Francois appears at the house of Madeleine Blanchet, who is a widow and very sad and ill. He takes her part and defends her from the results of La Severe's intrigues. He is hard on the latter, and he disdains another woman, Mariette, but both La Severe and Mariette love him, so true is it that women have a weakness for conquerors. Francois only cares for Madeleine, though. On the stage, we like a man to be adored by all women, as this seems to us a guarantee that he will only care for one of them.
"Champi" is a word peculiar to a certain district, meaning "natural son." Dumas fils wrote a play entitled Le Fils naturel. The hero is also a superior man, who plays the part of Providence to the family which has refused to recognize him.
In Claudie, as in Francois le Champi, the rural setting is one of the great charms of the play. The first act is one of the most picturesque scenes on the stage. It takes place in a farmyard, the day when the reapers have finished their task, which is just as awe-inspiring as that of the sowers. A cart, drawn by oxen, enters the yard, bringing a sheaf all adorned with ribbons and flowers. The oldest of the labourers, Pere Remy, addresses a fine couplet to the sheaf of corn which has cost so much labour, but which is destined to keep life in them all. Claudie is one of those young peasant girls, whom we met with in the novel entitled Jeanne. She had been unfortunate, but Jeanne, although virtuous and pure herself, did not despise her, for in the country there is great latitude in certain matters. This is just the plain story, but on the stage everything becomes more dramatic and is treated in a more detailed and solemn fashion. Claudie's misfortune causes her to become a sort of personage apart, and it raises her very high in her own esteem.
"I am not afraid of anything that can be said about me," observes Claudie, "for, on knowing the truth, kind-hearted, upright people will acknowledge that I do not deserve to be insulted." Her old grandfather, Remy, has completely absolved her.
"You have repented and suffered enough, and you have worked and wept and expiated enough, too, my poor Claudie," he says. Through all this she has become worthy to make an excellent marriage. It is a case of that special moral code by which, after free love, the fault must be recompensed.
Claudie is later on the Jeannine of the Idees de Madame Aubray, the Denise of Alexandre Dumas. She is the unmarried mother, whose misfortunes have not crushed her pride, who, after being outraged, has a right now to a double share of respect. The first good young man is called upon to accept her past life, for there is a law of solidarity in the world. The human species is divided into two categories, the one is always busy doing harm, and the other is naturally obliged to give itself up to making good the harm done.
The Mariage de Victorine belongs to a well-known kind of literary exercise, which was formerly very much in honour in the colleges. This consists in taking a celebrated work at the place where the author has left it and in imagining the "sequel." For instance, after the Cid, there would be the marriage of Rodrigue and Chimene for us. As a continuation of L'Ecole des Femmes, there is the result of the marriage of the young Horace with the tiresome little Agnes. Corneille gave a sequel to the Menteur himself. Fabre d'Eglantine wrote the sequel to Le Misanthrope, and called it Le Philinte de Moliere. George Sand gives us here the sequel of Sedaine's chef-d'oeuvre (that is, a chef-d'oeuvre for Sedaine), Le Philosophe sans le savor.
In Le Philosophe sans le savoir Monsieur Vanderke is a nobleman, who has become a merchant in order to be in accordance with the ideas of the times. He is a Frenchman, but he has taken a Dutch name out of snobbishness. He has a clerk or a confidential servant named Antoine. Victorine is Antoine's daughter. Vanderke's son is to fight a duel, and from Victorine's emotion, whilst awaiting the result of this duel, it is easy to see that she is in love with this young man. George Sand's play turns on the question of what is to be done when the day comes for Victorine to marry. An excellent husband is found for her, a certain Fulgence, one of Monsieur Vanderke's clerks. He belongs to her own class, and this is considered one of the indispensable conditions for happiness in marriage. He loves her, so that everything seems to favour Victorine. We are delighted, and she, too, seems to be in good spirits, but, all the time that she is receiving congratulations and presents, we begin to see that she has some great trouble.
"Silk and pearls!" she exclaims; "oh, how heavy they are, but I am sure that they are very fine. Lace, too, and silver; oh, such a quantity of silver. How rich and fine and happy I shall be. And then Fulgence is so fond of me." (She gets sadder and sadder.) "And father is so pleased. How strange. I feel stifled." (She sits down in Antoine's chair.) "Is this joy? . . . I feel . . . Ah, it hurts to be as happy as this. . . ." She bursts into tears. This suppressed emotion to which she finally gives vent, and this forced smile which ends in sobs are very effective on the stage. The question is, how can Victorine's tears be dried? She wants to marry young Vanderke, the son of her father's employer, instead of the clerk. The only thing is, then, to arrange this marriage.
"Is it a crime, then, for my brother to love Victorine?" asks Sophie, "and is it mad of me to think that you will give your consent?"