of birds which he knew so well.
“And all this reminded him of a very old song with which his mother Zabelli used to sing him to sleep. It was a song with words such as people used to employ in olden times.”
In George Sand’s pastoral novels we have some of these old words. They come to us from afar, and are like a supreme blossoming of old traditions.
It is all this which characterizes these books, and assigns to them their place in our literature. We must not compare them with the rugged studies of Balzac, nor with the insipid compositions of the bucolic writer, nor even with Bernadin de Saint-Pierre’s masterpiece, as there are too many cocoanut trees in that. They prevent us seeing the French landscapes. Very few people know the country in France and the humble people who dwell there. Very few writers have loved the country well enough to be able to depict its hidden charms.
La Fontaine has done it in his fables and Perrault in his tales. George Sand has her place, in this race of writers, among the French Homers.
IX
THE `BONNE DAME’ OF NOHANT THE THEATRE–ALEXANDRE DUMAS FILS– LIFE AT NOHANT
Novelists are given to speaking of the theatre somewhat disdainfully. They say that there is too much convention, that an author is too much the slave of material conditions, and is obliged to consider the taste of the crowd, whilst a book appeals to the lover of literature, who can read it by his own fireside, and to the society woman, who loses herself in its pages. As soon, though, as one of their novels has had more success than its predecessors, they do not hesitate to cut it up into slices, according to the requirements of the publishing house, so that it may go beyond the little circle of lovers of literature and society women and reach the crowd– the largest crowd possible.
George Sand never pretended to have this immense disdain for the theatre which is professed by ultra-refined writers. She had always loved the theatre, and she bore it no grudge, although her pieces had been hissed. In those days plays that did not find favour were hissed. At present they are not hissed, either because there are no more poor plays, or because the public has seen so many bad ones that it has become philosophical, and does not take the trouble to show its displeasure. George Sand’s first piece, _Cosima_, was a noted failure. About the year 1850, she turned to the theatre once more, hoping to find a new form of expression for her energy and talent. _Francois le Champi_ was a great success. In January, 1851, she wrote as follows, after the performance of _Claudie: _ “A tearful success and a financial one. The house is full every day; not a ticket given away, and not even a seat for Maurice. The piece is played admirably; Bocage is magnificent. The public weeps and blows its nose, as though it were in church. I am told that never in the memory of man has there been such a first night. I was not present myself.”
There may be a slight exaggeration in the words “never in the memory of man,” but the success was really great. _Claudie_ is still given, and I remember seeing Paul Mounet interpret the part of Remy admirably at the Odeon Theatre. As to the _Mariage de Victorine_, it figures every year on the programme of the Conservatoire competitions. It is the typical piece for would-be _ingenues._
_Francois le Champi, Claudie_ and the _Mariage de Victorine_ may be considered as the series representing George Sand’s dramatic writings. These pieces were all her own, and, in her own opinion, that was their principal merit. The dramatic author is frequently obliged to accept the collaboration of persons who know nothing of literature.
“Your characters say this,” observes the manager; it is all very well, but, believe me, it will be better for him to say just the opposite. The piece will run at least sixty nights longer.” There was a manager at the Gymnase Theatre in those days named Montigny. He was a very clever manager, and knew exactly what the characters ought to say for making the piece run. George Sand complained of his mania for changing every play, and she added: “Every piece that I did not change, such, for instance, as _Champi_, _Claudie_, _Victorine, Le Demon du foyer_ and _Le Pressoir_, was a success, whilst all the others were either failures or they had a very short run.”[48]
[48] _Correspondance:_ To Maurice Sand, February 24, 1855.
It was in these pieces that George Sand carried out her own idea of what was required for the theatre. Her idea was very simple. She gives it in two or three words: “I like pieces that make me cry.” She adds: “I like drama better than comedy, and, like a woman, I must be infatuated by one of the characters.” This character is the congenial one. The public is with him always and trembles for him, and the trembling is all the more agreeable, because the public knows perfectly well that all will end well for this character. It can even go as far as weeping the traditional six tears, as Madame de Sevigne did for Andromaque. Tears at the theatre are all the sweeter, because they are all in vain. When, in a play, we have a congenial character who is there from the beginning to the end, the play is a success. Let us take _Cyraino de Bergerac_, for instance, which is one of the greatest successes in the history of the theatre.
Francois le Champi is eminently a congenial character, for he is a man who always sets wrong things right. We are such believers in justice and in the interference of Providence. When good, straightforward people are persecuted by fate, we always expect to see a man appear upon the scene who will be the champion of innocence, who will put evil-doers to rights, and find the proper thing to do and say in every circumstance.
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 Antoinc’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?”
“My dear Sophie,” replies Monsieur Vanderke, “there are no unequal marriages in the sight of God. A servitor like Antoine is a friend, and I have always brought you up to consider Victorine as your companion and equal.”
This is the way the father of the family speaks. Personally, I consider him rather imprudent.
As this play is already a sequel to another one, I do not wish to propose a sequel to _Le Mariage de Victorine_, but I cannot help wondering what will happen when Vanderke’s son finds himself the son-in-law of an old servant-man, and also what will occur if he should take his wife to call on some of his sister’s friends. It seems to me that he would then find out he had, made a mistake. Among the various personages, only one appears to me quite worthy of interest, and that is poor Fulgence, who was so straightforward and honest, and who is treated so badly.
But how deep Victorine was! Even if we admit that she did not deliberately scheme and plot to get herself married by the son of the family, she did instinctively all that had to be done for that. She was very deep in an innocent way, and I have come to the conclusion that such deepness is the most to be feared.
I see quite well all that is lacking in these pieces, and that they are not very great, but all the same they form a “theatre” apart. There is unity in this theatrical work of George Sand. Whether it makes a hero of the natural son, rehabilitates the seduced girl, or cries down the idea of _mesalliances_, it is always the same fight in which it is engaged; it is always fighting against the same enemies, prejudice and narrow-mindedness. On the stage, we call every opinion contrary to our own prejudice or narrow-mindedness. The theatre lives by fighting. It matters little what the author is attacking. He may wage war with principles, prejudices, giants, or windmills. Provided that there be a battle, there will be a theatre for it.
The fact that George Sand’s theatre was the forerunner of the theatre of Dumas _fils_ gives it additional value. We have already noticed the analogy of situations and the kinship of theories contained in George Sand’s best plays and in the most noted ones by Dumas. I have no doubt that Dumas owed a great deal to George Sand. We shall see that he paid his debt as only he could have done. He knew the novelist when he was quite young, as Dumas _pere_ and George Sand were on very friendly terms. In her letter telling Sainte-Beuve not to take Musset to call on her, as she thought him impertinent, she tells him to bring Dumas _pere_, whom she evidently considered well bred. As she was a friend of his father’s, she was like a mother for the son. The first letter to him in the _Correspondance_ is dated 1850. Dumas _fils_ was then twenty-six years of age, and she calls him “my son.”
He had not written _La Dame aux Camelias_ then. It was performed for the first time in February, 1852. He was merely the author of a few second-rate novels and of a volume of execrable poetry. He had not found out his capabilities at that time. There is no doubt that he was greatly struck by George Sand’s plays, imbued as they were with the ideas we have just pointed out.
All this is worthy of note, as it is essential for understanding the work of Alexandre Dumas _fils_. He, too, was a natural son, and his illegitimate birth had caused him much suffering. He was sent to the Pension Goubaux, and for several years he endured the torture he describes with such harshness at the beginning of _L’Affaire Clemenceau_. He was exposed to all kinds of insults and blows. His first contact with society taught him that this society was unjust, and that it made the innocent suffer. The first experience he had was that of the cruelty and cowardice of men. His mind was deeply impressed by this, and he never lost the impression. He did not forgive, but made it his mission to denounce the pharisaical attitude of society. His idea was to treat men according to their merits, and to pay them back for the blows he had received as a child.[49] It is easy, therefore, to understand how the private grievances of Dumas _fils_ had prepared his mind to welcome a theatre which took the part of the oppressed and waged war with social prejudices. I am fully aware of the difference in temperament of the two writers. Dumas _fils_, with his keen observation, was a pessimist. He despised woman, and he advises us to kill her, under the pretext that she has always remained “the strumpet of the land of No.” although she may be dressed in a Worth costume and wear a Reboux hat.
[49] See our study of Dumas _fils_ in a volume entitled _Portraits d’ecrivains._
As a dramatic author, Alexandre Dumas _fils_ had just what George Sand lacked. He was vigorous, he had the art of brevity and brilliant dialogue. It is thanks to all this that we have one of the masterpieces of the French theatre, _Le Marquis de Villemer_, as a result of their collaboration.
We know from George Sand’s letters the share that Dumas _fils_ had in this work. He helped her to take the play from her novel, and to write the scenario. After this, when once the play was written, he touched up the dialogue, putting in more emphasis and brilliancy. It was Dumas, therefore, who constructed the play. We all know how careless George Sand was with her composition. She wrote with scarcely any plan in her mind beforehand, and let herself be carried away by events. Dumas’ idea was that the _denouement_ is a mathematical total, and that before writing the first word of a piece the author must know the end and have decided the action. Theatrical managers complained of the sadness of George Sand’s plays. It is to Dumas that we owe the gaiety of the Duc d’Aleria’s _role_. It is one continual flow of amusing speeches, and it saves the piece from the danger of falling into tearful drama. George Sand had no wit, and Dumas _fils_ was full of it. It was he who put into the dialogue those little sayings which are so easily recognized as his.
“What do the doctors say?” is asked, and the reply comes:
“What do the doctors say? Well, they say just what they know: they say nothing.”
“My brother declares that the air of Paris is the only air he can breathe,” says another character.
“Congratulate him for me on his lungs,” remarks his interlocutor.
“Her husband was a baron . . .” remarks some one.
“Who is not a baron at present?” answers another person.
A certain elderly governess is being discussed.
“Did you not know her?”
“Mademoiselle Artemise? No, monsieur.”
“Have you ever seen an albatross?”
“No, never.”
“Not even stuffed? Oh, you should go to the Zoo. It is a curious creature, with its great beak ending in a hook. . . . It eats all day long. . . . Well, Mademoiselle Artemise, etc. . . .”
The _Marquis de Villemer_ is in its place in the series of George Sand’s plays, and is quite in accordance with the general tone of her theatre. It is like the _Mariage de Victorine_ over again. This time Victorine is a reader, who gets herself married by a Marquis named Urbain. He is of a gloomy disposition, so that she will not enjoy his society much, but she will be a Marquise. Victorine and Caroline are both persons who know how to make their way in the world. When they have a son, I should be very much surprised if they allowed him to make a _mesalliance_.
George Sand was one of the persons f or whom Dumas _fils_ had the greatest admiration. As a proof of this, a voluminous correspondence between them exists. It has not yet been published, but there is a possibility that it may be some day. I remember, when talking with Dumas _fils_, the terms in which he always spoke of “la mere Sand,” as he called her in a familiar but filial way. He compared her to his father, and that was great praise indeed from him. He admired in her, too, as he admired in his father, that wealth of creative power and immense capacity for uninterrupted work. As a proof of this admiration, we have only to turn to the preface to _Le Fils naturel_, in which Dumas is so furious with the inhabitants of Palaiseau. George Sand had taken up her abode at Palaiseau, and Dumas had been trying in vain to discover her address in the district, when he came across one of the natives, who replied as follows: “George Sand? Wait a minute. Isn’t it a lady with papers?” “So much for the glory,” concludes Dumas, “of those of us with papers.” According to him, no woman had ever had more talent or as much genius. “She thinks like Montaigne,” he says, “she dreams like Ossian and she writes like Jean-Jacques. Leonardo sketches her phrases for her, and Mozart sings them. Madame de Sevigne kisses her hands, and Madame de Stael kneels down to her as she passes.” We can scarcely imagine Madame de Stael in this humble posture, but one of the charms of Dumas was his generous nature, which spared no praise and was lavish in enthusiasm.
At the epoch at which we have now arrived, George Sand had commenced that period of tranquillity and calm in which she was to spend the rest of her life. She had given up politics, for, as we have seen, she was quickly undeceived with regard to them, and cured of her illusions. When the _coup d’etat_ of December, 1851, took place, George Sand, who had been Ledru-Rollin’s collaborator and a friend of Barbes, soon made up her mind what to do. As the daughter of Murat’s _aide-de-camp_, she naturally had a certain sympathy with the Bonapartists. Napoleon III was a socialist, so that it was possible to come to an understanding. When the prince had been a prisoner at Ham, he had sent the novelist his study entitled _L’Extinction du pauperisme_. George Sand took advantage of her former intercourse with him to beg for his indulgrence in favour of some of her friends. This time she was in her proper _role_, the _role_ of a woman. The “tyrant” granted the favours she asked, and George Sand then came to the conclusion that he was a good sort of tyrant. She was accused of treason, but she nevertheless continued to speak of him with gratitude. She remained on good terms with the Imperial family, particularly with Prince Jerome, as she appreciated his intellect. She used to talk with him on literary and philosophical questions. She sent him two tapestry ottomans one year, which she had worked for him. Her son Maurice went for a cruise to America on Prince Jerome’s yacht, and he was the godfather of George Sand’s little grandchildren who were baptized as Protestants.
George Sand deserves special mention for her science in the art of growing old. It is not a science easy to master, and personally this is one of my reasons for admiring her. She understood what a charm there is in that time of life when the voice of the passions is no longer heard, so that we can listen to the voice of things and examine the lesson of life, that time when our reason makes us more indulgent, when the sadness of earthly separations is softened by the thought that we shall soon go ourselves to join those who have left us. We then begin to have a foretaste of the calmness of that Great Sleep which is to console us at the end of all our sufferings and grief. George Sand was fully aware of the change that had taken place within her. She said, several times over, that the age of impersonality had arrived for her. She was delighted at having escaped from herself and at being free from egoism. From henceforth she could give herself up to the sentiments which, in pedantic and barbarous jargon, are called altruistic sentiments. By this we mean motherly and grandmotherly affection, devotion to her family, and enthusiasm for all that is beautiful and noble. She was delighted when she was told of a generous deed, and charmed by a book in which she discovered talent. It seemed to her as though she were in some way joint author of it.
“My heart goes out to all that I see dawning or growing . . .” she wrote, at this time. “When we see or read anything beautiful, does it not seem as though it belongs to us in a way, that it is neither yours nor mine, but that it belongs to all who drink from it and are strengthened by it?”[50]
[50] _Correspondance:_ To Octave Feuillet, February 27, 1859.
This is a noble sentiment, and less rare than is generally believed. The public little thinks that it is one of the great joys of the writer, when he has reached a certain age, to admire the works of his fellow-writers. George Sand encouraged her young _confreres_, Dumas _fils_, Feuillet and Flaubert, at the beginning of their career, and helped them with her advice.
We have plenty of information about her at this epoch. Her intimate friends, inquisitive people and persons passing through Paris, have described their visits to her over and over again. We have the impressions noted down by the Goncourt brothers in their _Jounal_. We all know how much to trust to this diary. Whenever the Goncourts give us an idea, an opinion, or a doctrine, it is as well to be wary in accepting it. They were not very intelligent. I do not wish, in saying this, to detract from them, but merely to define them. On the other hand, what they saw, they saw thoroughly, and they noted the general look, the attitude or gesture with great care.
We give their impressions of George Sand. In March, 1862, they went to call on her. She was then living in Paris, in the Rue Racine. They give an account of this visit in their diary.
“_March_ 30, 1862.
“On the fourth floor, No. 2, Rue Racine. A little gentleman, very much like every one else, opened the door to us. He smiled, and said: `Messieurs de Goncourt!’ and then, opening another door, showed us into a very large room, a kind of studio.
“There was a window at the far end, and the light was getting dim, for it was about five o’clock. We could see a grey shadow against the pale light. It was a woman, who did not attempt to rise, but who remained impassive to our bow and our words. This seated shadow, looking so drowsy, was Madame Sand, and the man who opened. the door was the engraver Manceau. Madame Sand is like an automatic machine. She talks in a monotonous, mechanical voice which she neither raises nor lowers, and which is never animated. In her whole attitude there is a sort of gravity and placidness, something of the half-asleep air of a person ruminating. She has very slow gestures, the gestures of a somnambulist. With a mechanical movement she strikes a wax match, which gives a flicker, and lights the cigar she is holding between her lips.
“Madame Sand was extremely pleasant; she praised us a great deal, but with a childishness of ideas, a platitude of expression and a mournful good-naturedness that was as chilling as the bare wall of a room. Manceau endeavoured to enliven the dialogue. We talked of her theatre at Nohant, where they act for her and for her maid until four in the morning. . . . We then talked of her prodigious faculty for work. She told us that there was nothing meritorious in that, as she had always worked so easily. She writes every night from one o’clock until four in the morning, and she writes again for about two hours during the day. Manceau explains everything, rather like an exhibitor of phenomena. `It is all the same to her,’ he told us, `if she is disturbed. Suppose you turn on a tap at your house, and some one comes in the room. You simply turn the tap off. It is like that with Madame Sand.'”
The Goncourt brothers were extremely clever in detracting from the merits of the people about whom they spoke. They tell us that George Sand had “a childishness in her ideas and a platitude of expression.” They were unkind without endeavouring to be so. They ran down people instinctively. They were eminently literary men. They were also artistic writers, and had even invented “artistic writing,” but they had very little in common with George Sand’s attitude of mind. To her the theory of art for the sake of art had always seemed a very hollow theory. She wrote as well as she could, but she never dreamed of the profession of writing having anything in common with an acrobatic display.
In September, 1863, the Goncourt brothers again speak of George Sand, telling us about her life at Nohant, or rather putting the account they give into the mouth of Theophile Gautier. He had just returned from Nohant, and he was asked if it was amusing at George Sand’s.
“Just as amusing as a monastery of the Moravian brotherhood,” he replies. “I arrived there in the evening, and the house is a long way from the station. My trunk was put into a thicket, and on arriving I entered by the farm in the midst of all the dogs, which gave me a fright. . . .”
As a matter of fact, Gautier’s arrival at Nohant had been quite a dramatic poem, half tragic and half comic. Absolute freedom was the rule of Nohant. Every one there read, wrote, or went to sleep according to his own will and pleasure. Gautier arrived in that frame of mind peculiar to the Parisian of former days. He considered that he had given a proof of heroism in venturing outside the walls of Paris. He therefore expected a hearty welcome. He was very much annoyed at his reception, and was about to start back again immediately, when George Sand was informed of his arrival. She was extremely vexed at what had happened, and exclaimed, “But had not any one told him how stupid I am!”
The Goncourt brothers asked Gautier what life at Nohant was like.
“Luncheon is at ten,” he replied, “and when the finger was on the hour, we all took our seats. Madame Sand arrived, looking like a somnambulist, and remained half asleep all through the meal. After luncheon we went into the garden and played at _cochonnet_. This roused her, and she would then sit down and begin to talk.”
It would have been more exact to say that she listened, as she was not a great talker herself. She had a horror of a certain kind of conversation, of that futile, paradoxical and spasmodic kind which is the speciality of “brilliant talkers.” Sparkling conversation of this sort disconcerted her and made her feel ill at ease. She did not like the topic to be the literary profession either. This exasperated Gautier, who would not admit of there being anything else in the world but literature.
“At three o’clock,” he continued, “Madame Sand went away to write until six. We then dined, but we had to dine quickly, so that Marie Caillot would have time to dine. Marie Caillot is the servant, a sort of little Fadette whom Madame Sand had discovered in the neighbourhood for playing her pieces. This Marie Caillot used to come into the drawing-room in the evening. After dinner Madame Sand would play patience, without uttering a word, until midnight. . . . At midnight she began to write again until four o’clock. . . . You know what happened once. Something monstrous. She finished a novel at one o’clock in the morning, and began another during the night. . . . To make copy is a function with Madame Sand.”
The marionette theatre was one of the Nohant amusements. One of the joys of the family, and also one of the delights of _dilettanti_,[51] was the painting of the scenery, the manufacturing of costumes, the working out of scenarios, dressing dolls and making them talk.
[51] “The individual named George Sand is very well. He is enjoying the wonderful winter which reigns in Berry; he gathers flowers, points out any interesting botanical anomalies, sews dresses and mantles for his daughter-in-law, and costumes for the marionettes, cuts out stage scenery, dresses dolls and reads music. . . .”–_Correspondance:_ To Flaubert, January 17, 1869.
In one of her novels, published in 1857, George Sand introduces to us a certain Christian Waldo, who has a marionette show. He explains the attraction of this kind of theatre and the fascination of these _burattini_, which were living beings to him. Those among us who, some fifteen years ago, were infatuated by a similar show, are not surprised at Waldo’s words. The marionettes to which we refer were to be seen in the Passage Vivienne. Sacred plays in verse were given, and the managers were Monsieur Richepin and Monsieur Bouchor. For such plays we preferred actors made of wood to actors of flesh and blood, as there is always a certain desecration otherwise in acting such pieces.
George Sand rarely left Nohant now except for her little flat in Paris. In the spring of 1855, she went to Rome for a short time, but did not enjoy this visit much. She sums up her impressions in the following words: “Rome is a regular see-saw.” The ruins did not interest her much.
“After spending several days in visiting urns, tombs, crypts and columns, one feels the need of getting out of all this a little and of seeing Nature.”
Nature, however, did not compensate her sufficiently for her disappointment in the ruins.
“The Roman Campagna, which has been so much vaunted, is certainly singularly immense, but it is so bare, flat and deserted, so monotonous and sad, miles and miles of meadow-land in every direction, that the little brain one has left, after seeing the city, is almost overpowered by it all.”
This journey inspired her with one of the weakest of her novels, _La Daniella_. It is the diary of a painter named Jean Valreg, who married a laundry-girl. In 1861, after an illness, she went to Tamaris, in the south of France. This name is the title of one of her novels. She does not care for this place either. She considers that there is too much wind, too much dust, and that there are too many olive-trees in the south of France.
I am convinced that at an earlier time in her life she would, have been won over by the fascination of Rome. She had comprehended the charm of Venice so admirably. At an earlier date, too, she would not have been indifferent to the beauties of Provence, as she had delighted in meridional Nature when in Majorca.
The years were over, though, for her to enjoy the variety of outside shows with all their phantasmagoria. A time comes in life, and it had already come for her, when we discover that Nature, which has seemed so varied, is the same everywhere, that we have quite near us all that we have been so far away to seek, a little of this earth, a little water and a little sky. We find, too, that we have neither the time nor the inclination to go away in search of all this when our hours are counted and we feel the end near. The essential thing then is to reserve for ourselves a little space for our meditations, between the agitations of life and that moment which alone decides everything for us.
X
THE GENIUS OF THE WRITER
CORRESPONDENCE WITH FLAUBERT–LAST NOVELS
With that maternal instinct which was so strong within her, George Sand could not do without having a child to scold, direct and take to task. The one to whom she was to devote the last ten years of her life, who needed her beneficent affection more than any of those she had adopted, was a kind of giant with hair turned back from his forehead and a thick moustache like a Norman of the heroic ages. He was just such a man as we can imagine the pirates in Duc Rollo’s boats. This descendant of the Vikings had been born in times of peace, and his sole occupation was to endeavour to form harmonious phrases by avoiding assonances.
I do not think there have been two individuals more different from each other than George Sand and Gustave Flaubert. He was an artist, and she in many respects was _bourgeoise_. He saw all things at their worst; she saw them better than they were. Flaubert wrote to her in surprise as follows: “In spite of your large sphinx eyes, you have seen the world through gold colour.”
She loved the lower classes; he thought them detestable, and qualified universal suffrage as “a disgrace to the human mind.” She preached concord, the union of classes, whilst he gave his opinion as follows:
“I believe that the poor hate the rich, and that the rich are afraid of the poor. It will be like this eternally.”
It was always thus. On every subject the opinion of the one was sure to be the direct opposite of the opinion of the other. This was just what had attracted them.
“I should not be interested in myself,” George Sand said, “if I had the honour of meeting myself.” She was interested in Flaubert, as she had divined that he was her antithesis.
“The man who is Just passing,” says Fantasio, “is charming. There are all sorts of ideas in his mind which would be quite new to me.”
George Sand wanted to know something of these ideas which were new to her. She admired Flaubert on account of all sorts of qualities which she did not possess herself. She liked him, too, as she felt that he was unhappy.
She went to see him during the summer of 1866. They visited the historic streets and old parts of Rouen together. She was both charmed and surprised. She could not believe her eyes, as she had never imagined that all that existed, and so near Paris, too. She stayed in that house at Croisset in which Flaubert’s whole life was spent. It was a house with wide windows and a view over the Seine. The hoarse, monotonous sound of the chain towing the heavy boats along could be heard distinctly within the rooms. Flaubert lived there with his mother and niece. To George Sand everything there seemed to breathe of tranquillity and comfort, but at the same time she brought away with her an impression of sadness. She attributed this to the vicinity of the Seine, coming and going as it does according to the bar.
“The willows of the islets are always being covered and uncovered,” she writes; “it all looks very cold and sad.[52]
[52] _Correspondance:_ To Maurice Sand, August 10, 1866.
She was not really duped, though, by her own explanation. She knew perfectly well that what makes a house sad or gay, warm or icy-cold is not the outlook on to the surrounding country, but the soul of those who inhabit it and who have fashioned it in their own image. She had just been staying in the house of the misanthropist.
When Moliere put the misanthropist on the stage with his wretched-looking face, he gave him some of the features which remind us so strongly of Flaubert. The most ordinary and everyday events were always enough to put Alceste into a rage. It was just the same with Flaubert. Everyday things which we are philosophical enough to accept took his breath away. He was angry, and he wanted to be angry. He was irritated with every one and with everything, and he cultivated this irritation. He kept himself in a continual state of exasperation, and this was his normal state. In his letters he described himself as “worried with life,” “disgusted with everything,” “always agitated and always indignant.” He spells _hhhindignant_ with several h’s. He signs his letters, “The Reverend Father Cruchard of the Barnabite Order, director of the Ladies of Disenchantment.” Added to all this, although there may have been a certain amount of pose in his attitude, he was sincere. He “roared” in his own study, when he was quite alone and there was no one to be affected by his roaring. He was organized in a remarkable way for suffering. He was both romantic and realistic, a keen observer and an imaginative man. He borrowed some of the most pitiful traits from reality, and recomposed them into a regular nightmare. We agree with Flaubert that injustice and nonsense do exist in life. But he gives us Nonsense itself, the seven-headed and ten-horned beast of the Apocalypse. He sees this beast everywhere, it haunts him and blocks up every avenue for him, so that he cannot see the sublime beauties of the creation nor the splendour of human intelligence.
In reply to all his wild harangues, George Sand gives wise answers, smiling as she gives them, and using her common sense with which to protect herself against the trickery of words. What has he to complain of, this grown-up child who is too naive and who expects too much? By what extraordinary misfortune has he such an exceptionally unhappy lot? He is fairly well off and he has great talent. How many people would envy him! He complains of life, such as it is for every one, and of the present conditions of life, which had never been better for any one at any epoch. What is the use of getting irritated with life, since we do not wish to die? Humanity seemed despicable to him, and he hated it. Was he not a part of this humanity himself? Instead of cursing our fellow-men for a whole crowd of imperfections inherent to their nature, would it not be more just to pity them for such imperfections? As to stupidity and nonsense, if he objected to them, it would be better to pay no attention to them, instead of watching out for them all the time. Beside all this, is there not more reason than we imagine for every one of us to be indulgent towards the stupidity of other people?
“That poor stupidity of which we hear so much,” exclaimed George Sand. “I do not dislike it, as I look on it with maternal eyes.” The human race is absurd, undoubtedly, but we must own that we contribute ourselves to this absurdity.
There is something morbid in Flaubert’s case, and with equal clearness of vision George Sand points out to him the cause of it and the remedy. The morbidness is caused in the first place by his loneliness, and by the fact that he has severed all bonds which united him to the rest of the universe. Woe be to those who are alone! The remedy is the next consideration. Is there not, somewhere in the world, a woman whom he could love and who would make him suffer? Is there not a child somewhere whose father he could imagine himself to be, and to whom he could devote himself? Such is the law of life. Existence is intolerable to us as long as we only ask for our own personal satisfaction, but it becomes dear to us from the day when we make a present of it to another human being.
There was the same antagonism in their literary opinions. Flaubert was an artist, the theorist of the doctrine of art for art, such as Theophile Gautier, the Goncourt brothers and the Parnassians comprehended it, at about the same epoch. It is singularly interesting to hear him formulate each article of this doctrine, and to hear George Sand’s fervent protestations in reply. Flaubert considers that an author should not put himself into his work, that he should not write his books with his heart, and George Sand answers:
“I do not understand at all, then. Oh no, it is all incomprehensible to me.”
With what was an author to write his books, if not with his own sentiments and emotions? Was he to write them with the hearts of other people? Flaubert maintained that an author should only write for about twenty persons, unless he simply wrote for himself, “like a _bourgeois_ turning his serviette-rings round in his attic.” George Sand was of opinion that an author should write “for all those who can profit by good reading.” Flaubert confesses that if attention be paid to the old distinction between matter and form, he should give the greater importance to form, in which he had a religious belief. He considered that in the correctness of the putting together, in the rarity of the elements, the polish of the surface and the perfect harmony of the whole there was an intrinsic virtue, a kind of divine force. In conclusion, he adds:
“I endeavour to think well always, _in order to_ write well, but I do not conceal the fact that my object is to write well.”
This, then, was the secret of that working up of the style, until it became a mania with him and developed into a torture. We all know of the days of anguish which Flaubert spent in searching for a word that escaped him, and the weeks that he devoted to rounding off one of his periods. He would never write these down until he had said them to himself, or, as he put it himself, until “they had gone through his jaw.” He would not allow two complements in the same phrase, and we are told that he was ill after reading in one of his own books the following words: “Une couronne _de_ fleurs _d_’oranger.”
“You do not know what it is,” he wrote, “to spend a whole day holding one’s head and squeezing one’s brains to find a word. Ideas flow with you freely and continually, like a stream. With me they come like trickling water, and it is only by a huge work of art that I can get a waterfall. Ah, I have had some experience of the terrible torture of style!” No, George Sand certainly had no experience of this kind, and she could not even conceive of such torture. It amazed her to hear of such painful labour, for, personally, she let the wind play on her “old harp” just as it listed.
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.
She did not accept the idea of any revealed religion, and there was one of these revealed religions that she execrated. This was the Catholic religion. Her correspondence on this subject during the period of the Second Empire is most significant. She was a personal enemy of the Church, and spoke of the Jesuits as a subscriber to the _Siecle_ might do to-day. She feared the dagger of the Jesuits for Napoleon III, but at the same time she hoped there might be a frustrated attempt at murder, so that his eyes might be opened. The great danger of modern times, according to her, was the development of the clerical spirit. She was not an advocate for liberty of education either. “The priestly spirit has been encouraged,” she wrote.[53] “France is overrun with convents, and wretched friars have been allowed to take possession of education.” She considered that wherever the Church was mistress, it left its marks, which were unmistakable: stupidity and brutishness. She gave Brittany as an example.
[53] _Correspondance:_ To Barbes, May 12, 1867.
“There is nothing left,” she writes, “when the priest and Catholic vandalism have passed by, destroying the monuments of the old world and leaving their lice for the future.”[54]
[54] _Ibid.:_ To Flaubert, September 21, 1860.
It is no use attempting to ignore the fact. This is anti-clericalism in all its violence. Is it not curious that this passion, when once it takes possession of even the most distinguished minds, causes them to lose all sentiment of measure, of propriety and of dignity.
_Mademoiselle La Quintinie_ is the result of a fit of anti-clerical mania. George Sand gives, in this novel, the counterpart of _Sibylle_. Emile Lemontier, a free-thinker, is in love with the daughter of General La Quintinie. Emile is troubled in his mind because, as his _fiancee_ is a Catholic, he knows she will have to have a confessor. The idea is intolerable to him, as, like Monsieur Homais, he considers that a husband could not endure the idea of his wife having private conversations with one of those individuals. Mademoiselle La Quintinie’s confessor is a certain Moreali, a near relative of Eugene Sue’s Rodin. The whole novel turns on the struggle between Emile and Moreali, which ends in the final discomfiture of Moreali. Mademoiselle La Quintinie is to marry Emile, who will teach her to be a free-thinker. Emile is proud of his work of drawing a soul away from Christian communion. He considers that the light of reason is always sufficient for illuminating the path in a woman’s life. He thinks that her natural rectitude will prove sufficient for making a good woman of her. I do not wish to call this into question, but even if she should not err, is it not possible that she may suffer? This free-thinker imagines that it is possible to tear belief from a heart without rending it and causing an incurable wound. Oh, what a poor psychologist! He forgets that beliefis the summing up and the continuation of the belief of a whole series of generations. He does not hear the distant murmur of the prayers of by-gone years. It is in vain to endeavour to stifle those prayers; they will be heard for ever within the crushed and desolate soul.
_Mademoiselle La Quintinie_ is a work of hatred. George Sand was not successful with it. She had no vocation for writing such books, and she was not accustomed to writing them. It is a novel full of tiresome dissertations, and it is extremely dull.
From that date, though, George Sand experienced the joy of a certain popularity. At theatrical performances and at funerals the students manifested in her honour. It was the same for Sainte-Beuve, but this does not seem to have made either of them any greater.
We will pass over all this, and turn to something that we can admire. The robust and triumphant old age of George Sand was admirable. Nearly every year she went to some fresh place in France to find a setting for her stories. She had to earn her living to the very last, and was doomed to write novels for ever. “I shall be turning my wheel when I die,” she used to say, and, after all, this is the proper ending for a literary worker.
In 1870 and 1871, she suffered all the anguish of the “Terrible Year.” When once the nightmare was over, she set to work once more like a true daughter of courageous France, unwilling to give in. She was as hardy as iron as she grew old. “I walk to the river,” she wrote in 1872, “and bathe in the cold water, warm as I am. . . . I am of the same nature as the grass in the field. Sunshine and water are all I need.”
For a woman of sixty-eight to be able to bathe every day in the cold water of the Indre is a great deal. In May, 1876, she was not well, and had to stay in bed. She was ill for ten days, and died without suffering much. She is buried at Nohant, according to her wishes, so that her last sleep is in her beloved Berry.
In conclusion, we would say just a few words about George Sand’s genius, and the place that she takes in the history of the French novel.
On comparing George Sand with the novelists of her time, what strikes us most is how different she was from them. She is neither like Balzac, Stendhal, nor Merimee, nor any story-teller of our thoughtful, clever and refined epoch. She reminds us more of the “old novelists,” of those who told stories of chivalrous deeds and of old legends, or, to go still further back, she reminds us of the _aedes_ of old Greece. In the early days of a nation there were always men who went to the crowd and charmed them with the stories they told in a wordy way. They scarcely knew whether they invented these stories as they told them, or whether they had heard them somewhere. They could not tell either which was fiction and which reality, for all reality seemed wonderful to them. All the people about whom they told were great, all objects were good and everything beautiful. They mingled nursery-tales with myths that were quite sensible, and the history of nations with children’s stories. They were called poets.
George Sand did not employ a versified form for her stories, but she belonged to the family of these poets. She was a poet herself who had lost her way and come into our century of prose, and she continued her singing.
Like these early poets, she was primitive. Like them, she obeyed a god within her. All her talent was instinctive, and she had all the ease of instinctive talent. When Flaubert complained to George Sand of the “tortures” that style cost him, she endeavoured to admire him.
“When I see the difficulty that my old friend has in writing his novel, I am discouraged about my own case, and I say to myself that I am writing poor sort of literature.”
This was merely her charity, for she never understood that there could be any effort in writing. Consequently she could not understand that it should cause suffering. For her, writing was a pleasure, as it was the satisfaction of a need. As her works were no effort to her, they left no trace in her memory. She had not intended to write them, and, when once written, she forgot them.
“_Consuelo and La Comtesse de Rudolstadt_, what are these books?” she asks. “Did I write them? I do not remember a single word of them.”
Her novels were like fruit, which, when ripe, fell away from her. George Sand always returned to the celebration of certain great themes which are the eternal subjects of all poetry, subjects such as love and nature, and sentiments like enthusiasm and pity. The very language completes the illusion. The choice of words was often far from perfect, as George Sand’s vocabulary was often uncertain, and her expression lacked precision and relief. But she had the gift of imagery, and her images were always delightfully fresh. She never lost that rare faculty which she possessed of being surprised at things, so that she looked at everything with youthful eyes. There is a certain movement which carries the reader on, and a rhythm that is soothing. She develops the French phrase slowly perhaps, but without any confusion. Her language is like those rivers which flow along full and limpid, between flowery banks and oases of verdure, rivers by the side of which the traveller loves to linger and to lose himself in dreams.
The share which belongs to George Sand in the history of the French novel is that of having impregnated the novel with the poetry in her own soul. She gave to the novel a breadth and a range which it had never hitherto had. She celebrated the hymn of Nature, of love and of goodness in it. She revealed to us the country and the peasants of France. She gave satisfaction to the romantic tendency which is in every one of us, to a more or less degree.
All this is more even than is needed to ensure her fame. She denied ever having written for posterity, and she predicted that in fifty years she would be forgotten. It may be that there has been for her, as there is for every illustrious author who dies, a time of test and a period of neglect. The triumph of naturalism, by influencing taste for a time, may have stopped our reading George Sand. At present we are just as tired of documentary literature as we are disgusted with brutal literature. We are gradually coming back to a better comprehension of what there is of “truth” in George Sand’s conception of the novel. This may be summed up in a few words– to charm, to touch and to console. Those of us who know something of life may perhaps wonder whether to console may not be the final aim of literature. George Sand’s literary ideal may be read in the following words, which she wrote to Flaubert:
“You make the people who read your books still sadder than they were before. I want to make them less unhappy.” She tried to do this, and she often succeeded in her attempt. What greater praise can we give to her than that? And how can we help adding a little gratitude and affection to our admiration for the woman who was the good fairy of the contemporary novel?
THE END