The beginning of her life in Paris was one of considerable poverty and privation. She lived au cinquième in a lodging, which cost her a yearly rent of £12; she had no servant, and got in her food from an eating-house close by for the sum of two francs a day. Her washing and needlework she did herself. Notwithstanding this rigid economy, it was impossible to keep within the limits of her husband’s allowance of £10 a year, especially as far as her dress was concerned.
After some hesitation therefore she took the resolution, which caused so much scandal then and afterwards, of adopting male attire.
“My thin boots wore out in a few days,” she tells us in the autobiography. “I forgot to hold up my dress, and covered my petticoats with mud. My bonnets were spoilt one after another by the rain. I generally returned from the expeditions I took, dirty, weary, and cold. Whereas my young men acquaintances—some of whom had been the companions of my childhood in Berri—had none of these inconveniences to submit to. I therefore had a long gray cloth coat made with a waistcoat and trousers to match. When this costume was completed by a gray felt hat and a loose woollen cravat, no one could have guessed that I was not a young student in my first year. My boots were my particular delight. I should like to have gone to bed with them. On their little iron heels I wandered from one end of Paris to the other; no one took any notice of me, or suspected my disguise.”
George Sand was twenty-seven years of age at this time. Without being beautiful she was striking and sympathetic-looking. Sainte-Beuve thus describes his first interview with her:
“I saw, as I entered the room, a young woman with expressive eyes and a fine open brow, surrounded by black hair, cut rather short. She was quiet and composed in manner, speaking little herself, but listening attentively to all I had to say.”
In an engraving of Calmatta’s from a picture done by Ary Scheffer, we see that her features were large but regular, her eyes magnificent, and her face distinguished by an expression of strength and calm that was very remarkable. Her hair, dressed in long bandeaux, increases this expression of peace so belied by the audacity of her genius.
She began her life of independence with very fixed opinions on abstract ideas, but with complete ignorance, so far as material necessities were concerned:
“I know nothing about the world, and have no prejudices on the subject of society, to which the more I see of it, the less I desire to belong. I do not think I can reform it, I do not interest myself enough about it to wish to do so. This reserve and laziness is perhaps a mistake, but it is the inevitable result of a life of isolation and solitude. I have a basis of ‘nonchalance’ and apathy in my disposition which, without any effort on my part, keeps me attached to a sedentary life, or, as my friends would call it, ‘an animal one.’”
A great many of these friends were so shocked at her eccentric proceedings, that she made up her mind to withdraw voluntarily from intercourse with them, leaving them the option of continuing it if they liked.
“What right had I to be angry with them, if they gave me up? How could I expect them to understand my aims or my desires? Did they know? Did I know myself, when burning my vessels, whether I had any talent, any perseverance?
“I never told any one my real intentions; and whenever I talked of becoming an authoress, it was in joke, making fun of the idea, and of myself.”