Now let us say a few words about the literary productions of the year 1832. We have seen its important theatrical works: Térésa, Louis XI., Dix Ans de la vie d'une femme, Un duel sous Richelieu, La Tour de Nesle, Clotilde, Périnet Leclerc and Le Roi s'amuse.
M. Lesur's Annual List, which sums up the year's work, complains of the lack of productiveness of those twelve months, which only produced TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY-SEVEN works, among which are the eight dramas above mentioned.
See what the chronologist says about the novels; his usual kindly inclination towards contemporary literature will be detected therein:—
"Romances multiply as fast as ever; they swarm everywhere and jostle one another in order to put before us an energetic display of trivialities: novels of manners, historical novels, psychological, physiological, pathological novels; tales and comic and fantastic stories of every sort and colour!"
Yes, Monsieur Lesur; and, among those abounding novels, we have, in fact, two masterpieces by Madame Sand, Indiana and Valentine, and one of Eugène Sue's best works, La Salamandre.
But let us deal first with Madame Sand, that hermaphrodite genius who combined the strength of a man with the grace of a woman; who, like the ancient sphinx, the ever-mysterious enigma, crouched on the extreme borders of art with the face of a woman, the claws of a lion and the wings of an eagle. We will return afterwards to Eugène Sue.
Madame Sand came to Paris a short time before the Revolution of 1830. What did she come there to do? She will herself tell you with her accustomed frankness. Madame Sand wears a woman's clothes, but only as garments to cover her and not for purposes of concealment; of what use is hypocrisy when one possesses strength?
"A short time before the Revolution of 1830," says the authoress of Indiana, "I came to Paris with the object of finding occupation, not so much of a lucrative nature as a sufficiency. I had never worked except for pleasure; I knew in common with everybody else that un peu de tout meant rien en somme. I laid great stress on work which would permit me to remain in my own home. I did not know what to turn to. Drawing, music, botany, languages, history, I had nibbled at them all, and I regretted very much that I had not gone deeply into any of them; for, of all occupations, the one that attracted me least was to write for the public. It seemed to me that, apart from a rare talent for it, which I did not feel to possess, it was of less use than any other. I should, then, much have preferred a particular profession. I had often written for my own personal amusement. It appeared to me to be very impertinent to pretend to be able to amuse or interest other people, and nothing could have been less congenial to my reserved character, a dreamer, and eager for intimate friendships rather than for public exposure of one's most intimate thoughts. In addition to this, I knew my own language only very imperfectly. Educated on classical reading, I saw romanticism spreading everywhere. I had at first scoffed at it and rejected it from the solitudes of my own private corner, and from the depths of my inner conscience, but, when I acquired a taste for it, I became enthusiastic; my taste, which was then unformed, wavered between the past and the present, without knowing where to settle, liking both without knowledge and without seeking a means of reconciling them."