Part 1 (2/2)
In ”Elle et Lui” (1859) she gave long afterward her version of the unhappy and undignified story. Her stay in Venice appears to have impressed her genius more deeply than any other section of her numerous foreign sojournings.
The writings of George Sand's second period, which extended from 1840 to 1848, are of a more general character, and are tinged with a generous but not very enlightened ardour for social emanc.i.p.ation. Of these novels, the earliest is ”Le Compagnon du Tour de France” (1840), which is scarcely a masterpiece. In the pursuit of foreign modes of thought, and impelled by experiences of travel, George Sand rose to far greater heights in ”Jeanne” (1842), in ”Consuelo” (1842-'43), and in ”La Comtesse de Rudolstade” (1844). All these books were composed in her retirement at Nohant, where she definitely settled in 1839, after having travelled for several months in Switzerland with Liszt and Mme.
d'Agoult, and having lived in the island of Majorca for some time with the dying Chopin, an episode which is enshrined in her ”Lucrezia Floriani” (1847).
The Revolution of 1848 appeared to George Sand a realization of her Utopian dreams, and plunged her thoughts into a painful disorder. She soon, however, became dissatisfied with the result of her republican theories, and she turned to two new sources of success, the country story and the stage. Her delicious romance of ”Francois le Champi”
(1850) attracted a new and enthusiastic audience to her, and her entire emanc.i.p.ation from ”problems” was marked in the pages of ”La Pet.i.te Fadette” and of ”La Mare au Diable.” To the same period belong ”Les Visions de la Nuit des les Campagnes,” ”Les Maitres Sonneurs,” and ”Cosina.” From 1850 to 1864 she gave a great deal of attention to the theatre, and of her numerous pieces several enjoyed a wide and considerable success, although it cannot be said that any of her plays have possessed the vitality of her best novels. The most solid of the former was her dramatization of her story, ”Le Marquis de Villemer”
(1864), which was one of the latest, and next to it ”Le Mariage de Victorine” (1851), which was one of the earliest. Her successes on the stage, such as they are, appear mainly due to collaboration with others.
In her latest period, from 1860 to 1876, George Sand returned to her first lyrical manner, although with more reticence and a wider experience of life. Of the very abundant fruitage of these last years, not many rank with the masterpieces of her earlier periods, although such novels as ”Tamaris” (1862), ”La Confession d'une Jeune Fille”
(1865), and ”Cadio,” seemed to her admirers to show no decline of force or fire. Still finer, perhaps, were ”Le Marquis de Villemer” (1861) and ”Jean de la Roche” (1860). Her latest production, which appeared after her death, was the ”Contes d'une Grand'mere,” a collection full of humanity and beauty. George Sand died at Nohant on the 8th of June, 1876. She had great qualities of soul, and in spite of the naive irregularities of her conduct in early middle life, she cannot be regarded otherwise than as an excellent woman. She was brave, courageous, heroically industrious, a loyal friend, a tender and wise mother. Her principle fault has been wittily defined by Mr. Henry James, who has remarked that in affairs of the heart George Sand never ”behaved like a gentleman.”
E. G.
PREFACE
When I wrote my novel _Mauprat_ at Nohant--in 1846, if I remember rightly--I had just been suing for a separation. Hitherto I had written much against the abuses of marriage, and perhaps, though insufficiently explaining my views, had induced a belief that I failed to appreciate its essence; but it was at this time that marriage itself stood before me in all the moral beauty of its principle.
Misfortune is not without its uses to the thoughtful mind. The more clearly I had realized the pain and pity of having to break a sacred bond, the more profoundly I felt that where marriage is wanting, is in certain elements of happiness and justice of too lofty a nature to appeal to our actual society. Nay, more; society strives to take from the sanct.i.ty of the inst.i.tution by treating it as a contract of material interests, attacking it on all sides at once, by the spirit of its manners, by its prejudices, by its hypocritical incredulity.
While writing a novel as an occupation and distraction for my mind, I conceived the idea of portraying an exclusive and undying love, before, during, and after marriage. Thus I drew the hero of my book proclaiming, at the age of eighty, his fidelity to the one woman he had ever loved.
The ideal of love is a.s.suredly eternal fidelity. Moral and religious laws have aimed at consecrating this ideal. Material facts obscure it.
Civil laws are so framed as to make it impossible or illusory. Here, however, is not the place to prove this. Nor has _Mauprat_ been burdened with a proof of the theory; only, the sentiment by which I was specially penetrated at the time of writing it is embodied in the words of _Mauprat_ towards the end of the book: ”She was the only woman I loved in all my life; none other ever won a glance from me, or knew the pressure of my hand.”
GEORGE SAND.
June 5, 1857.
TO
GUSTAVE PAPET
Though fas.h.i.+on may proscribe the patriarchal fas.h.i.+on of dedications, I would ask you, brother and friend, to accept this of a tale which is not new to you. I have drawn my materials in part from the cottages of our Noire valley. May we live and die there, repeating every evening our beloved invocation:
SANCTA SIMPLICITAS!
GEORGE SAND.
MAUPRAT
On the borders of La Marche and Berry, in the district known as Varenne, which is naught but a vast moor studded with forests of oak and chestnut, and in the most thickly wooded and wildest part of the country, may be found, crouching within a ravine, a little ruined chateau. The dilapidated turrets would not catch your eye until you were about a hundred yards from the princ.i.p.al portcullis. The venerable trees around and the scattered rocks above, bury it in everlasting obscurity; and you would experience the greatest difficulty, even in broad daylight, in crossing the deserted path leading to it, without stumbling against the gnarled trunks and rubbish that bar every step. The name given to this dark ravine and gloomy castle is Roche-Mauprat.
It was not so long ago that the last of the Mauprats, the heir to this property, had the roofing taken away and all the woodwork sold. Then, as if to give a kick to the memory of his ancestors, he ordered the entrance gate to be thrown down, the north tower to be gutted, and a breach to be made in the surrounding wall. This done, he departed with his workmen, shaking the dust from off his feet, and abandoning his domain to foxes, and cormorants, and vipers. Since then, whenever the wood-cutters and charcoal-burners from the huts in the neighbourhood pa.s.s along the top of the Roche-Mauprat ravine, if it is in daytime they whistle with a defiant air or hurl a hearty curse at the ruins; but when day falls and the goat-sucker begins to screech from the top of the loopholes, wood-cutter and charcoal-burner pa.s.s by silently, with quickened step, and cross themselves from time to time to ward off the evil spirits that hold sway among the ruins.
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