_Consuelo_, but I shall not be guilty of the bad taste of telling the
story of _La Mare au Diable_, as all the people of that neighbourhood
are well known to us, and have been our friends for a long time. We are
all acquainted with Germain, the clever farm-labourer, with Marie, the
shepherdess, and with little Pierre. We remember how they climbed the
_Grise_, lost their way in the mist, and were obliged to spend the night
under the great oak-trees. When we were only about fifteen years of age,
with what delight we read this book, and how we loved that sweet Marie
for her simple grace and her affection, which all seemed so maternal.
How much better we liked her than the Widow Guerin, who was so snobbish
with her three lovers. And how glad we were to be present at that
wedding, celebrated according to the custom in Berry from time
immemorial.
It is easy to see the meaning of all these things. They show us how
natural kindliness is to the heart of man. If we try to find out why
Germain and Marie appear so delightful to us, we shall discover that it
is because they are simple-hearted, and follow the dictates of Nature.
Nature must not be deformed, therefore, by constraint nor transformed by
convention, as it leads straight to virtue.
We have heard the tune of this song before, and we have seen the
blossoming of some very fine pastoral poems and a veritable invasion of
sentimental literature. In those days tears were shed plentifully
over poetry, novels and plays. We have had Bernardin de Saint-Pierre,
Sedaine, Florian and Berquin. The Revolution, brutal and sanguinary as
it was, did not interrupt the course of these romantic effusions. Never
were so many tender epithets used as during the years of the Reign of
Terror, and in official processions Robespierre was adorned with flowers
like a village bride.
This taste for pastoral things, at the time of the Revolution, was not a
mere coincidence. The same principles led up to the idyll in literature
and to the Revolution in history. Man was supposed to be naturally good,
and the idea was to take away from him all the restraints which had
been invented for curbing his nature. Political and religious authority,
moral discipline and the prestige of tradition had all formed a kind of
network of impediments, by which man had been imprisoned by legislators
who were inclined to pessimism. By doing away with all these fetters,
the Golden Age was to be restored and universal happiness was to be
established. Such was the faith of the believers in the millennium
of 1789, and of 1848. The same dream began over and over again, from
Diderot to Lamartine and from Jean-Jacques to George Sand. The same
state of mind which we see reflected in _La Mare au Diable_ was to make
of George Sand the revolutionary writer of 1848. We can now understand
the _role_ which the novelist played in the second Republic. It is
one of the most surprising pages in the history of this extraordinary
character.
The joy with which George Sand welcomed the Republic can readily be
imagined. She had been a Republican ever since the days of Michel of
Bourges, and a democrat since the time when, as a little girl, she took
the side of her plebeian mother against "the old Countesses." For a long
time she had been wishing for and expecting a change of government.
She would not have been satisfied with less than this. She was not much
moved by the Thiers-Guizot duel, and it would have given her no pleasure
to be killed for the sake of Odilon Barrot. She was a disciple of
Romanticism, and she wanted a storm. When the storm broke, carrying all
before it, a throne, a whole society with its institutions, she hurried
away from her peaceful Nohant. She wanted to breathe the atmosphere of a
revolution, and she was soon intoxicated by it.
"Long live the Republic," she wrote in her letters. "What a dream and
what enthusiasm, and then, too, what behaviour, what order in Paris. I
have just arrived, and I saw the last of the barricades. The people are
great, sublime, simple and generous, the most admirable people in the
universe. I spent nights without any sleep and days without sitting
down. Every one was wild and intoxicated with delight, for after going
to sleep in the mire they have awakened in heaven."(39)
(39) _Correspondance: _ To Ch. Poncy, March 9, 1848.
She goes on dreaming thus of the stars. Everything she hears, everything
she sees enchants her. The most absurd measures delight her. She either
thinks they are most noble, liberal steps to have taken, or else they
are very good jokes.
"Rothschild," she writes, "expresses very fine sentiments about liberty
at present. The Provisional Government is keeping him in sight, as it
does not wish him to make off with his money, and so will put some
of the troops on his track. The most amusing things are happening." A
little later on she writes: "The Government and the people expect to
have bad deputies, but they have agreed to put them through the window.
You must come, and we will go and see all this and have fun."(40)
(40) _Correspondance:_ To Maurice Sand, March 24, 1848.
She was thoroughly entertained, and that is very significant. We must
not forget the famous phrase that sounded the death-knell of the July
monarchy, "La France s'ennuie." France had gone in for a revolution by
way of being entertained.
George Sand was entertained, then, by what was taking place. She went
down into the street where there was plenty to see. In the mornings
there were the various coloured posters to be read. These had been put
up in the night, and they were in prose and in verse.
Processions were also organized, and men, women and children, with
banners unfurled, marched along to music to the Hotel de Ville, carrying
baskets decorated with ribbons and flowers. Every corporation and
every profession considered itself bound in honour to congratulate the
Government and to encourage it in its well-doing. One day the procession
would be of the women who made waistcoats or breeches, another day
of the water-carriers, or of those who had been decorated in July
or wounded in February; then there were the pavement-layers, the
washerwomen, the delegates from the Paris night-soil men. There were
delegates, too, from the Germans, Italians, Poles, and most of the
inhabitants of Montmartre and of Batignolles. We must not forget the
trees of Liberty, as George Sand speaks of meeting with three of these
in one day. "Immense pines," she writes, "carried on the shoulders of
fifty working-men. A drum went first, then the flag, followed by bands
of these fine tillers of the ground, strong-looking, serious men with
wreaths of leaves on their head, and a spade, pick-axe or hatchet over
their shoulder. It was magnificent; finer than all the _Roberts_ in the
world."(41) Such was the tone of her letters.
(41) _Correspondance._
She had the Opera from her windows and an Olympic circus at every
cross-road. Paris was certainly _en fete_. In the evenings it was just
as lively. There were the Clubs, and there were no less than three
hundred of these. Society women could go to them and hear orators
in blouses proposing incendiary movements, which made them shudder
deliciously. Then there were the theatres. Rachel, draped in antique
style, looking like a Nemesis, declaimed the _Marseillaise_. And all
night long the excitement continued. The young men organized torchlight
processions, with fireworks, and insisted on peaceably-inclined citizens
illuminating. It was like a National Fete day, or the Carnival,
continuing all the week.
All this was the common, everyday aspect of Paris, but there were the
special days as well to break the monotony of all this. There were
the manifestations, which had the great advantage of provoking
counter-manifestations. On the 16th of March, there was the
manifestation of the National Guard, who were tranquil members of
society, but on the 17th there was a counter-manifestation of the Clubs
and workingmen. On such days the meeting-place would be at the Bastille,
and from morning to night groups, consisting of several hundred thousand
men, would march about Paris, sometimes in favour of the Assembly
against the Provisional Government, and sometimes in favour of the
Provisional Government against the Assembly. On the 17th of April,
George Sand was in the midst of the crowd, in front of the Hotel de
Ville, in order to see better. On the 15th of May, as the populace was
directing its efforts against the Palais Bourbon, she was in the Rue de
Bourgogne, in her eagerness not to miss anything. As she was passing
in front of a _cafe_, she saw a woman haranguing the crowd in a very
animated way from one of the windows. She was told that this woman
was George Sand. Women were extremely active in this Revolution. They
organized a Legion for themselves, and were styled _"Les Vesuviennes_."
They had their clubs, their banquets and their newspapers. George Sand
was far from approving all this feminine agitation, but she did
not condemn it altogether. She considered that "women and children,
disinterested as they are in all political questions, are in more direct
intercourse with the spirit that breathes from above over the agitations
of this world."(42) It was for them, therefore, to be the inspirers of
politics. George Sand was one of these inspirers. In order to judge what
counsels this Egeria gave, we have only to read some of her letters.
On the 4th of March, she wrote as follows to her friend Girerd: "Act
vigorously, my dear brother. In our present situation, we must have even
more than devotion and loyalty; we must have fanaticism if necessary."
In conclusion, she says that he is not to hesitate "in sweeping away
all that is of a _bourgeois_ nature." In April she wrote to Lamartine,
reproaching him with his moderation and endeavouring to excite his
revolutionary spirit. Later on, although she was not of a very warlike
disposition, she regretted that they had not, like their ancestors of
1793, cemented their Revolution at home by a war with the nations.
(42) _Correspondance:_ To the Citizen Thore, May 28, 1848.
"If, instead of following Lamartine's stupid, insipid policy," she then
wrote, "we had challenged all absolute monarchies, we should have had
war outside, but union at home, and strength, in consequence of this,
it home and abroad."(43) Like the great ancestors, she declared that the
revolutionary idea is neither that of a sect nor of a party. "It is a
religion," she says, "that we want to proclaim." All this zeal, this
passion and this persistency in a woman is not surprising, but one does
not feel much confidence in a certain kind of inspiration for politics
after all this.
(43) _Correspondance:_ To Mazzini, October 10, 1849.
My reason for dwelling on the subject is that George Sand did not
content herself with merely looking on at the events that were taking
place, or even with talking about them with her friends. She took part
in the events, by means of her pen. She scattered abroad all kinds of
revolutionary writings. On the 7th of March, she published her first
_Letter to the People_, at the price of a penny, the profits of which
were to be distributed among working-men without employment. After
congratulating these great and good people on their noble victory, she
tells them they are all going to seek together for the truth of things.
That was exactly the state of the case. They did not yet know what they
wanted, but, in the mean time, while they were considering, they had
at any rate begun with a revolution. There was a second _Letter to the
People_, and then these ceased. Publications in those days were very
short-lived. They came to life again, though, sometimes from their
ashes. In April a newspaper was started, entitled _The Cause of the
People_. This was edited almost entirely by George Sand. She wrote the
leading article: _Sovereignty is Equality_. She reproduced her first
_Letter to the People_, gave an article on the aspect of the streets of
Paris, and another on theatrical events. She left to her collaborator,
Victor Borie, the task of explaining that the increase of taxes was an
eminently republican measure, and an agreeable surprise for the person
who had to pay them. The third number of this paper contained a one-act
play by George Sand, entitled _Le Roi attend_. This had just been given
at the Comedie-Francaise, or at the Theatre de la Republique, as it
was then called. It had been a gratis performance, given on the 9th of
April, 1848, as a first national representation. The actors at that time
were Samson, Geffroy, Regnier, Anais, Augustine Brohan and Rachel. There
were not many of them, but they had some fine things to interpret.
In George Sand's piece, Moliere was at work with his servant, Laforet,
who could not read, but without whom, it appears, he could not have
written a line. He has not finished his play, the actors have not learnt
their parts, and the king is impatient at being kept waiting. Moliere is
perplexed, and, not knowing what to do, he decides to go to sleep. The
Muse appears to him, styles him "the light of the people," and brings to
him all the ghosts of the great poets before him. AEschylus, Sophocles,
Euripides and Shakespeare all declare to him that, in their time, they
had all worked towards preparing the Revolution of 1848. Moliere then
wakes up, and goes on to the stage to pay his respects to the king. The
king has been changed, though. "I see a king," says Moliere, "but his
name is not Louis XIV. It is the people, the sovereign people. That is a
word I did not know, a word as great as eternity."
We recognize the democrat in all this. _Le Roi_ _attend_ may be
considered as an authentic curiosity of revolutionary art. The newspaper
announced to its readers that subscriptions could be paid in the Rue
Richelieu. Subscribers were probably not forthcoming, as the paper died
a natural death after the third number.
George Sand did much more than this, though.(44) We must not forget that
she was an official publicist in 1848. She had volunteered her
services to Ledru-Rollin, and he had accepted them. "I am as busy as
a statesman," she wrote at this time. "I have already written two
Government circulars."(45)
(44) With regard to George Sand's _role_, see _La Revolution
de_ 1848, by Daniel Stern (Madame d'Agoult).
(45) _Correspondance:_ To Maurice Sand, March 24, 1848.
With George Sand's collaboration, the _Bulletin de la Republique_ became
unexpectedly interesting. This paper was published every other day,
by order of Ledru-Rollin, and was intended to establish a constant
interchange of ideas and sentiments between the Government and the
people. "It was specially addressed to the people of rural districts,
and was in the form of a poster that the mayor of the place could have
put up on the walls, and also distribute to the postmen to be given
away. The _Bulletins_ were anonymous, but several of them were certainly
written by George Sand. The seventh is one of these, and also the
twelfth. The latter was written with a view to drawing the attention
of the public to the wretched lot of the women and girls of the lower
classes, who were reduced to prostitution by the lowness of their wages.
Their virginity is an object of traffic," we are told, "quoted on the
exchange of infamy." The sixteenth _Bulletin_ was simply an appeal for
revolt. George Sand was looking ahead to what ought to take place, in
case the elections did not lead to the triumph of social truth. "The
people," she hoped, "would know their duty. There would, in that case,
be only one way of salvation for the people who had erected barricades,
and that would be to manifest their will a second time, and so adjourn
the decisions of a representation that was not national." This was
nothing more nor less than the language of another Fructidor. And we
know what was the result of words in those days. The _Bulletin_ was
dated the 15th, and on the 17th the people were on the way to the Hotel
de Ville. These popular movements cannot always be trusted, though, as
they frequently take an unexpected turn, and even change their direction
when on the way. It happened this time that the manifestation turned
against those who were its instigators. Shouts were heard that day in
Paris of _"Death to the Communists"_ and _"Down with Cabet_." George
Sand could not understand things at all. This was not in the programme,
and she began to have her doubts about the future of the Republic--the
real one, that of her friends.
It was much worse on the 15th of May, the day which was so fatal to
Barbes, for he played the part of hero and of dupe on that eventful day.
Barbes was George Sand's idol at that time.
It was impossible for her to be without one, although, with her vivid
imagination, she changed her idols frequently. With her idealism, she
was always incarnating in some individual the perfections that she was
constantly imagining. It seems as though she exteriorized the needs of
her own mind and put them into an individual who seemed suitable to
her for the particular requirements of that moment. At the time of the
monarchy, Michel of Bourges and Pierre Leroux had been able to play the
part, the former of a radical theorician and the latter of the mystical
forerunner of the new times. At present Barbes had come on to the scene.
He was a born conspirator, the very man for secret societies. He had
made his career by means of prisons, or rather he had made prison his
career, In 1835, he had commenced by helping thirty of the prisoners of
April to escape from Sainte-Pelagie. At that time he was affiliated to
the _Societe des Familles_. The police discovered a whole arsenal of
powder and ammunition at the house in the Rue de Lourcine, and Barbes
was condemned to prison for a year and sent to Carcassonne, where he had
relatives. When he left prison, the _Societe des Saisons_ had taken the
place of the _Societe des Familles_. With Blanqui's approval, Barbes
organized the insurrection of May 12 and 13, 1830. This time blood was
shed. In front of the Palais de Justice, the men, commanded by Barbes,
had invited Lieutenant Droulneau to let them enter. The officer replied
that he would die first. He was immediately shot, but Barbes was
sentenced to death for this. Thanks to the intervention of Lamartine
and Victor Hugo, his life was spared, but he was imprisoned at Mont
Saint-Michel until 1843, and afterwards at Nimes. On the 28th of
February, 1848, the Governor of Nimes prison informed him that he was
free. He was more surprised and embarrassed than pleased by this news.
"I was quite bewildered," he owned later on, "by this idea of leaving
prison. I looked at my prison bed, to which I had grown so accustomed. I
looked at my blanket and at my pillow and at all my belongings, hung
so carefully at the foot of my bed." He asked permission to stay there
another day. He had become accustomed to everything, and when once he
was out again, and free, he was like a man who feels ill at ease.
He took part in the affair of the 15th of May, and this is what gives
a tragic, and at the same time comic, character to the episode. Under
pretext of manifesting in favour of Poland, the National Assembly was
to be invaded. Barbes did not approve of this manifestation, and
had decided to keep out of it. Some people cannot be present at a
revolutionary scene without taking part in it, and without soon wanting
to play the chief part in it. The excitement goes to their head. Barbes
seems to have been obeying in instinct over which he had no control,
for, together with a workman named Albert, he headed the procession
which was to march from the Chamber of Deputies to the Hotel de Ville
and establish a fresh Provisional Government. He had already commenced
composing the proclamations to be thrown through the windows to the
people, after the manner of the times, when suddenly Lamartine appeared
on the scene with Ledru-Rollin and a captain in the artillery. The
following dialogue then took place:
"Who are you?"
"A member of the Provisional Government."
"Of the Government of yesterday or of to-day?"
"Of the one of to-day."
"In that case I arrest you."
Barbes was taken to Vincennes. He had been free rather less than
three months, when he returned to prison as though it were his natural
dwelling-place.
George Sand admired him just as much after this as before. For her, the
great man of the Revolution was neither Ledru-Rollin, Lamartine, nor
even Louis-Blanc; it was Barbes. She compared him to Joan of Arc and to
Robespierre. To her, he was much more than a mere statesman, this man of
conspiracies and dungeons, ever mysterious and unfortunate, always
ready for a drama or a romance. In her heart she kept an altar for this
martyr, and never thought of wondering whether, after all, this idol and
hero were not a mere puppet.
The skirmish of May 15 undeceived George Sand very considerably. The
June insurrection and the civil war, with blood flowing in the Paris
streets, those streets which were formerly so lively and amusing, caused
her terrible grief. From henceforth her letters were full of her sadness
and discouragement. The most gloomy depression took the place of her
former enthusiasm. It had only required a few weeks for this change to
take place. In February she had been so proud of France, and now she
felt that she was to be pitied for being a Frenchwoman. It was all
so sad, and she was so ashamed. There was no one to count upon now.
Lamartine was a chatterer; Ledru-Rollin was like a woman; the people
were ignorant and ungrateful, so that the mission of literary people was
over. She therefore took refuge in fiction, and buried herself in her
dreams of art. We are not sorry to follow her there.
_Francois le Champi_ appeared as a serial in the _Journal des Debats_.
The _denouement_ was delayed by another _denouement_, which the public
found still more interesting. This was nothing less than the catastrophe
of the July Monarchy, in February, 1848.
After the terrible June troubles, George Sand had been heartbroken, and
had turned once more to literature for consolation. She wrote _La Petite
Fadette_, so that the pastoral romances and the Revolution are closely
connected with each other. Beside the novels of this kind which we have
already mentioned, we must add _Jeanne_, which dates from 1844, and
the _Maitres Sonneurs_, written in 1853. This, then, completes the
incomparable series, which was the author's _chef-d'oeuvre_, and one of
the finest gems of French literature. This was George Sand's real style,
and the note in literature which was peculiarly her own. She was
well fitted for such writing, both by her natural disposition and by
circumstances. She had lived nearly all her life in the country, and it
was there only that she lived to the full. She made great efforts, but
Paris certainly made her homesick for her beloved Berry. She could
not help sighing when she thought of the ploughed fields, of the
walnut-trees, and of the oxen answering to the voice of the labourers.
"It is no use," she wrote about the same time, "if you are born a
country person, you cannot get used to the noise of cities. It always
seems to me that our mud is beautiful mud, whilst that here makes me
feel sick. I very much prefer my keeper's wit to that of certain of the
visitors here. It seems to me that I am livelier when I have eaten some
of Nannette's wheat-cake than I am after my coffee in Paris. In short,
it appears to me that we are all perfect and charming, that no one could
be more agreeable than we are, and that Parisians are all clowns."(46)
(46) _Correspondance:_ To. Ch. Duvernet, November 12, 1842.
This was said in all sincerity. George Sand was quite indifferent about
all the great events of Parisian life, about social tittle-tattle and
Boulevard gossip. She knew the importance, though, of every episode of
country life, of a sudden fog or of the overflowing of the river. She
knew the place well, too, as she had visited every nook and corner in
all weathers and in every season. She knew all the people; there was
not a house she had not entered, either to visit the sick or to clear
up some piece of business for the inmates. Not only did she like the
country and the country people because she was accustomed to everything
there, but she had something of the nature of these people within her.
She had a certain turn of mind that was peasant-like, her slowness to
take things in, her dislike of speech when thinking, her thoughts taking
the form of "a series of reveries which gave her a sort of tranquil
ecstasy, whether awake or asleep."(47) It does not seem as though there
has ever been such an _ensemble_ of favourable conditions.
(47) See in _Jeanne_ a very fine page on the peasant soul.