Mauprat | Page 8

"La Confession d'une Jeune Fille" (1865),
and "Cadio," seemed to her admirers to show no decline of force or fire.
Still finer, perhaps, were "Le Marquis de Villemer" (1861) and "Jean
de la Roche" (1860). Her latest production, which appeared after her
death, was the "Contes d'une Grand'mere," a collection full of humanity
and beauty. George Sand died at Nohant on the 8th of June, 1876. She
had great qualities of soul, and in spite of the naive irregularities of her
conduct in early middle life, she cannot be regarded otherwise than as
an excellent woman. She was brave, courageous, heroically industrious,
a loyal friend, a tender and wise mother. Her principle fault has been
wittily defined by Mr. Henry James, who has remarked that in affairs of
the heart George Sand never "behaved like a gentleman."
E. G.

PREFACE
When I wrote my novel /Mauprat/ at Nohant--in 1846, if I remember
rightly--I had just been suing for a separation. Hitherto I had written
much against the abuses of marriage, and perhaps, though insufficiently
explaining my views, had induced a belief that I failed to appreciate its
essence; but it was at this time that marriage itself stood before me in
all the moral beauty of its principle.
Misfortune is not without its uses to the thoughtful mind. The more
clearly I had realized the pain and pity of having to break a sacred bond,
the more profoundly I felt that where marriage is wanting, is in certain
elements of happiness and justice of too lofty a nature to appeal to our
actual society. Nay, more; society strives to take from the sanctity of
the institution by treating it as a contract of material interests, attacking
it on all sides at once, by the spirit of its manners, by its prejudices, by
its hypocritical incredulity.

While writing a novel as an occupation and distraction for my mind, I
conceived the idea of portraying an exclusive and undying love, before,
during, and after marriage. Thus I drew the hero of my book
proclaiming, at the age of eighty, his fidelity to the one woman he had
ever loved.
The ideal of love is assuredly eternal fidelity. Moral and religious laws
have aimed at consecrating this ideal. Material facts obscure it. Civil
laws are so framed as to make it impossible or illusory. Here, however,
is not the place to prove this. Nor has /Mauprat/ been burdened with a
proof of the theory; only, the sentiment by which I was specially
penetrated at the time of writing it is embodied in the words of
/Mauprat/ towards the end of the book: "She was the only woman I
loved in all my life; none other ever won a glance from me, or knew the
pressure of my hand."
GEORGE SAND.

June 5, 1857.

TO GUSTAVE PAPET
Though fashion may proscribe the patriarchal fashion of dedications, I
would ask you, brother and friend, to accept this of a tale which is not
new to you. I have drawn my materials in part from the cottages of our
Noire valley. May we live and die there, repeating every evening our
beloved invocation:
SANCTA SIMPLICITAS!
GEORGE SAND.

MAUPRAT

On the borders of La Marche and Berry, in the district known as
Varenne, which is naught but a vast moor studded with forests of oak
and chestnut, and in the most thickly wooded and wildest part of the
country, may be found, crouching within a ravine, a little ruined
chateau. The dilapidated turrets would not catch your eye until you
were about a hundred yards from the principal portcullis. The venerable
trees around and the scattered rocks above, bury it in everlasting
obscurity; and you would experience the greatest difficulty, even in
broad daylight, in crossing the deserted path leading to it, without
stumbling against the gnarled trunks and rubbish that bar every step.
The name given to this dark ravine and gloomy castle is
Roche-Mauprat.
It was not so long ago that the last of the Mauprats, the heir to this
property, had the roofing taken away and all the woodwork sold. Then,
as if to give a kick to the memory of his ancestors, he ordered the
entrance gate to be thrown down, the north tower to be gutted, and a
breach to be made in the surrounding wall. This done, he departed with
his workmen, shaking the dust from off his feet, and abandoning his
domain to foxes, and cormorants, and vipers. Since then, whenever the
wood-cutters and charcoal-burners from the huts in the neighbourhood
pass along the top of the Roche-Mauprat ravine, if it is in daytime they
whistle with a defiant air or hurl a hearty curse at the ruins; but when
day falls and the goat-sucker begins to screech