George Sand
Addressing Romanticism and Feminism within the same issue of a magazine without profiling George Sand would be a miss. Aurore Dupin, best known by her pseudonym/pen name George Sand, is as much a symbol of women’s rights and their freedom
as Mary Wollstonecraft was, half a century earlier. However, Sand wasn’t a political activist per se; she was a novelist, playwright, literary critic, journalist and memoirist whose female characters were educated, strong intelligent individuals, unafraid of speaking their minds. In terms of feminism, she was not a supporter of female activists, who, she thought, were detrimental to women’s liberation. She, to that purpose, criticized without measure her contemporary women’s rights and political agitator, Flora Tristan, whom we discuss in this article, too. What makes Sand a feminist is her life, and her ideas, at a time when Romantism was in full bloom.
George Sand was born Amantine-Lucile-Aurore Dupin (Aurore for short) on July 1st, 1804, in Paris. Her father, Maurice Dupin, was an illegitimate son of Augustus II the Strong, King of Poland, and a cousin to the sixth degree to the kings of France Louis XVI, Louis XVIII and Charles X. Sand's mother, Sophie-Victoire Delaborde, was a “soldier’s girl” commoner. When she was four years old, Aurore’s father died falling off of his horse. She was, then, raised by her grandmother, Madame Dupin de Francueil, at her Nohant estate in the French province of Berry. Sand remained attached throughout her life to Nohant and the countryside. The house, itself, is the setting for many of her novels, and the theme of pastoral life, one of her favorites.
In January 1818, Sand was sent to the convent of the English
Augustinians Ladies of Paris to hone her teaching. Two years later, Madame Dupin de Francueil, aware of her failing health, brought Sand back home to Nohant. She
wanted to marry her granddaughter as soon as possible and make her sole heir. She died before it happened.
The last year spent in Nohant was an intellectually rich experience. Sand enjoyed her grandmother’s cultivated mind, and with her, discovered Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
If Rousseau fascinated, other philosophers captivated the young prodigy such as Chateaubriand, Aristotle, Condillac, Montesquieu, Blaise Pascal, Jean de La Bruyère, Montaigne, Francis Bacon, John Locke, Leibniz, as well as the poets Virgil, Alexander Pope, John Milton, Dante, and William Shakespeare.
In 1822, after moving back with her mother, Sand, then 18 years old, met and married Baron Casimir Dudevant, an illegitimate son of Baron Jean-François Dudevant. They had two children: Maurice (1823–1889) and Solange (1828–1899), though Solange’s paternity became questionable. In early 1831, Sand left her husband and “entered upon a four-or five-year period of ‘romantic rebellion.’” [Wikipedia]. Four years later, she would legally separated from Dudevant and take her children with her.
During that time of rebellion, thirsty for independence, Sand moved to Paris. On January 4, 1831, she joined a small company of young Romantic Literature enthusiasts such as Charles Duvernet, Alphonse Fleury and Jules Sandeau. With her companions, she started to frequent theaters, museums and libraries, and even obtained permission from the Indre Prefecture of Police to wear a male outfit, more convenient, sturdier and less expensive than the typical dress of a noblewoman
at the time. It enabled her to circulate with ease in Paris, and
vs. Flora Tristan
George Sand, pastel by Charles Louis Gratia (c. 1835). PD.
Cover to the 1870 translation of Indiana by George W. Richards. PD.
37 | Ceres Magazine | Spring 2016