errors, and it certainly was an immense one. She had imagined that
happiness reigns in students' rooms. She had counted on the passing
fancy of a young man of good family, who had come to Paris to sow his
wild oats, for giving her fresh zest and for carving out for herself a
fresh future. It was a most commonplace adventure, utterly destitute of
psychology, and by its very bitterness it contrasted strangely with
her elevated sentimental romance with Aurelien de Seze. That was the
quintessence of refinement. All that is interesting about this second
adventure is the proof that it gives us of George Sand's wonderful
illusions, of the intensity of the mirage of which she was a dupe, and
of which we have so many instances in her life.

Baronne Dudevant had tried conjugal life, and she had now tried free
love. She had been unsuccessful in both instances. It is to these
adventures though, to these trials, errors and disappointments that
we owe the writer we are about to study. George Sand was now born to
literature.




III

A FEMINIST OF 1832

THE FIRST NOVELS AND THE QUESTION OF MARRIAGE


When Baronne Dudevant arrived in Paris, in 1831, her intention was to
earn her living with her pen. She never really counted seriously on the