Aurore did not appear
to have been very indignant with her husband at the time. Her grievances
were quite of another kind, less tangible and much more deeply felt.

From Plessis they went to Ormesson. We do not know what took place
there, but evidently something which made a deep impression morally,
something very serious. A few years later, referring to this stay at
Ormesson, George Sand wrote to one of her friends: "You pass by a wall
and come to a house. . . . If you are allowed to enter you will find a
delightful English garden, at the bottom of which is a spring of water
hidden under a kind of grotto. It is all very stiff and uninteresting,
but it is very lonely. I spent several months there, and it was there
that I lost my health, my confidence in the future, my gaiety and my
happiness. It was there that I felt, and very deeply too, my first
approach of trouble. . . ."(3)

(3) Extract from the unpublished letters of George Sand to
Dr. Emile Regnault.

They left Ormesson for Paris, and Paris for Nohant, and after that, by
way of trying to shake off the dulness that was oppressing them, they
had recourse to the classical mode of diversion--a voyage.

They set off on the 5th of July, 1825, for that famous expedition to the
Pyrenees, which was to be so important a landmark in Aurore Dudevant's
history. On crossing the Pyrenees, the scenery, so new to her--or
rather the memory of which had been lying dormant in her mind since
her childhood--filled her with wild enthusiasm. This intense emotion
contributed to develop within her that sense of the picturesque which,
later on, was to add so considerably to her talent as a writer. She had
hitherto been living in the country of plains, the Ile-de-France and
Berry. The contrast made her realize all the beauties of nature, and,
on her return, she probably understood her own familiar scenery, and
enjoyed it all the more. She had hitherto appreciated it vaguely.
Lamartine learnt to love the severe scenery of Milly better on returning
to it after the softness of Italy.

The Pyrenees served, too, for Baronne Dudevant as the setting for an
episode which was unique in her sentimental life.

In the _Histoire de ma vie_ there is an enigmatical page in which George
Sand has intentionally measured and veiled every expression. She speaks
of her moral solitude, which, at that time, was profound and absolute,
and she adds: "It would have been mortal to a tender mind and