orm
of misery, much more cruel than the former one, for it filled the heart
with a ferment of hatred, a passion for destruction.

It was Pierre Leroux, also, who led George Sand on to Socialism. She had
been on the way to it by herself. For a long time she had been raising
an altar in her heart to that entity called the People, and she had been
adorning it with all the virtues. The future belonged to the people, the
whole of the future, and first of all that of literature.

Poetry was getting a little worn out, but to restore its freshness there
were the poets of the people. Charles Poncy, of Toulon, a bricklayer,
published a volume of poetry, in 1842, entitled _Marines_. George Sand
adopted him. He was the demonstration of her theory, the example which
illustrated her dream. She congratulated him and encouraged him. "You
are a great poet," she said to him, and she thereupon speaks of him to
all her friends. "Have you read Baruch?" she asks them. "Have you read
Poncy, a poet bricklayer of twenty years of age?" She tells every one
about his book, dwells on its beauties, and asks people to speak of it.

As a friend of George Sand, I have examined the poems by Poncy of which
she specially speaks. The first one is entitled _Meditation sur les
toits_. The poet has been obliged to stay on the roof to complete his
work, and while there he meditates.

_"Le travail me retient bien tard sur ces toitures_. . . ."

He then begins to wonder what he would see if, like Asmodee in the
_Diable boiteux_, he could have the roof taken off, so that the various
rooms could be exposed to view. Alas! he would not always find the
concord of the Golden Age.

_Que de fois contemolant cet amas de maisons
Quetreignent nos remparts couronnes de gazons,
Et ces faubourgs naissants que la ville trop pleine
Pour ses enfants nouveaux eleve dans la plaine.
Immobiles troufieaux ou notre clocher gris
Semble un patre au milieu de ses blanches brebis,
Jai pense que, malgre notre angoisse et nos peines,
Sous ces toits paternels il existait des haines,
Et que des murs plus forts que ces murs mitoyens
Separent ici-bas les coeurs des citoyens._

This was an appeal to concord, and all brothers of humanity were invited
to rally to the watchword.

The intention was no doubt very good. Then, too, _murs mitoyens_ was
an extremely rich and unexpected rhyme for _citoyens_. This was worthy
indeed of a man of th