(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.