litteraire_. Planche challenged the writer of the article, a certain
Capo de Feuillide, to a duel. So much for the impassibility of
severe critics. The duel took place, and afterwards there was a
misunderstanding between George Sand and Planche. From that time forth
critics have given up fighting duels for the sake of authors.

About the same time, George Sand made use of Sainte-Beuve as her
confessor. He seemed specially indicated for this function. In the first
place, he looked rather ecclesiastical, and then he had a taste for
secrets, and more particularly for whispered confessions. George Sand
had absolute confidence in him. She considered that he had an almost
angelic nature. In reality, just about that time, the angelic man was
endeavouring to get into the good graces of the wife of his best friend,
and was writing his _Livre d'Amour_, and divulging to the world a
weakness of which he had taken advantage. This certainly was the most
villainous thing a man could do. But then he, too, was in love and was
struggling and praying. George Sand declares her veneration for him, and
she constituted herself his penitent.

She begins her confession by an avowal that must have been difficult for
her. She tells of her intimacy with Merimee, an intimacy which was
of short duration and very unsatisfactory. She had been fascinated by
Merimee's art.

"For about a week," she says, "I thought he had the secret of
happiness." At the end of the week she was "weeping with disgust,
suffering and discouragement." She had hoped to find in him the devotion
of a consoler, but she found "nothing but cold and bitter jesting."(16)
This experiment had also proved a failure.