UDE, SOCIETY AND SOCIALISM

CHAPTER VII.

CONSUELO--HOME LIFE AT NOHANT 149

CHAPTER VIII.

NOVELIST AND POLITICIAN 170

CHAPTER IX.

PASTORAL TALES

CHAPTER X.

PLAYS AND LATER NOVELS

CHAPTER XI.

ARTIST AND MORALIST

CHAPTER XII.

LATER YEARS

GEORGE SAND.

CHAPTER I.

EARLY YEARS.

In naming George Sand we name something more exceptional than even a
great genius. Her rise to eminence in the literature of her century, is,
if not without a parallel, yet absolutely without a precedent, in the
annals of women of modern times.

The origin of much that is distinctive in the story of her life may be
traced in the curious story of her lineage.

George Sand was of mixed national descent, and in her veins ran the
blood of heroes and of kings. The noble and the artist, the
_bourgeoisie_ and the people, all had their representatives among their
immediate ancestors. Her grandmother, the guardian of her girlhood, was
the child of Maurice, Marshal Saxe, that favorite figure in history and
romance, himself son of the famous Augustus II., Elector of Saxony, and
King of Poland, and the Swedish Countess Aurora von Koenigsmark. The
Marshal's daughter Aurore, though like her father of illegitimate
birth--her mother, who was connected with the stage, passed by her
professional name of Mlle. Verrieres--obtained after the Marshal's death
the acknowledgment and protection of his relatives in high places,
notably of his niece, the Dauphin of France, grand-daughter of Augustus
of Poland, and mother of the three kings--Louis XVI., Louis XVIII., and
Charles X.

Carefully educated at St. Cyr, Mlle. de Saxe was married, when little
more than a child, to the Count de Horn, who was also of partly royal
but irregular origin. He very shortly afterward fell in a duel. His
widow, at thirty, became the wife of M. Dupin de Franceuil, an old
gentleman of good provincial family and some fortune. Maurice, their
only child, was the father of George Sand.

Madame Dupin (the suffix de Franceuil was afterwards dropped by her
husband) appears to have inherited none of the adventurous and erratic
tendencies of her progenitors. Aristocratic in her sympathies,
philosophic in her intellect, and strictly decorous in her conduct,
throughout the whole of her long and checkered life she was regarded
with respect. Left a widow again, ten years after her second marriage,
she concentrated her hopes and affections on her handso