were Chateaubriand, Victor Hugo and Dumas. They claimed this freedom
for Rene, for Hermann and for Antony, who were men. An example had been
given, and women meant to take advantage of it. Women now began their
revolution.

Under all these influences, and in the particular atmosphere now
created, the matrimonial mishap of Baronne Dudevant appeared to her
of considerable importance. She exaggerated and magnified it until it
became of social value. Taking this private mishap as her basis, she
puts into each of her heroines something of herself. This explains the
passionate tone of the whole story. And this passion could not fail to
be contagious for the women who read her stories, and who recognized in
the novelist's cause their own cause and the cause of all women.

This, then, is the novelty in George Sand's way of presenting feminist
grievances. She had not invented these grievances. They were already
contained in Madame de Stael's books, and I have not forgotten her.
Delphine and Corinne, though, were women of genius, and presented to
us as such. In order to be pitied by Madame de Stael, it was absolutely
necessary to be a woman of genius. For a woman to be defended by George
Sand, it was only necessary that she should not love her husband, and
this was a much more general thing.


George Sand had brought feminism within the reach of all women. This
is the characteristic of these novels, the eloquence of which cannot be
denied. They are novels for the vulgarization of the feminist theory.