Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 49, November, 1861 | Page 4

a disciple of Voltaire and Rousseau, she could
not but detest the abuses of the Court; she shared, too, the general
personal alienation of the aristocracy from the _German woman_, as
they called Marie Antoinette. She admired, in turn, the probity of
Necker and the genius of Mirabeau; but the current of disorder finally
found its way to her, and swept away her household peace among the
innumerable wrecks that marked its passage. Implicated as the
depository of some papers supposed to be of treasonable character, she
was arrested and imprisoned in Paris, her son and Deschartres being
officially separated from her and detained at Passy. The imprisonment
lasted some months, and its tedium was beguiled by the most fervent
love-letters between the boy of sixteen and his mother. The sorrow of
this separation, George says, metamorphosed the sickly, spoiled child
into a fervent and resolute youth, whose subsequent career was full of
courage and self-denial. Of the Revolution she writes:--
"In my eyes, it is one of the phases of evangelical life: a tumultuous,
bloody life, terrible at certain moments, full of convulsions, of delirium,
and of sobbing. It is the violent contest of the principle of equality
preached by Jesus, and passing, now like a radiant light, now like a
burning torch, from hand to hand, to our own days, against the old
pagan world, which is not destroyed, which will not be for a long time
yet, in spite of the mission of Christ, and so many other divine missions,
in spite of so many stakes, scaffolds, and martyrs. What is there, then,
to astonish us in the vertigo which seized all minds at the period of the
inextricable _mêlée_ into which France precipitated herself in '93?
When everything went by retaliation, when every one became, by deed
or intention, victim and executioner in turn, and when between the
oppression endured and the oppression exercised there was no time for
reflection or liberty of choice, how could passion have abstracted itself
in action, or impartiality have dictated quiet judgments? Passionate
souls were judged by others as passionate, and the human race cried out
as in the time of the ancient Hussites,--'This is a time of mourning, of
zeal, and of fury.'"

The tone of our author concerning this and subsequent revolutions
which have come within her own observation is throughout temperate,
hopeful, and charitable. The noblest side of womanhood comes out in
this; and however her fiery youth might have counselled, in the pages
now under consideration she appears as the apologist of humankind,
the world's peacemaker.
George loves to linger over the details of her father's early life. They
are, indeed, all she possesses of him, as she was still in early childhood
when he died. So much and such charming narrations has she to give us
of his military life, his musical ability, his courage and
disinterestedness, that she herself does not manage to get born until
nearly the end of the third volume, and that through a series of
concatenations which we must hastily review.
The imprisonment of Madame Dupin was not long; after some months
of detention, she was allowed to rejoin her son at Passy, and the whole
family-party speedily removed to Nohant, in the heart of Berry, which
henceforth figures as the homestead in the pages of these volumes. But
Maurice is soon obliged to adopt a profession. His mother's revenues
have been considerably diminished by the political troubles. He feels in
himself the power, the determination, to carve out a career for himself,
and gallantly enters, as a simple soldier, the armies of the
Republic,--Napoleon Bonaparte being First Consul. Although he soon
saw service, his promotion seems to have been slow and difficult. He
was full of military ardor, and laborious in acquiring the science of his
profession; but there were already so many candidates for every
smallest distinction, and Maurice was no courtier, to help out his
deserts with a little fortunate flattery. He complains in his letters that
the tide has already turned, and that even in the army diplomacy fares
better than real bravery. Still, he soon rose from the ranks, served with
honor on the Rhine and in Italy, and became finally attached to the
personnel of Murat, during the occupation of the Peninsula. His title of
grandson of the Maréchal de Saxe was sometimes helpful, sometimes
hurtful. In the eyes of his comrades it won him honor; but Napoleon, on
hearing his high descent urged as a claim to consideration, is said to
have replied, brusquely,--"I don't want any of those people." In his
letters to his mother, he recounts his adventures, military and amorous,
with frankness, but without boasting; but his confidences soon become

very partial, and before she knows it the poor mother has a