the beginning of the investment of the city by
the Prussian troops, and he witnessed the whole of the siege of Paris,
and endured its privations with the people. He also witnessed the
terrible deeds of the Communists, but--sympathizing, as he always had
done, with the poor and the downtrodden--only to condemn them with the
utmost vehemence of his nature. Still, he desired their pardon when all
was over, feeling for the ignorance which had caused their misguided
zeal. About this time his son Charles died very suddenly, which was a
great blow to him, and he began to feel that all things were falling
away from him.

The death of his youngest son, Francois, in 1873, removed the last prop
of his age, and only two young grandchildren remained of all who had
composed his beloved family. The mother of these children, and her
second husband, however, were very much loved by the old poet, and
watched very tenderly over his declining years. The children were a
source of constant interest and pleasure to him, and have become well
known to the world through his work upon "The Art of being a
Grandfather." Of the honors which were showered upon him from every side
in his closing years, it is useless to write. All are familiar with
them, as with the magnificent demonstrations after his death. It is safe
to say that few men have been so honored while living, or held in such
sacred remembrance after death.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

GEORGE SAND.

Upon no woman of the century has the public fixed its eye with a more
eager interest and curiosity than upon Aurore Dudevant, known to the
world as George Sand.

The utmost heights of panegyric and adulation have been scaled in
describing her and her work; also the lowest depths of denunciation and
of calumny. Her admirers describe her as being not only the greatest
genius of her time, which perhaps few will dispute, but as being the
most magnificent and adorable of women as well; while her detractors can
find no language in which to express the depths of their loathing both
for her life and some of her works. As usual, a just estimate of such a
character as this will be found between the two extremes. She was
neither a monster nor a saint, but a woman of magnificent qualities and
of defects upon a corresponding scale. As with her life, so with her
works. Some are undoubtedly pernicious to an alarming degree, while the
influence of others cannot by any stretch of imaginatio