eye which makes private life almost
a public concern, on the other hand, the spirit of township--a sort
of patriotism, which cannot indeed take the place of a love of
home--flourishes triumphantly.

Thus the town of Sancerre is exceedingly proud of having given birth to
one of the glories of modern medicine, Horace Bianchon, and to an
author of secondary rank, Etienne Lousteau, one of our most successful
journalists. The district included under the municipality of Sancerre,
distressed at finding itself practically ruled by seven or eight large
landowners, the wire-pullers of the elections, tried to shake off the
electoral yoke of a creed which had reduced it to a rotten borough.
This little conspiracy, plotted by a handful of men whose vanity was
provoked, failed through the jealousy which the elevation of one of
them, as the inevitable result, roused in the breasts of the others.
This result showed the radical defect of the scheme, and the remedy then
suggested was to rally round a champion at the next election, in the
person of one of the two men who so gloriously represented Sancerre in
Paris circles.

This idea was extraordinarily advanced for the provinces, for since 1830
the nomination of parochial dignitaries has increased so greatly that
real statesmen are becoming rare indeed in the lower chamber.

In point of fact, this plan, of very doubtful outcome, was hatched in
the brain of the Superior Woman of the borough, _dux femina fasti_, but
with a view to personal interest. This idea was so widely rooted in this
lady's past life, and so entirely comprehended her future prospects,
that it can scarcely be understood without some sketch of her antecedent
career.

Sancerre at that time could boast of a Superior Woman, long misprized
indeed, but now, about 1836, enjoying a pretty extensive local
reputation. This, too, was the period at which two Sancerrois in Paris
were attaining, each in his own line, to the highest degree of glory
for one, and of fashion for the other. Etienne Lousteau, a writer in
reviews, signed his name to contributions to a paper that had eight
thousand subscribers; and Bianchon, already chief physician to a
hospital, Officer of the Legion of Honor, and member of the Academy of
Sciences, had just been made a professor.

If it were not that the word would to many readers seem to imply a
degree of blame, it might be said that George Sand created _Sandism_, so
true is it that, morally spe