adventures; of the two it was
fairly certainly the woman who came the less injured out of the furnace.
In "Elle et Lui" (1859) she gave long afterward her version of the
unhappy and undignified story. Her stay in Venice appears to have
impressed her genius more deeply than any other section of her numerous
foreign sojournings.

The writings of George Sand's second period, which extended from 1840
to 1848, are of a more general character, and are tinged with a generous
but not very enlightened ardour for social emancipation. Of these
novels, the earliest is "Le Compagnon du Tour de France" (1840), which
is scarcely a masterpiece. In the pursuit of foreign modes of thought,
and impelled by experiences of travel, George Sand rose to far greater
heights in "Jeanne" (1842), in "Consuelo" (1842-'43), and in "La
Comtesse de Rudolstade" (1844). All these books were composed in her
retirement at Nohant, where she definitely settled in 1839, after
having travelled for several months in Switzerland with Liszt and Mme.
d'Agoult, and having lived in the island of Majorca for some time
with the dying Chopin, an episode which is enshrined in her "Lucrezia
Floriani" (1847).

The Revolution of 1848 appeared to George Sand a realization of her
Utopian dreams, and plunged her thoughts into a painful disorder. She
soon, however, became dissatisfied with the result of her republican
theories, and she turned to two new sources of success, the country
story and the stage. Her delicious romance of "Francois le Champi"
(1850) attracted a new and enthusiastic audience to her, and her entire
emancipation from "problems" was marked in the pages of "La Petite
Fadette" and of "La Mare au Diable." To the same period belong "Les
Visions de la Nuit des les Campagnes," "Les Maitres Sonneurs," and
"Cosina." From 1850 to 1864 she gave a great deal of attention to
the theatre, and of her numerous pieces several enjoyed a wide and
considerable success, although it cannot be said that any of her plays
have possessed the vitality of her best novels. The most solid of the
former was her dramatization of her story, "Le Marquis de Villemer"
(1864), which was one of the latest, and next to it "Le Mariage de
Victorine" (1851), which was one of the earliest. Her successes on the
stage, such as they are, appear mainly due to collaboration with others.

In her latest period, from 1860 to 1876, George Sand returned to
her first lyrical manner, although with more re