George Sand: Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings

by René Doumic

Briefly, she considered that her friend was the victim of a hopeless error. He took literature for the essential thing, but there was something before all literature, and that something was life. "The Holy of Holies, as you call literature, is only secondary to me in life. I have always loved some one better than it, and my family better than that some one."

This, then, was the keynote of the argument. George Sand considered that life is not only a pretext for literature, but that literature should always refer to life and should be regulated by life, as by a model which takes the precedence of it and goes far beyond it. This, too, is our opinion.

The state of mind which can be read between the lines in George Sand's letters to Flaubert is serenity, and this is also the characteristic of her work during the last period of her life. Her "last style" is that of Jean de la Rocke, published in 1860. A young nobleman, Jean de la Roche, loses his heart to the exquisite Love Butler. She returns his affection, but the jealousy of a young brother obliges them to separate. In order to be near the woman he loves, Jean de la Roche disguises himself as a guide, and accompanies the whole family in an excursion through the Auvergne mountains. A young nobleman as a guide is by no means an ordinary thing, but in love affairs such disguises are admitted. Lovers in the writings of Marivaux took the parts of servants, and in former days no one was surprised to meet with princes in disguise on the high-roads.

George Sand's masterpiece of this kind is undoubtedly Le Marquis de Villemer, published in 1861. A provincial chateau, an old aristocratic woman, sceptical and indulgent, two brothers capable of being rivals without ceasing to be friends, a young girl of noble birth, but poor, calumny being spread abroad, but quickly repudiated, some wonderful pages of description, and some elegant, sinuous conversations. All this has a certain charm. The poor girl marries the Marquis in the end. This, too, is a return to former days, to the days when kings married shepherdesses. The pleasure that we have in reading such novels is very much like that which we used to feel on hearing fairy-stories.

"If some one were to tell me the story of Peau d'Ane, I should be delighted," confessed La Fontaine, and surely it would be bad form to be more difficult and over-nice than he was. Big children as we are, we need stories which give food to our imagination, after being disappointed by the realities of life. This is perhaps the very object of the novel. Romance is not necessarily an exaggerated aspiration towards imaginary things. It is something else too. It is the revolt of the soul which is oppressed by the yoke of Nature. It is the expression of that tendency within us towards a freedom which is impossible, but of which we nevertheless dream. An iron law presides over our destiny. Around us and within us, the series of causes and effects continues to unwind its hard chain. Every single one of our deeds bears its consequence, and this goes on to eternity. Every fault of ours will bring its chastisement. Every weakness will have to be made good. There is not a moment of oblivion, not an instant when we may cease to be on our guard. Romantic illusion is, then, just an attempt to escape, at least in imagination, from the tyranny of universal order.

It is impossible, in this volume, to consider all George Sand's works. Some of her others are charming, but the whole series would perhaps appear somewhat monotonous. There is, however, one novel of this epoch to which we must call attention, as it is like a burst of thunder during calm weather. It also reveals an aspect of George Sand's ideas which should not be passed over lightly. This book was perhaps the only one George Sand wrote under the influence of anger. We refer to Mademoiselle La Quintinie. Octave Feuillet had just published his Histoire de Sibylle, and this book made George Sand furiously angry. We are at a loss to comprehend her indignation. Feuillet's novel is very graceful and quite inoffensive. Sibylle is a fanciful young person, who from her earliest childhood dreams of impossible things. She wants her grandfather to get a star for her, and another time she wants to ride on the swan's back as it swims in the pool. When she is being prepared for her first communion, she has doubts about the truth of the Christian religion, but one night, during a storm, the priest of the place springs into a boat and goes to the rescue of some sailors in peril. All the difficulties of theological interpretations are at once dispelled for her. A young man falls in love with her, but on discovering that he is not a believer she endeavours to convert him, and goes moonlight walks with him. Moonlight is sometimes dangerous for young girls, and, after one of these sentimental and theological strolls, she has a mysterious ailment. . . .

In order to understand George Sand's anger on reading this novel, which was both religious and social, and at the same time very harmless, we must know what her state of mind was on the essential question of religion.

In the first place, George Sand was not hostile to religious ideas. She had a religion. There is a George Sand religion. There are not many dogmas, and the creed is simple. George Sand believed firmly in the existence of God. Without the notion of God, nothing can be explained and no problem solved. This God is not merely the "first cause." It is a personal and conscious God, whose essential, if not sole, function is to forgive—every one.

"The dogma of hell," she writes, "is a monstrosity, an imposture, a barbarism. . . . It is impious to doubt God's infinite pity, and to think that He does not always pardon, even the most guilty of men." This is certainly the most complete application that has ever been made of the law of pardon. This God is not the God of Jacob, nor of Pascal, nor even of Voltaire. He is not an unknown God either. He is the God of Beranger and of all good people. George Sand believed also, very firmly, in the immortality of the soul. On losing any of her family, the certainty of going to them some day was her great consolation.

"I see future and eternal life before me as a certainty," she said; "it is like a light, and, thanks to its brilliancy, other things cannot be seen; but the light is there, and that is all I need." Her belief was, then, in the existence of God, the goodness of Providence and the immortality of the soul. George Sand was an adept in natural religion.