e I used to dream my dreams," she
wrote, "I was there at the age of fifteen, when I was very foolish, and
at the age of seventeen, when I was dreamy and disturbed in my mind. It
has lost its charm for me now."(11)

(11) _Ibid_.

She loved it again later on, certainly, but just at this time she was
over-excited with the joy of her newly-found liberty. It was that really
which made her so joyful and which intoxicated her. "I do not want
society, excitement, theatres, or dress; what I want is freedom,"
she wrote to her mother. In another letter she says: "I am absolutely
independent. I go to La Chatre, to Rome. I start out at ten o'clock or
at midnight. I please myself entirely in all this."(12)

(12) _Correspondance_: To her mother, May 31, 1831.

She was free, and she fancied she was happy. Her happiness at that epoch
meant Jules Sandeau.

In a letter, written in the humoristic style in which she delighted, she
gives us portraits of some of her comrades of that time. She tells us of
Duvernet, of Alphonse Fleury, surnamed "the Gaulois," and of Sandeau.

"Oh, fair-haired Charles!" she writes, "young man of melancholy
thoughts, with a character as gloomy as a stormy day. . . . And you,
gigantic Fleury, with your immense hands and your alarming beard. . . .
And you, dear Sandeau, agreeable and light, like the humming bird of
fragrant savannahs!"(13)

(13) _Correspondance_: December 1, 1830.

The "dear Sandeau, agreeable and light, like the humming bird of
fragrant savannahs," was to be Baronne Dudevant's Latin Quarter
_liaison_. Her biographers usually pass over this _liaison_ quickly,
as information about it was not forthcoming. Important documents exist,
though, in the form of fifty letters written by George Sand to Dr. Emile
Regnault, then a medical student and the intimate friend and confidant
of Jules Sandeau, who kept nothing back from him. His son, Dr. Paul
Regnault, has kindly allowed me to see this correspondence and to
reproduce some fragments of it. It is extremely curious, by turn lyrical
and playful, full of effusions, ideas, plans of work, impressions of
nature, and confidences about her love affairs. Taken altogether it
reflects, as nearly as possible, the state of the young woman's mind at
this time.

The first letter is dated April, 1831. George Sand had left Paris for
Nohant, and is anxiously wondering how her poor Jules has passed this
wretched day, and how he will go back to th