that he was "more Polish than Poland
itself." Such a contrast may prove a strong attraction, and then, too,
George Sand was very sensitive to the charm of music. But what she saw
above all in Chopin was the typical artist, just as she understood the
artist, a dreamer, lost in the clouds, incapable of any activity that
was practical, a "lover of the impossible." And then, too, he was ill.
When Musset left Venice, after all the atrocious nights she had spent at
his bedside, she wrote: "Whom shall I have now to look after and tend?"
In Chopin she found some one to tend.