George Sand, some aspects of her life and writings

Rene Doumic

• Publisher: pubOne.info
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9782819923664
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Classics
• Index: Literature

pubOne.info thank you for your continued support and wish to present you this new edition. This volume is dedicated to Madame L. Landouzy

II

BARONNE DUDEVANT MARRIAGE AND FREEDOM— THE ARRIVAL IN PARIS— JULES SANDEAU

We must now endeavour to discover what the future George Sand's experiences of marriage were, and the result of these experiences on the formation of her ideas.

“You will lose your best friend in me, ” were the last words of the grandmother to her granddaughter on her death-bed. The old lady spoke truly, and Aurore was very soon to prove this. By a clause in her will, Madame Dupin de Francueil left the guardianship of Aurore to a cousin, Rene de Villeneuve. It was scarcely likely, though, that Sophie-Victoire should consent to her own rights being frustrated by this illegal clause, particularly as this man belonged to the world of the “old Countesses. ” She took her daughter with her to Paris. Unfortunately for her, Aurore's eyes were now open, and she was cultured enough to have been in entire sympathy with her exquisite grandmother. It was no longer possible for her to have the old passionate affection and indulgence for her mother, especially as she felt that she had hitherto been deserted by her. She saw her mother now just as she was, a light woman belonging to the people, a woman who could not resign herself to growing old. If only Sophie-Victoire had been of a tranquil disposition! She was most restless, on the contrary, wanting to change her abode and change her restaurant every day. She would quarrel with people one day, make it up the next; wear a different-shaped hat every day, and change the colour of her hair continually. She was always in a state of agitation. She loved police news and thrilling stories; read the Sherlock Holmes of those days until the middle of the night. She dreamed of such stories, and the following day went on living in an atmosphere of crime. When she had an attack of indigestion, she always imagined that she had been poisoned. When a visitor arrived, she thought it must be a burglar. She was most sarcastic about Aurore's “fine education” and her literary aspirations. Her hatred of the dead grandmother was as strong as ever. She was constantly insulting her memory, and in her fits of anger said unheard-of things. Aurore's silence was her only reply to these storms, and this exasperated her mother. She declared that she would correct her daughter's “sly ways. ” Aurore began to wonder with terror whether her mother's mind were not beginning to give way. The situation finally became intolerable.

Sophie-Victoire took her daughter to spend two or three days with some friends of hers, and then left her there. They lived in the country at Plessis-Picard, near Melun. Aurore was delighted to find a vast park with thickets in which there were roebucks bounding about. She loved the deep glades and the water with the green reflections of old willow trees. Monsieur James Duplessis and his wife, Angele, were excellent people, and they adopted Aurore for the time being. They already had five daughters, so that one more did not make much difference. They frequented a few families in the neighbourhood, and there was plenty of gaiety among the young people. The Duplessis took Aurore sometimes to Paris and to the theatre.

“One evening, ” we are told in the Histoire de ma vie, “we were having some ices at Tortoni's after the theatre, when suddenly my mother Angele said to her husband, 'Why, there's Casimir! ' A young man, slender and rather elegant, with a gay expression and a military look, came and shook hands, and answered all the questions he was asked about his father, Colonel Dudevant, who was evidently very much respected and loved by the family. ”

This was the first meeting, the first appearance of Casimir in the story, and this was how he entered into the life of Aurore.

He was invited to Plessis, he joined the young people good-humouredly in their games, was friendly with Aurore, and, without posing as a suitor, asked for her hand in marriage. There was no reason for her to refuse him. He was twenty-seven years of age, had served two years in the army, and had studied law in Paris. He was a natural son, of course, but he had been recognized by his father, Colonel Dudevant. The Dudevant family was greatly respected. They had a chateau at Guillery in Gascony. Casimir had been well brought up and had good manners. Aurore might as well marry him as any other young man. It would even be preferable to marry him rather than another young man. He was already her friend, and he would then be her husband. That would not make much difference.

The marriage almost fell through, thanks to Sophie-Victoire. She did not consider Casimir good-looking enough. She was not thinking of her daughter, but of herself. She had made up her mind to have a handsome son-in-law with whom she could go out. She liked handsome men, and particularly military men. Finally she consented to the marriage, but, a fortnight before the ceremony, she arrived at Plessis, like a veritable thunderbolt. An extraordinary idea had occurred to her. She vowed that she had discovered that Casimir had been a waiter at a cafe. She had no doubt dreamt this, but she held to her text, and was indignant at the idea of her daughter marrying a waiter! . . .

Things had arrived at this crisis when Casimir's mother, Madame Dudevant, who had all the manners of a grande dame, decided to pay Sophie-Victoire an official visit. The latter was greatly flattered, for she liked plenty of attention paid to her. It was in this way that Aurore Dupin became Baronne Dudevant.

She was just eighteen years of age. It is interesting to read her description of herself at this time. In her Voyage en Auvergne, which was her first writing, dated 1827, she traces the following portrait, which certainly is not exaggerated.

“When I was sixteen, ” she says, “and left the convent, every one could see that I was a pretty girl. I was fresh-looking, though dark. I was like those wild flowers which grow without any art or culture, but with gay, lively colouring. I had plenty of hair, which was almost black. On looking at myself in the glass, though, I can truthfully say that I was not very well pleased with myself. I was dark, my features were well cut, but not finished. People said that it was the expression of my face that made it interesting. I think this was true. I was gay but dreamy, and my most natural expression was a meditative one. People said, too, that in this absent-minded expression there was a fixed look which resembled that of the serpent when fascinating his prey. That, at any rate, was the far-fetched comparison of my provincial adorers. ”

They were not very far wrong, these provincial adorers. The portraits of Aurore at this date show us a charming face of a young girl, as fresh-looking as a child. She has rather long features, with a delicately-shaped chin. She is not exactly pretty, but fascinating, with those great dark eyes, which were her prominent feature, eyes which, when fixed on any one, took complete possession of them— dreamy, passionate eyes, sombre because the soul reflected in them had profound depths.

It is difficult to define that soul, for it was so complex. To judge by appearances, it was a very peaceful soul, and perhaps, too, it was in reality peaceful. George Sand, who knew herself thoroughly, frequently spoke of her laziness and of her apathy, traits peculiar to the natives of Berry. Superficial observers looked no further, and her mother used to call her “St. Tranquillity. ” The nuns, though, of her convent had more perspicacity. They said, when speaking of her: “Still waters run deep. ” Under the smooth surface they fancied that storms were gathering. Aurore had within her something of her mother and of her grandmother, and their opposite natures were blended in her. She had the calmness of Marie-Aurore, but she also had the impetuousness of Sophie-Victoire, and undoubtedly, too, something of the free and easy good humour of her father, the break-neck young officer. It certainly is not surprising to find a love of adventure in a descendant of Maurice de Saxe.

Beside all these inner contrasts, the observer was particularly struck by her sudden changes of humour, by the way in which, after a fit of melancholy sadness, she suddenly gave way to the most exuberant gaiety, followed by long fits of depression and nervous exhaustion. Personally, I do not believe much in the influence of the physical over the moral nature, but I am fully convinced of the action of the moral over the physical nature. In certain cases and in presence of extremely accentuated conditions, physiological explanations must be taken into account. All these fits of melancholy and weeping, this prostration, these high spirits and the long walks, in order to sober down, denote the exigencies of an abnormal temperament. When once the crisis was passed, it must not be supposed that, as with many other people, nothing remained of it all. This was by no means the case, as in a nature so extraordinarily organized for storing up sensations nothing was lost, nothing evaporated, and everything increased. The still water seemed to be slumbering. Its violence, though held in check, was increasing in force, and when once let loose, it would carry all before it.

Such was the woman whom Casimir Dudevant was to marry. The fascination was great; the honour rather to be feared, for all depended on his skill in guiding this powerful energy.

The question is whether he loved her. It has been said that it was a marriage of interest, as Aurore's fortune amounted to twenty thousand pounds, and he was by no means rich. This may have been so, but there is no reason why money should destroy one's sentiments, and the fact that Aurore had money was not likely to prevent Casimir from appreciating the charms of a pretty girl. It seems, therefore, very probable that he loved his young wife, at any rate as much as this Casimir was capable of loving his wife.

The next question is whether she loved him. It has been said that she did, simply because she declared that she did not. When, later on, after her separation, she spoke of her marriage, all her later grievances were probably in her mind. There are her earlier letters, though, which some people consider a proof that she cared for Casimir, and there are also a few words jotted down in her notebook. When her husband was absent, she was anxious about him and feared that he had met with an accident. It would be strange indeed if a girl of eighteen did not feel some affection for the man who had been the first to make love to her, a man whom she had married of her own free-will. It is rare for a woman to feel no kind of attachment for her husband, but is that attachment love? When a young wife complains of her husband, we hear in her reproaches the protest of her offended dignity, of her humbled pride. When a woman loves her husband, though, she does not reproach him, guilty though he may be, with having humiliated and wounded her. What she has against him then, is that he has broken her heart by his lack of love for her. This note and this accent can never be mistaken, and never once do we find it with Aurore. We may therefore conclude that she had never loved her husband.

Casimir did not know how to win her affection. He did not even realize that he needed to win it. He was very much like all men. The idea never occurs to them that, when once they are married, they have to win their wife.

He was very much like all men. . . . That is the most faithful portrait that can be traced of Casimir at this epoch. He had not as yet the vices which developed in him later on. He had nothing to distinguish him from the average man. He was selfish, without being disagreeable, rather idle, rather incapable, rather vain and rather foolish. He was just an ordinary man. The wife he had married, though, was not an ordinary woman. That was their misfortune. As Emile Faguet has very wittily put it, “Monsieur Dudevant, about whom she complained so much, seems to have had no other fault than that of being merely an ordinary man, which, of course, is unendurable to a superior woman. The situation was perhaps equally unendurable for the man. ” This is quite right, for Casimir was very soon considerably disconcerted. He was incapable of understanding her psychology, and, as it seemed impossible to him that a woman was not his inferior, he came to the logical conclusion that his wife was “idiotic. ” This was precisely his expression, and at every opportunity he endeavoured to crush her by his own superiority. All this seems to throw some light on his character and also on the situation. Here was a man who had married the future George Sand, and he complained, in all good faith, that his wife was “idiotic”!

Certainly, on comparing the Correspondance with the Histoire de ma vie, the difference of tone is most striking. The letters in which Baronne Dudevant tells, day by day, of her home life are too enthusiastic for the letters of an unhappy wife. There are receptions at Nohant, lively dinners, singing and dancing. All this is, at any rate, the surface, but gradually the misunderstandings are more pronounced, and the gulf widens.

There may have been a misunderstanding at the very beginning of their married life, and Aurore may have had a surprise of the nature of the one to which Jane de Simerose confesses in L'Ami des femmes. In an unpublished letter written much later on, in the year 1843, from George Sand to her half-brother Hippolyte Chatiron on the occasion of his daughter's engagement, the following lines occur: “See that your son-in-law is not brutal to your daughter the first night of their marriage. . . . Men have no idea that this amusement of theirs is a martyrdom for us. Tell him to sacrifice his own pleasure a little, and to wait until he has taught his wife gradually to understand things and to be willing. There is nothing so frightful as the horror, the suffering and the disgust of a poor girl who knows nothing and who is suddenly violated by a brute. We bring girls up as much as possible like saints, and then we hand them over like fillies. If your son-in-law is an intelligent man and if he really loves your daughter, he will understand his role, and will not take it amiss that you should speak to him beforehand. ”(2)

(2) Communicated by M. S. Rocheblave.

Is George Sand recalling here any hidden and painful memories? Casimir had, at bottom, a certain brutality, which, later on, was very evident. The question is whether he had shown proofs of it at a time when it would have been wiser to have refrained.

However that may be, the fundamental disagreement of their natures was not long in making itself felt between the husband and wife. He was matter-of-fact, and she was romantic; he only believed in facts, and she in ideas; he was of the earth, earthy, whilst she aspired to the impossible. They had nothing to say to each other, and when two people have nothing to say, and love does not fil...

Table of contents

• GEORGE SAND
• GEORGE SAND
• II
• III
• IV
• V
• VI
• VII
• VIII
• IX
• X
• Copyright