Time works wonders, for we have an indisputable proof that certain of his opinions soon became hers. This proof is the Republican catechi** contained in her letters to her son Maurice, who was then twelve years of age. He was at the Lycee Henri IV, in the same class as the princes of Orleans. It is interesting to read what his mother says to him concerning the father of his young school friends.
In a letter, written in December, 1835, she says: "It is certainly true that Louis-Philippe is the enemy of humanity. . . ." Nothing less than that! A little later, the enemy of humanity invites the young friends of his son Montpensier to his _chateau_ for the carnival holiday.
Maurice is allowed to accept the invitation, as he wishes to, but he is to avoid showing that gratitude which destroys independence.
"The entertainments that Montpensier offers you are favours,"writes this mother of the Gracchi quite gravely. If he is asked about his opinions, the child is to reply that he is rather too young to have opinions yet, but not too young to know what opinions he will have when he is free to have them. "You can reply,"says his mother, "that you are Republican by race and by nature."She then adds a few aphorisms. "Princes are our natural enemies,"she says; and then again: "However good-hearted the child of a king may be, he is destined to be a tyrant." All this is certainly a great commotion to make about her little son accepting a glass of fruit syrup and a few cakes at the house of a schoolfellow.
But George Sand was then under the domination of "Robespierre in person."Michel had brought George Sand over to republicanism. Without wishing to exaggerate the service he had rendered her by this, it appears to me that it certainly was one, if we look at it in one way.
Rightly or wrongly, George Sand had seen in Michel the man who devotes himself entirely to a cause of general interest.
She had learnt something in his school, and perhaps all the more thoroughly because it was in his school. She had learnt that love is in any case a selfish passion. She had learnt that another object must be given to the forces of sympathy of a generous heart, and that such an object may be the service of humanity, devotion to an idea.
This was a turn in the road, and led the writer on to leave the personal style for the impersonal style.
There was another service, too, which Michel had rendered to George Sand. He had pleaded for her in her petition for separation from her husband, and she had won her case.
Ever since George Sand had taken back her independence in 1831, her intercourse with Dudevant had not been disagreeable. She and her husband exchanged cordial letters. When he came to Paris, he made no attempt to stay with his wife, lest he should inconvenience her.
"I shall put up at Hippolyte's," he says in his letter to her.
"I do not want to inconvenience you in the least, nor to be inconvenienced myself, which is quite natural." He certainly was a most discreet husband. When she started for Italy, he begs her to take advantage of so good an opportunity for seeing such a beautiful country. He was also a husband ready to give good advice.
Later on, he invited Pagello to spend a little time at Nohant.
This was certainly the climax in this strange story.
During the months, though, that the husband and wife were together, again at Nohant, the scenes began once more. Dudevant's irritability was increased by the fact that he was always short of money, and that he was aware of his own deplorable shortcomings as a financial administrator. He had made speculations which had been disastrous.
He was very credulous, as so many suspicious people are, and he had been duped by a swindler in an affair of maritime armaments.
He had had all the more faith in this enterprise because a picture of the boat had been shown him on paper. He had spent ninety thousand francs of the hundred thousand he had had, and was now living on his wife's income. Something had to be decided upon.
George Sand paid his debts first, and the husband and wife then signed an agreement to the effect that their respective property should be separated. Dudevant regretted having signed this afterwards, and it was torn up after a violent scene which took place before witnesses in October, 1835. The pretext of this scene had been an order given to Maurice. In a series of letters, which have never hitherto been published, George Sand relates the various incidents of this affair. We give some of the more important passages.
The following letter is to her half-brother Hippolyte, who used to be Casimir's drinking companion.
_"To Hippolyte Chatiron._
"My friend, I am about to tell you some news which will reach you indirectly, and that you had better hear first from me.
Instead of carrying out our agreement pleasantly and loyally, Casimir is acting with the most insane animosity towards me.
Without my giving him any reason for such a thing, either by my conduct or my manner of treating him, he endeavoured to strike me.
He was prevented by five persons, one of whom was Dutheil, and he then fetched his gun to shoot me. As you can imagine, he was not allowed to do this.
"On account of such treatment and of his hatred, which amounts to madness, there is no safety for me in a house to which he always has the right to come. I have no guarantee, except his own will and pleasure, that he will keep our agreement, and I cannot remain at the mercy of a man who behaves so unreasonably and indelicately to me.
I have therefore decided to ask for a legal separation, and I shall no doubt obtain this. Casimir made this frightful scene the evening before leaving for Paris. On his return here, he found the house empty, and me staying at Dutheil's, by permission of the President of La Chatre. He also found a summons awaiting him on the mantelshelf.