needed counsel, she was obliged to go elsewhere for it, and it was from
another man that guidance and encouragement came. A husband should be
the head and, I do not hesitate to say, the master. Life is a ceaseless
struggle, and the man who has taken upon himself the task of defending a
family from all the dangers which threaten its dissolution, from all the
enemies which prowl around it, can only succeed in his task of protector
if he be invested with just authority. Aurore had been treated brutally:
that is not the same thing as being dominated. The sensation which never
left her was that of an immense moral solitude. She could no longer
dream in the Nohant avenues, for the old trees had been lopped, and the
mystery chased away. She shut herself up in her grandmother's little
boudoir, adjoining her children's room, so that she could hear them
breathing, and whilst Casimir and Hippolyte were getting abominably
intoxicated, she sat there thinking things over, and gradually becoming
so irritated that she felt the rebellion within her gathering force. The
matrimonial bond was a heavy yoke to her. A Christian wife would
have submitted to it and accepted it, but the Christianity of Baronne
Dudevant was nothing but religiosity. The trials of life show up the
insufficiency of religious sentiment which is not accompanied by faith.
Marriage, without love, friendship, confidence and respect, was for
Aurore merely a prison. She endeavoured to escape from it, and when she
succeeded she uttered a sigh of relief at her deliverance.

Such, then, is the chapter of marriage in Baronne Dudevant's psychology.
It is a fine example of failure. The woman who had married badly now
remained an individual, instead of harmonizing and blending in a general
whole. This ill-assorted union merely accentuated and strengthened
George Sand's individualism.

Aurore Dudevant arrived in Paris the first week of the year 1831. The