M. and Madame Dudevant spent the greater part of autumn and the whole winter at Guillery, the chateau of Colonel Dudevant. Had the latter not died at this time, he might perhaps have saved the young people from those troubles towards which they were drifting, at least so his daughter-in-law afterwards thought. In the summer of 1826 the ill-matched couple returned to Nohant, where they continued to live, a few short absences excepted, till 1831. Hitherto their mutual relation had left much to be desired, henceforth it became worse and worse every day. It would, however, be a mistake to account for this state of matters solely by the dissimilarity of their temperaments—the poetic tendency on the one side, the prosaic on the other—for although it precluded an ideal matrimonial union, it by no means rendered an endurable and even pleasant companionship impossible. The real cause of the gathering clouds and imminent storm is to be sought elsewhere. Madame Dudevant was endowed with great vitality; she was, as it were, charged with an enormous amount of energy, which, unless it found an outlet, oppressed her and made her miserable. Now, in her then position, all channels were closed up. The management of household affairs, which, if her statement may be trusted, she neither considered beneath her dignity nor disliked, might have served as a, safety-valve; but her administration came to an untimely end. When, after the first year of their married life, her husband examined the accounts, he discovered that she had spent 14,000 francs instead of 10,000, and found himself constrained to declare that their purse was too light for her liberality. Not having anything else to do, and her uselessness vexing her, she took to doctoring the poor and concocting medicines. Hers, however, was not the spirit that allows itself to be fettered by the triple vow of obedience, silence, and poverty. No wonder, therefore, that her life, which she compared to that of a nun, was not to her taste. She did not complain so much of her husband, who did not interfere with her reading and brewing of juleps, and was in no way a tyrant, as of being the slave of a given situation from which he could not set her free. The total lack of ready money was felt by her to constitute in our altogether factitious society an intolerable situation, frightful misery or absolute powerlessness. What she missed was some means of which she might dispose, without compunction and uncontrolled, for an artistic treat, a beautiful book, a week's travelling, a present to a poor friend, a charity to a deserving person, and such like trifles, which, although not indispensable, make life pleasant. "Irresponsibility is a state of servitude; it is something like the disgrace of the interdict." But servitude and disgrace are galling yokes, and it was not likely that so strong a character would long and meekly submit to them. We have, however, not yet exhausted the grievances of Madame Dudevant. Her brother Hippolyte, after mismanaging his own property, came and lived for the sake of economy at Nohant. His intemperance and that of a friend proved contagious to her husband, and the consequence was not only much rioting till late into the night, but occasionally also filthy conversations. She began, therefore, to consider how the requisite means might be obtained—which would enable her to get away from such undesirable surroundings, and to withdraw her children from these evil influences. For four years she endeavoured to discover an employment by which she could gain her livelihood. A milliner's business was out of the question without capital to begin with; by needlework no more than ten sous a day could be earned; she was too conscientious to make translation pay; her crayon and water-colour portraits were pretty good likenesses, but lacked originality; and in the painting of flowers and birds on cigar-cases, work-boxes, fans, &c., which promised to be more successful, she was soon discouraged by a change of fashion.
At last Madame Dudevant made up her mind to go to Paris and try her luck in literature. She had no ambition whatever, and merely hoped to be able to eke out in this way her slender resources. As regards the capital of knowledge she was possessed of she wrote: "I had read history and novels; I had deciphered scores; I had thrown an inattentive eye over the newspapers….Monsieur Neraud [the Malgache of the "Lettres d'un Voyageur">[ had tried to teach me botany." According to the "Histoire de ma Vie" this new departure was brought about by an amicable arrangement; her letters, as in so many cases, tell, however, a very different tale. Especially important is a letter written, on December 3, 1830, to Jules Boucoiran, who had lately been tutor to her children, and whom, after the relation of what had taken place, she asks to resume these duties for her sake now that she will be away from Nohant and her children part of the year. Boucoiran, it should be noted, was a young man of about twenty, who was a total stranger to her on September 2, 1829, but whom she addressed on November 30 of that year as "Mon cher Jules." Well, she tells him in the letter in question that when looking for something in her husband's writing-desk she came on a packet addressed to her, and on which were further written by his hand the words "Do not open it till after my death." Piqued by curiosity, she did open the packet, and found in it nothing but curses upon herself. "He had gathered up in it," she says, "all his ill-humour and anger against me, all his reflections on my perversity." This was too much for her; she had allowed herself to be humiliated for eight years, now she would speak out.
Without waiting a day longer, still feeble and ill, I declared my will and mentioned my motives with an aplomb and coolness which petrified him. He hardly expected to see a being like me rise to its full height in order to face him. He growled, disputed, beseeched. I remained immovable. I want an allowance, I shall go to Paris, my children will remain at Nohant.
She feigned intractability on all these points, but after some time relented and consented to return to Nohant if her conditions were accepted. From the "Histoire de ma Vie" we learn what these conditions were. She demanded her daughter, permission to pass twice three months every year in Paris, and an allowance of 250 francs per month during the time of her absence from Nohant. Her letters, however, show that her daughter was not with her during her first three months at Paris.
Madame Dudevant proceeded to Paris at the beginning of 1831. Her establishment there was of the simplest. It consisted of three little rooms on the fifth story (a mansarde) in a house on the Quai Saint-Michel. She did the washing and ironing herself, the portiere assisting her in the rest of the household work. The meals came from a restaurant, and cost two francs a day. And thus she managed to keep within her allowance. I make these and the following statements on her own authority. As she found her woman's attire too expensive, little suited for facing mud and rain, and in other respects inconvenient, she provided herself with a coat (redingote-guerite), trousers, and waistcoat of coarse grey cloth, a hat of the same colour, a large necktie, and boots with little iron heels. This latter part of her outfit especially gave her much pleasure. Having often worn man's clothes when riding and hunting at Nohant, and remembering that her mother used to go in the same guise with her father to the theatre during their residence in Paris, she felt quite at home in these habiliments and saw nothing shocking in donning them. Now began what she called her literary school-boy life (vie d'ecolier litteraire), her vie de gamin. She trotted through the streets of Paris at all times and in all weathers, went to garrets, studios, clubs, theatres, coffee-houses, in fact, everywhere except to salons. The arts, politics, the romance of society and living humanity, were the studies which she passionately pursued. But she gives those the lie who said of her that she had the "curiosite du vice."
The literary men with whom she had constant intercourse, and with whom she was most closely connected, came, like herself, from Berry. Henri de Latouche (or Delatouche, as George Sand writes), a native of La Chatre, who was editor of the Figaro, enrolled her among the contributors to this journal. But she had no talent for this kind of work, and at the end of the month her payment amounted to perhaps from twelve to fifteen francs. Madame Dudevant and the two other Berrichons, Jules Sandeau and Felix Pyat, were, so to speak, the literary apprentices of Delatouche, who not only was much older than they, having been born in 1785, but had long ago established his reputation as a journalist, novelist, and dramatic writer. The first work which Madame Dudevant produced was the novel "Rose et Blanche"; she wrote it in collaboration with Jules Sandeau, whose relation to her is generally believed to have been not only of a literary nature. The novel, which appeared in 1831, was so successful that the publishers asked the authors to write them another. Madame Dudevant thereupon wrote "Indiana", but without the assistance of Jules Sandeau. She was going to have it published under the nom de plume Jules Sand, which they had assumed on the occasion of "Rose et Blanche." But Jules Sandeau objected to this, saying that as she had done all the work, she ought to have all the honour. To satisfy both, Jules Sandeau, who would not adorn himself with another's plumes, and the publishers, who preferred a known to an unknown name, Delatouche gave Madame Dudevant the name of George Sand, under which henceforth all her works were published, and by which she was best known in society, and generally called among her friends. "Valentine" appeared, like "Indiana," in 1832, and was followed in 1833 by Lelia. For the first two of these novels she received 3,000 francs. When Buloz bought the Revue des deux Mondes, she became one of the contributors to that journal. This shows that a great improvement had taken place in her circumstances, and that the fight she had to fight was not a very hard one. Indeed, in the course of two years she had attained fame, and was now a much-praised and much- abused celebrity.
All this time George Sand had, according to agreement, spent alternately three months in Paris and three months at Nohant. A letter written by M. Dudevant to his wife in 1831 furnishes a curious illustration of the relation that existed between husband and wife. The accommodating spirit which pervades it is most charming:—
I shall go to Paris; I shall not put up at your lodgings, for I do not wish to inconvenience you any more than I wish you to inconvenience me (parceque je ne veux pas vous gener, pas plus que je ne veux que vous me geniez).
In August, 1833, George Sand and Alfred de Musset met for the first time at a dinner which the editor Buloz gave to the contributors to the Revue des deux Mondes. The two sat beside each other. Musset called on George Sand soon after, called again and again, and before long was passionately in love with her. She reciprocated his devotion. But the serene blissfulness of the first days of their liaison was of short duration. Already in the following month they fled from the Parisian surroundings and gossipings, which they regarded as the disturbers of their harmony. After visiting Genoa, Florence, and Pisa, they settled at Venice. Italy, however, did not afford them the hoped-for peace and contentment. It was evident that the days of "adoration, ecstasy, and worship" were things of the past. Unpleasant scenes became more and more frequent. How, indeed, could a lasting concord be maintained by two such disparate characters? The woman's strength and determination contrasted with the man's weakness and vacillation; her reasoning imperturbation, prudent foresight, and love of order and activity, with his excessive irritability and sensitiveness, wanton carelessness, and unconquerable propensity to idleness and every kind of irregularity. While George Sand sat at her writing- table engaged on some work which was to bring her money and fame, Musset trifled away his time among the female singers and dancers of the noiseless city. In April, 1834, before the poet had quite recovered from the effects of a severe attack of typhoid fever, which confined him to his bed for several weeks, he left George Sand after a violent quarrel and took his departure from Venice. This, however, was not yet the end of their connection. Once more, in spite of all that had happened, they came together; but it was only for a fortnight (at Paris, in the autumn of 1834), and then they parted for ever.
It is impossible, at any rate I shall not attempt, to sift the true from the false in the various accounts which have been published of this love-drama. George Sand's version may be read in her Lettres d'un Voyageur and in Elle et Lui; Alfred de Musset's version in his brother Paul's book Lui et Elle. Neither of these versions, however, is a plain, unvarnished tale. Paul de Musset seems to keep on the whole nearer the truth, but he too cannot be altogether acquitted of the charge of exaggeration. Rather than believe that by the bedside of her lover, whom she thought unconscious and all but dead, George Sand dallied with the physician, sat on his knees, retained him to sup with her, and drank out of one glass with him, one gives credence to her statement that what Alfred de Musset imagined to be reality was but the illusion of a feverish dream. In addition to George Sand's and Paul de Musset's versions, Louise Colet has furnished a third in her Lui, a publication which bears the stamp of insincerity on almost every page, and which has been described, I think by Maxime du Camp, as worse than a lying invention—namely, as a systematic perversion of the truth. A passage from George Sand's Elle et Lui, in which Therese and Laurent, both artists, are the representatives of the novelist and poet, will indicate how she wishes the story to be read:—