George Sand

1804 5th June
Marriage in Paris of Maurice Dupin and Sophie Delaborde. 1st July - birth of Amantine, Aurore, Lucile Dupin, their daughter, who would become George Sand. Her paternal line belonged to the genteel bourgeoisie, her grandmother being a descendant of marshal Maurice de Saxe, who through his niece Marie Josèphe, dauphine of France (heiress to the throne), was allied to the royal family. However, her maternal line belonged to the Parisian lower class, but George Sand would never disown any of her origins, drawing from a divers and original background.

1808
Maurice Dupin, lieutenant-colonel and aide de camp to Prince Murat, accompanied him to Spain, his wife and daughter joining him in April. On 12th June, Auguste Dupin was born in Madrid. At the end of July, the family arrived in Nohant to stay with Maurice Dupin’s mother. Death of Auguste on 8th September. On the 16th September, Maurice Dupin was killed falling off a horse. After much discussion, Sophie Dupin abandoned custody of her daughter (28th January 1809). The child occasionally visited her mother in Paris but was mainly raised in Nohant, bringing her into direct contact with country life - that of the peasant and of the nobility. To facilitate travelling and economise on clothing, her tutor arranged for her to be dressed as a boy.

1818 18th January
Aurore entered the convent of the Augustines anglaises in Paris as a boarder. First literary essays for her classmates. On 12th April 1820 she returned to Nohant after having suffered a truly mystical crisis ; as an adult, Sand held overall Christian beliefs, but distanced herself from religious practice, becoming more and more anticlerical.

1821 26th December
Death of her grandmother.

G. Sand and C. Dudevant

1822
In spring, Aurore stayed near Melun with friends of her father’s, the Roëttiers du Plessis. There she met François Casimir Dudevant and married him on 17th September. In spite of the birth of their son, Maurice, on 30th June 1823, the marriage was a failure ; in fact, there were many who suspected Solange Dudevant, born 13th October 1828, might be the daughter of Stéphane Ajasson de Grandsagne, a young nobleman living near Nohant, and lover of Aurore for a few months.

1830 30th July
At her friends the Duvernets, Aurore met Jules Sandeau, who became her lover. In November, having discovered a will made by her husband which was particularly insulting to her, she secured an arrangement to divide her time between Nohant and Paris, leaving for the capital on 4th January 1831. There she met up again with Jules Sandeau and succeeded in publishing some articles in the Figaro, a newspaper edited by de Latouche, a fellow ‘Berrichon’. After having written together Le Commissionnaire (The Commissioner) under the name of Alphonse Signol, a deceased novelist, Jules Sandeau and Aurore Dudevant composed Rose et Blanche, which appeared in December under the joint pseudonym of J. Sand. She used to wear a mannish suit which allowed her to get about as she wished.

1832
Aurore single-handedly wrote and published Indiana (18th May), signing herself George Sand. In November, the first of her novels set in ‘Le Berry’ appeared - Valentine .

1833 Summer - 6th March 1835
Tormented liaison with Alfred de Musset. They left together for Venice, but the visit was spoilt by ill health and mutual deception. Musset returned to France on 29th March, leaving George Sand in the company of Pagello - a Venetian doctor. That journey inspired her to write the ‘Venetian Tales’ and the first of her Lettres d’un Voyageur (Letters of a Traveller). Lélia was published on the 18th July 1833, a novel of disillusionment and romantic melancoly.

1836 16th February
Separation of the Dudevants. In September, journey to Switzerland with the children in the company of Franz Liszt and Marie d’Agoult. Under the influence of Liszt, Sand became interested in the ideas of Lamennais which glorified social Christianity.

F. Chopin

1838 June
Liaison with Frédéric Chopin ; travelling to the Balearic islands in October with her new companion and her children, and returning 1st June 1839.

1839-1840
In the winter Sand made friends with Pauline Viardot, a distinguished singer, who was an inspiration in numerous aspects of her significant novel Consuelo -1842, and its sequel La Comtesse de Rudolstadt (The Countess of Rudolstadt) - 1843. On 29th April, Sand tried her hand at the theatre with Cosima, which was a failure. Chopin and George Sand organised their life together - winters in Paris and summers in Nohant. During their years of communal life Chopin would compose the major part of his oeuvre.

1844-1848
Without neglecting other topics, Sand wrote the majority of her pastorally inspired novels - Jeanne, Le Meunier d’Angibault (The Miller of Angibault), La Mare au Diable (The Devil’s Pool), Le Péché de Monsieur Antoine (The Sin of Monsieur Antoine), La Petite Fadette (Little Fadette) and François le Champi (The Country Waif). The influence of thinker and socialist Pierre Leroux was a determining factor in the development of her political involvement as much as in the idealism of her romantic novels.

1847
A difficult year at a personal level ; in February, her daughter Solange, recently betrothed to Ferdinand de Preaulx, met the sculptor Clésinger, engaged to make the bust of G. Sand ; on the 16th April, Clésinger arrived in Nohant ; Solange broke off her engagement and married him on 19th May. Chopin did not approve of the marriage ; at the end of July, letter of estrangement from George Sand to Chopin. Alienation with the Clésingers. To distract his mother, Maurice created the marionnette theatre, which would later achieve extraordinary perfection and exhibit as many as three hundred characters, taken from all levels of society and from all the literary and theatrical traditions.

1848
22nd February - beginning of revolutionary movements which led to the proclamation of the Second Republic. Genuine political influence of George Sand : at the demand of the Minister of the Interior, she was involved in the drafting of Republican bulletins. Outraged by the June repression, she returned to Nohant and withdrew from the political scene. Publication of pamphlets : Aux Riches (To the Rich), Histoire de France écrite sous la dictée de Blaise Bonnin (History of France written to the dictation of Blaise Bonnin) and Paroles de Blaise Bonnin aux bons citoyens (Words by Blaise Bonnin to the good citizens). On 28th February, her daughter Solange gave birth to a daughter who did not survive.

1849 10th May - Solange gave birth to a second daughter, Jeanne (Nini). In November inauguration at Nohant of the little theatre where Sand was able to try out life size dramatical situations.

1850
Beginning of a liaison with a friend of her son’s, the engraver Alexandre Manceau, in Nohant for a few weeks’ visit.

1851
George Sand dedicated herself to the theatre : Claudie and Le Mariage de Victorine (The Marriage of Victorine) were a success. She demonstrated her opposition to the coup d’Etat and proclamation of the Empire by helping pursued and exiled Republicans, begging the Emperor and his entourage for leniency and remission of sentence.

1853
Amongst an important output of fiction, the last of her ’rustic’ novels appeared - Les Maîtres Sonneurs (The Bagpipers), even if the ‘Le Berry’ did not permanently disappear from the George Sand oeuvre.

1854
Sand began work on producing her memoirs, Histoire de ma Vie (Story of my Life). Serious problems in the Clésinger household, who officially separated on 16th December, George Sand gaining custody of her granddaughter.

1855 13th January - death of Jeanne Clésinger. Upon the advice of her son and her companion, George Sand left for Italy to assuage her grief (28th February - 17th May). In spite of her sorrow, she wrote Sur la mort de Jeanne Clésinger (Upon the death of Jeanne Clésinger) : describing a surreal dream in which she saw the spirit of her granddaughter, confirming her faith in the immortality of the soul and belief in an eternal life, distanced however from Catholic orthodoxy. Final publication of Histoire de ma Vie.

1857
Having mainly dedicated herself to the theatre in 1856, George Sand published La Daniella, a novel inspired by her memories of Italy, forcefully portraying a bigoted and corrupt country, and thereby unleashing a Franco-Italian controversy. During spring, she rediscovered Gargilesse, and was so happy there that Manceau bought a small house in the village.

1858-1859
An important output of novels was conceived, and her visits to Gargilesse inspired Promenades autour d’un Village (Strolls around a Village).

1859
A journey to the Auvergne in June inspired several novels set in places where she spent her holidays, a frequent creative procedure : La Ville Noire (The Black City), Le Marquis de Villemer, Jean de la Roche. Moreover, after a serious illness in October-November 1860, George Sand visited Tamaris (close to Toulon) from mid-February to the end of May, from where she would bring back the outline for two novels - Tamaris and La Confession d’une Jeune Fille (The Confession of a Young Girl).

1862 17th May - marriage of her son Maurice.

1863
Birth of her grandson Marc-Antoine ; publication of Mademoiselle La Quintinie, a novel in which a vigorous anticlerical stance engendered lively reaction. They no longer utilised the big theatre at Nohant but Maurice built the ‘castelet des marionnettes’ (a small puppet theatre) in its definitive form - a superb example of technical ingenuity and still to this day considered a unique ensemble in Europe.

1864
A difficult year : following the alienation between Maurice and Manceau, George Sand and her companion moved to Palaiseau. The child Marc-Antoine died in July. George Sand presented her theatrical production of the Marquis de Villemer, adapted from the novel ; this was a great success due rather more to the recent controversy over Mademoiselle La Quintinie than the calibre of the play, which was merely commendable.

1865 21st August - death of her companion Alexandre Manceau.

1866 10th January - birth of her granddaughter Aurore ; return to Nohant to be close to her children. She travelled to Croisset to stay with Flaubert who had become a faithful friend ; their correspondance is extremely interesting.

1868
Birth of her second granddaughter, Gabrielle. As a gesture in defiance of the Catholic Church, Maurice’s children were baptised as Protestants. From her home in ’Le Berry’ George Sand followed the events of 1870-1871, distressed by the occupation and failing to understand the violence of the Paris Commune.

1873
Her novels became more and more infrequent. George Sand mainly looked after her two granddaughters, writing for them - Contes d’une Grand-mère (Tales of a Grandmother), the first series appearing on 15th November.

1876 8th June - death of George Sand in Nohant where she was buried in the family graveyard. Her last novels appeared a few days after her death : La Tour de Percemont (The Tower of Percemont) and Marianne, and a few months later, the second series of Contes d’une Grand-mère. (In this biographic sketch, we have only mentioned the works which marked the important phases in Sand’s literary career or which were incidental to noteworthy events. For other works, please refer to her bibliography).

Texte Marielle Caors - Vandekerkhove
Translated by Ray Alston