Mauprat

by George Sand

  Arthur, who had sacrificed a year of his life to us, could not bring himself to abjure the love of his country, and his desire to contribute to its progress by offering it the fruits of his learning and the results of his investigations; he returned to Philadelphia, where I paid him a visit after I was left a widower.

  I will not describe my years of happiness with my noble wife; such years beggar description. One could not resign one’s self to living after losing them, if one did not make strenuous efforts to avoid recalling them too often. She gave me six children; four of these are still alive, and all honourably settled in life. I have good hope that they will complete the work of effacing the deplorable memory of their ancestors. I have lived for them, in obedience to Edmée’s dying command. You must forgive me for not speaking further of this loss, which I suffered only ten years ago. I feel it now as keenly as on the first day, and I do not seek to find consolation for it, but to make myself worthy of rejoining the holy comrade of my life in a better world after I have completed my period of probation in this. She was the only woman I ever loved; never did any other win a glance from me or know the pressure of my hand. Such is my nature; what I love I love eternally, in the past, in the present, in the future.

  The storms of the Revolution did not destroy our existence, nor did the passions it aroused disturb the harmony of our private life. We gladly gave up a large part of our property to the Republic, looking upon it, indeed, as a just sacrifice. The abbé, terrified by the bloodshed, occasionally abjured his political faith, when the necessities of the hour were too much for the strength of his soul. He was the Girondin of the family.

  With no less sensibility, Edmée had greater courage; a woman and compassionate, she sympathized profoundly with the sufferings of all classes. She bewailed the misfortune of her age; but she never failed to appreciate the greatness of its holy fanaticism. She remained faithful to her ideas of absolute equality. At a time when the acts of the Mountain were irritating the abbé, and driving him to despair, she generously sacrificed her own patriotic enthusiasm; and her delicacy would never let her mention in his presence certain names that made him shudder, names for which she herself had a sort of passionate veneration, the like of which I have never seen in any woman.

  As for myself, I can truthfully say that it was she who educated me; during the whole course of my life I had the profoundest respect for her judgment and rectitude. When, in my enthusiasm, I was filled with a longing to play a part as a leader of the people, she held me back by showing how my name would destroy any influence I might have; since they would distrust me, and imagine my aim was to use them as an instrument for recovering my rank. When the enemy was at the gates of France, she sent me to serve as a volunteer; when the Republic was overthrown, and a military career came to be merely a means of gratifying ambition, she recalled me, and said:

  “You must never leave me again.”

  Patience played a great part in the Revolution. He was unanimously chosen as judge of his district. His integrity, his impartiality between castle and cottage, his firmness and wisdom will never be forgotten in Varenne.

  During the war I was instrumental in saving M. de la Marche’s life, and helping him to escape to a foreign country.

  Such, I believe, said old Mauprat, are all the events of my life in which Edmée played a part. The rest of it is not worth the telling. If there is anything helpful in my story, try to profit by it, young fellows. Hope to be blessed with a frank counsellor, a severe friend; and love not the man who flatters, but the man who reproves. Do not believe too much in phrenology; for I have the murderer’s bump largely developed, and, as Edmée used to say with grim humour, “killing comes natural” to our family. Do not believe in fate, or, at least, never advise any one to tamely submit to it. Such is the moral of my story.

  After this old Bernard gave us a good supper, and continued conversing with us for the rest of the evening without showing any signs of discomposure or fatigue. As we begged him to develop what he called the moral of his story a little further, he proceeded to a few general considerations which impressed me with their soundness and good sense.

  I spoke of phrenology, he said, not with the object of criticising a system which has its good side, in so far as it tends to complete the series of physiological observations that aim at increasing our knowledge of man; I used the word phrenology because the only fatality that we believe in nowadays is that created by our own instincts. I do not believe that phrenology is more fatalistic than any other system of this kind; and Lavater, who was also accused of fatalism in his time, was the most Christian man the Gospel has ever formed.

  Do not believe in any absolute and inevitable fate; and yet acknowledge, in a measure, that we are moulded by instincts, our faculties, the impressions of our infancy, the surroundings of our earliest childhood—in short, by all that outside world which has presided over the development of our soul. Admit that we are not always absolutely free to choose between good and evil, if you would be indulgent towards the guilty—that is to say, just even as Heaven is just; for there is infinite mercy in God’s judgments; otherwise His justice would be imperfect.

  What I am saying now is not very orthodox, but. take my word for it, it is Christian, because it is true. Man is not born wicked; neither is he born good, as is maintained by Jean Jacques Rousseau, my beloved Edmée’s old master. Man is born with more or less of passions, with more or less power to satisfy them, with more or less capacity for turning them to a good or bad account in society. But education can and must find a remedy for everything; that is the great problem to be solved, to discover the education best suited to each individual. If it seems necessary that education should be general and in common, does it follow that it ought to be the same for all? I quite believe that if I had been sent to school when I was ten, I should have become a civilized being earlier; but would any one have thought of correcting my violent passions, and of teaching me how to conquer them as Edmée did? I doubt it. Every man needs to be loved before he can be worth anything; but each in a different way; one with never-failing indulgence, another with unflinching severity. Meanwhile, until some one solves the problem of making education common to all, and yet appropriate to each, try to improve one another.

  Do you ask me how? My answer will be brief: by loving one another truly. It is in this way—for the manners of a people mould their laws—that you will succeed in suppressing the most odious and impious of all laws, the lex talionis, capital punishment, which is nothing else than the consecration of the principle of fatality, seeing that it supposes the culprit incorrigible and Heaven implacable.

  GEORGE SAND:CHRONOLOGY

  1804

  July 1 Birth at 15 Rue de la Meslay, Paris. Daughter of Maurice Dupin and Sophie Delaborde. Christened Amandine Aurore Lucie Dupin.

  Family moves to Rue de la Grange-Batelière, Paris.

  1808

  Aurore travels to Spain with her mother. They join her father at Palace de Goday in Madrid, where he is serving in Napoleon’s army under General Murat.

  1809

  The family goes to Nohant in France, the home of Maurice Dupin’s mother, born Marie-Aurore de Saxe, Comtesse de Horn, the daughter of the illegitimate son of King Frederic-Augustus II of Poland. Death of Maurice Dupin in a fall from a horse.

  1810

  Sophie Dupin gives custody of Aurore to Madame Dupin in return for a pension.

  1810–1814

  Winters in Paris at Rue Neuve-des-Mathurins with her grandmother and visits from Sophie. Summers at Nohant.

  1817–1820

  Educated at the English Convent des Augustines in Paris.

  1820

  Returns to Nohant. Studies with her father’s tutor Deschartres.

  1821

  Death of Madame Dupin. Aurore inherits some money, a house in Paris and the house at Nohant. Moves in with her mother at 80 Rue St.-Lazare, Paris.

  1822

  Meets Casimir Dudevant on a visit to th
e Duplessis family. September 10 Marries Dudevant, son of Baron Dudevant. They move to Nohant.

  1823

  June 30 Maurice is born at Hotel de Florence, 56 Rue Neuve-des-Mathurins, Paris.

  1824

  Spring and summer at the Duplessis’ at Plessis-Picard near Melun; autumn at a Parisian suburb, Ormesson; winter in an apartment at Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honore.

  1825

  Spring at Nohant. Aurore is ill in the summer. Dudevants travel to his family home in Gascony. She meets Aurélian de Sèze, and recovers her health.

  November 5 Writes long confession to Casimir about de Seze. She gives him up.

  Winter in Gascony.

  1826

  Moves to Nohant. Casimir travels, Aurore manages the estate and writes to de Sèze.

  1827

  Illness again. The water curé at Clermont-Ferraud, where she writes Voyage En Auvergne, autobiographical sketch.

  1827–1829

  Winter at Le Châtre. Summer at Nohant.

  1828

  September 13 Birth of Solange.

  1830

  Visit to Bordeaux to Aurélian de Sèze. Their correspondence ceases. She writes a novel Aimée.

  December Discovery of Casimir’s will, filled with antipathy to her.

  1831

  January 4 Moves to Paris to 31 Rue de Seine.

  Joins staff of Le Figaro. Writes three short stories: La Molinara (in Figaro); La Prima Donna (in Revue de Paris) and La Fille d’Albano (in La Mode).

  April Returns to Nohant for three months. Writes Indiana.

  July Moves to 25 Quai Saint-Michel, Paris.

  December Publishes Rose Et Blanche in collaboration with Jules Sandeau. Book is signed Jules Sand.

  1832

  Travel between Paris and Nohant.

  April Solange is brought to Paris.

  November Move to 19 Quai Malaquais with Solange.

  Indiana and Valentine published. Maurice sent by Casimir to Henry IV Military Academy in Paris.

  1833

  January Break with Sandeau.

  June Meets Alfred de Musset. Publishes Lelia.

  September Fontainebleau with de Musset.

  December 12 To Italy with de Musset.

  1834

  January 19 The Hotel Danieli in Venice. Musset attempts a break with Aurore, becomes ill. His physician is Pietro Pagello.

  March 29 de Musset returns to Paris. Aurore remains with Pagello.

  Writes André, Mattea, Jacques, Leone Leoni and the first Lettres d’Un Voyageur.

  August 15 Return to Paris with Pagello.

  August 24 de Musset goes to Baden.

  August 29 Aurore to Nohant.

  October Return to Paris. Musset return from Baden. Pagello returns to Venice.

  November 25 Begins journal to de Musset.

  December Return to Nohant.

  1835

  January Return to Paris.

  March 6 Final break with Musset.

  Meets Michel of Bourges, her lawyer and political mentor. Writes Simon.

  Autumn Return to Nohant for Maurice’s holiday.

  October 19 Casimir threatens her physically. Begins suit for legal separation.

  December 1 Judgment in her favor won by default.

  1836

  February 16 She wins second judgment. Casimir bring suit.

  May 10, 11 Another verdict in her favor from civil court of La Châtre. Casimir appeals to a higher court.

  July 25, 26 Trial in royal court of Bourges. Jury divided. Out of court settlement. Her fortune is divided with Casimir.

  August To Switzerland with Maurice and Solange and Liszt and d’Agoult.

  Autumn Hotel de la France, 15 Rue Lafitte, Paris with Liszt and d’Agoult. Meets Chopin.

  1837

  January Return to Nohant. Publishes Mauprat in spring. Writes Les Maîtres Mosaïstes. Liszt and d’Agoult visit Nohant. Fatal illness of Sophie in Paris. Visit to Fontainebleau, writes La Dernière Aldini. Trip to Gascony to recover Solange, who has been kidnapped by Casimir.

  1838

  Writes L’Orco and L’Uscoque, two Venetian novels. May To Paris. Romance with Chopin.

  November Trip to Majorca with children and Chopin. Writes Spiridion.

  1839

  February Leaves Majorca for three months in Marseilles. Then to Nohant. Publishes Un Hiver A Majorque, Pauline and Gabriel-Gabrielle.

  October Occupies adjoining apartments with Chopin until spring of 1841 at 16 Rue Pigalle, Paris, in winter. Summer is spent at Nohant with Chopin as guest.

  1840

  Writes Compagnon Du Tour De France and Horace. Influenced by Pierre Leroux.

  1841

  Moves from Rue Pigalle to 5 and 9 Rue St.-Lazare, Square d’Orléans, with Chopin.

  1842

  Consuelo published.

  1843

  La Comtesse De Rudolstadt published, a sequel to Consuelo.

  1844

  Jeanne published, a foreshadowing of pastoral novels.

  1845

  Tévérino, Péché de M. Antoine and Le Meunier D’Angibault, the latter two socialist novels.

  1846

  La Mare Au Diable published and Lucrezia Floriani. Solange married to Auguste-Jean Clésinger. Estrangement from Chopin.

  1847

  François Le Champi published. 1848

  Writes government circulars, contributes to Bulletins de la Republique and publishes her own newspaper La Cause du Peuple, all for the Second Republic. Death of Solange’s son. La Petite Fadette published.

  1849

  Her play based on François Le Champi performed at the Odéon. First of a series of successful plays.

  1850

  Château des Désertes published in the Revue Des Deux Mondes.

  1851

  Republic falls. She uses her influence to save her friends from political reprisals. Plays Claudie and Le Mariage De Victorine presented.

  1852

  Return to Nohant.

  1853

  Published Les Maîtres Sonneurs. Play Le Pressoir presented.

  1855

  Four volume autobiography Histoire De Ma Vie published, carries her life to Revolution of 1848.

  January 13 Death of Solange’s daughter Jeanne. Visit to Italy with Maurice and Alexandre Manceau.

  1856

  Does French adaptation of As You Like It.

  1858

  Holidays at Gargilesse on River Creuse at cottage given her by Alexander Manceau.

  1859

  Writes Elle Et Lui. Publishes Jean De La Roche and L’Homme De Neige.

  1860

  Writes La Ville Noire and Marquis De Villemer. November Contracts typhoid fever.

  1862

  May 16 Marriage of Maurice Sand and Caroline Calametta.

  1863

  July 14 Marc-Antoine Sand born, son of Maurice and Caroline.

  Mademoiselle La Quintinie published, anti-clerical novel. Begins friendship with Flaubert.

  1864

  Play Le Marquis De Villemer presented. Death of Marc-Antoine Sand. Moves from 3 Rue Racine near the Odéon to 97 Rue des Feuillantines. Exchanges Gargilesse for a house at Palaiseau with Manceau.

  1865

  Death of Manceau.

  1866

  Visits Flaubert at Croisset, dedicates Le Dernier Amour to him. Birth of Aurore Sand.

  1867

  Return to Nohant to live with Maurice and Caroline. Writes two novels a year.

  1868

  Birth of Gabrielle Sand.

  1870

  The play L’Autre with Sarah Bernhardt, presented at the Theatre Français.

  1870–1871

  Franco-German War. Removal to Boussac because of a smallpox epidemic at Nohant.

  1876

  June 8 Dies.

 

 

  ive.