suffered to drop.

To escape the influences of the literary revolution everywhere then
triumphant was of course impossible. To make them serve her individual
genius instead of enslaving her individuality was all Madame Dudevant
needed to learn. Her friend Balzac had done this for himself, suiting
his genius to the period without any sacrifice of originality. Although
not yet at the height of his fame he had produced many most successful
works, and Madame Dudevant, according to her own account, derived great
profit from the study of his method, although with no inclination to
follow in his direction. Yet he afterwards observed to her, "Our two
roads lead to the same goal."

_Rose et Blanche_, though little noticed by the public, brought a
publisher to the door, one Ernest Dupuy, with an order for another novel
by the same authors. _Indiana_ was ready-written, and came in response
to the demand. But as Sandeau had had no hand whatever in this
composition, the signature had of course to be varied. The publisher
wishing to connect the new novel with its predecessor it was decided to
alter the prefix only. She fixed on George, as representative of Berry,
the land of husbandmen; and George Sand thus became pseudonym of the
author of _Indiana_, a pseudonym whose origin imaginative critics have
sought far afield and some have discovered in her alleged sympathy with
Kotzebue's murderer, Karl Sand, and political assassination in general!
Its assumption was to inaugurate a new era in her life.

In the last days of April, 1832, appeared _Indiana_, by George Sand. "I
took," says Madame Dudevant, in her account of the transaction, "the
1,200 francs paid me by the publisher, which to me were a little
fortune, hoping he would see his money back again." She had recently
returned from one of her periodical visits to Nohant, accompanied this
time by her little girl, whom the progress already achieved enabled her
now to take into her charge, and was living very quietly and studiously
in her humble establishment on the Quai St. Michel, when she awoke to
find herself famous.

Her success, for which indeed there had been nothing to prepare
her--neither flattery of friends, nor vain-glorious ambition within
herself--was immediate and conclusive. Whatever differences of opinion
might exist about the book, critics agreed in recognizing there the
revelation of a new writer of extraordinary power. "One of those masters
who have been gifted wi