anguage of Jean-Jacques and the form of his deductions impressed
me as music might have done when heard in brilliant sunshine. I compared
him to Mozart, and I understood everything."

She understood him, for she recognized herself in him. She sympathized
with that predominance of feeling and imagination, that exaggeration of
sentiment, that preference for life according to Nature, that emotion
on beholding the various sights of the country, that distrust of people,
those effusions of religious sentimentality, those solitary reveries,
and that melancholy which made death seem desirable to him. All this
was to Aurore Dupin the gospel according to Rousseau. The whole of her
psychology is to be found here.

She was an exceptional being undoubtedly; but in order to be a genial
exception one must have within oneself, and then personify with great
intensity all the inspirations which, at a certain moment, are dispersed
in the atmosphere. Ever since the great agitation which had shaken
the moral world by Rousseau's preaching, there had been various vague
currents and a whole crowd of confused aspirations floating about.
It was this enormous wave that entered a feminine soul. Unconsciously
Aurore Dupin welcomed the new ideal, and it was this ideal which was
to operate within her. The question was, what would she do with it,
in presence of life with all its everyday and social realities. This
question is the object of our study. In the solution of it lies the
interest, the drama and the lesson of George Sand's destiny.

II

BARONNE DUDEVANT MARRIAGE AND FREEDOM--THE ARRIVAL IN PARIS--JULES
SANDEAU

We must now endeavour to discover what the future George Sand's
experiences of marriage were, and the result of these experiences on the
formation of her ideas.

"You will lose your best friend in me," were the last words of the
grandmother to her granddaughter on her death-bed. The old lady spoke
truly, and Aurore was very soon to prove this. By a clause in her will,
Madame Dupin de Francueil left the guardianship of Aurore to a cousin,
Rene de Villeneuve. It was scarcely likely, though, that Sophie-Victoire
should consent to her own rights being frustrated by this illegal
clause, particularly as this man belonged to the world of the "old
Countesses." She took her daughter with her to Paris. Unfortunately for
her, Aurore's eyes were now open, and she was cultured enough to have
been in entire sympathy with her exquisite g