ot take
a passionate interest in a discussion, the subject of which we cannot
properly judge. According to _Mussetistes_, it was thanks to George
Sand that the young poet was reduced to the despair which drove him to
debauchery. On the other hand, if we are to believe the _Sandistes_,
George Sand's one idea in interesting herself in Musset was to rescue
him from debauchery and convert him to a better life. I listen to all
such pious interpretations, but I prefer others for myself. I prefer
seeing the physiognomy of each of the two lovers standing out, as it
does, in powerful relief.

It is the custom, too, to pity these two unfortunates, who suffered so
much. At the risk of being taken for a very heartless man, I must own
that I do not pity them much. The two lovers wished for this suffering,
they wanted to experience the incomparable sensations of it, and they
got enjoyment and profit from this. They knew that they were working for
posterity. "Posterity will repeat our names like those of the immortal
lovers whose two names are only one at present, like Romeo and Juliette,
like Heloise and Abelard. People will never speak of one of us without
speaking of the other."

Juliette died at the age of fifteen and Heloise entered a convent. The
Venice lovers did not have to pay for their celebrity as dearly as
that. They wanted to give an example, to light a torch on the road of
humanity. "People shall know my story," writes George Sand. "I will
write it. . . . Those who follow along the path I trod will see where it
leads." _Et nunc erudimini_. Let us see for ourselves, and learn.

Their _liaison_ dates from August, 1833.

George Sand was twenty-nine years of age. It was the time of her
greatest charm. We must try to imagine the enchantress as she then
was. She was not tall and she was delightfully slender, with an
extraordinary-looking face of dark, warm colouring. Her thick hair was
very dark, and her eyes, her large eyes, haunted Musset for years after.

"_Ote-moi, memoire importune_,
_Ote-moi ces yeux que je vois toujours!_"

he writes.

And this woman, who could have been loved passionately, merely for her
charm as a woman, was a celebrity! She was a woman of genius! Alfred de
Musset was twenty-three years old. He was elegant, witty, a flirt, and
when he liked he could be irresistible. He had won his reputation by
that explosion of gaiety and imagination, _Les Contes d'Espagne el
d'Italle_. He had w