.

After the famous trial, Liszt took him to call on George Sand in her
attic. This was in 1835. She gives us the following portrait of him:
"Monsieur de Lamennais is short, thin, and looks ill. He seems to have
only the feeblest breath of life in his body, but how his face beams.
His nose is too prominent for his small figure and for his narrow
face. If it were not for this nose out of all proportion, he would be
handsome. He was very easily entertained. A mere nothing made him laugh,
and how heartily he laughed."(32) It was the gaiety of the seminarist,
for Monsieur Feli always remained the _Abbe_ de Lamennais. George Sand
had a passionate admiration for him. She took his side against any one
who attacked him in her third _Lettre d'un voyageur_, in her _Lettre a
Lerminier_, and in her article on _Amshaspands et Darvands_. This is
the title of a book by Lamennais. The extraordinary names refer to the
spirits of good and evil in the mythology of Zoroaster. George Sand
proposed to pronounce them _Chenapans et Pedants_. Although she had
a horror of journalism, she agreed to write in Lamennais' paper, _Le
Monde._

(32) _Histoire de ma vie._

"He is so good and I like him so much," she writes, "that I would give
him as much of my blood and of my ink as he wants."(33) She did not have
to give him any of her blood, and he did not accept much of her ink. She
commenced publishing her celebrated _Lettres a Marcie_ in _Le Monde_. We
have already spoken of these letters, in order to show how George Sand
gradually attenuated the harshness of her early feminism.

(33) _Correspondance_: To Jules Janin, February 15, 1837.

These letters alarmed Lamennais, nevertheless, and she was obliged to
discontinue them. Feminism was the germ of their disagreement. Lamennais
said: "She does not forgive St. Paul for having said: 'Wives, obey your
husbands.'" She continued to acknowledge him as "one of our saints,"
but "the father of our new Church" gradually broke away from her and
her friends, and expressed his opinion about her with a severity and
harshness which are worthy of note.

Lamennais' letters to Baron de Vitrolles contain many allusions to
George Sand, and they are most uncomplimentary.

"I hear no more about Carlotta" (Madame Marliani), he writes, "nor about
George Sand and Madame d'Agoult. I know there has been a great deal of
quarrelling among them. They are as fond of each other as Lesage's two
_diables_, one of