Biography of George Sand | Page 6

Dupin.
Fate had brought them together, but had made them so unlike that they
were bound to dislike each other. The childhood of little Aurore served
as the lists for their contentions. Their rivalry was the dominating note
in the sentimental education of the child.
As long as Maurice Dupin lived, Aurore was always with her parents in
their little Parisian dwelling. Maurice Dupin was a brilliant officer, and
very brave and jovial. In 1808, Aurore went to him in Madrid, where he
was Murat's aide-de-camp. She lived in the palace of the Prince of
Peace, that vast palace which Murat filled with the splendour of his
costumes and the groans caused by his suffering. Like Victor Hugo,

who went to the same place at about the same time and under similar
conditions, Aurore may have brought back with her
de ses courses lointaines
Comme un vaguefaisceau de lueurs incertaines.
This does not seem probable, though. The return was painful, as they
came back worried and ill, and were glad to take refuge at Nohant.
They were just beginning to organize their life when Maurice Dupin
died suddenly, from an accident when riding, leaving his mother and
his wife together.
From this time forth, Aurore was more often with her grandmother at
Nohant than with her mother in Paris. Her grandmother undertook the
care of her education. Her half-brother, Hippolyte Chatiron, and she
received lessons from M. Deschartres, who had educated Maurice
Dupin. He was steward and tutor combined, a very authoritative man,
arrogant and a great pedant. He was affectionate, though, and extremely
devoted. He was both detestable and touching at the same time, and had
a warm heart hidden under a rough exterior. Nohant was in the heart of
Berry, and this meant the country and Nature. For Aurore Dupin Nature
proved to be an incomparable educator.
There was only one marked trait in the child's character up to this date,
and that was a great tendency to reverie. For long hours she would
remain alone, motionless, gazing into space. People were anxious about
her when they saw her looking so stupid, but her mother invariably said:
"Do not be alarmed. She is always ruminating about something."
Country life, while providing her with fresh air and plenty of exercise,
so that her health was magnificent, gave fresh food and another turn to
her reveries. Ten years earlier Alphonse de Lamartine had been sent to
the country at Milly, and allowed to frequent the little peasant children
of the place. Aurore Dupin's existence was now very much the same as
that of Lamartine. Nohant is situated in the centre of the Black Valley.
The ground is dark and rich; there are narrow, shady paths. It is not a
hilly country, and there are wide, peaceful horizons. At all hours of the
day and at all seasons of the year, Aurore wandered along the Berry

roads with her little playfellows, the farmers' children. There was Marie
who tended the flock, Solange who collected leaves, and Liset and
Plaisir who minded the pigs. She always knew in what meadow or in
what place she would find them. She played with them amongst the hay,
climbed the trees and dabbled in the water. She minded the flock with
them, and in winter, when the herdsmen talked together, assembled
round their fire, she listened to their wonderful stories. These credulous
country children had "seen with their own eyes" Georgeon, the evil
spirit of the Black Valley. They had also seen will-o'-the-wisps, ghosts,
the "white greyhound" and the "Big Beast"! In the evenings, she sat up
listening to the stories told by the hemp-weaver. Her fresh young soul
was thus impregnated at an early age with the poetry of the country.
And it was all the poetry of the country, that which comes from things,
such as the freshness of the air and the perfume of the flowers, but also
that which is to be found in the simplicity of sentiments and in that
candour and surprise face to face with those sights of Nature which
have remained the same and have been just as incomprehensible ever
since the beginning of the world.
The antagonism of the two mothers increased, though. We will not go
into detail with regard to the various episodes, but will only consider
the consequences.
The first consequence was that the intelligence of the child became
more keen through this duality. Placed as she was, in these two
different worlds, between two persons with minds so unlike, and,
obliged as she was to go from one to the other, she learnt to understand
and appreciate them both, contrasts though they were. She had soon
reckoned each of them up, and she saw their weaknesses, their faults,
their merits and their advantages.
A