It was in these pieces that George Sand carried out her own idea of what was required for the theatre.  Her idea was very simple.  She gives it in two or three words:  “I like pieces that make me cry.”  She adds:  “I like drama better than comedy, and, like a woman, I must be infatuated by one of the characters.”  This character is the congenial one.  The public is with him always and trembles for him, and the trembling is all the more agreeable, because the public knows perfectly well that all will end well for this character.  It can even go as far as weeping the traditional six tears, as Madame de Sevigne did for Andromaque.  Tears at the theatre are all the sweeter, because they are all in vain.  When, in a play, we have a congenial character who is there from the beginning to the end, the play is a success.  Let us take Cyraino de Bergerac, for instance, which is one of the greatest successes in the history of the theatre.

Francois le Champi is eminently a congenial character, for he is a man who always sets wrong things right.  We are such believers in justice and in the interference of Providence.  When good, straightforward people are persecuted by fate, we always expect to see a man appear upon the scene who will be the champion of innocence, who will put evil-doers to rights, and find the proper thing to do and say in every circumstance.

Francois appears at the house of Madeleine Blanchet, who is a widow and very sad and ill.  He takes her part and defends her from the results of La Severe’s intrigues.  He is hard on the latter, and he disdains another woman, Mariette, but both La Severe and Mariette love him, so true is it that women have a weakness for conquerors.  Francois only cares for Madeleine, though.  On the stage, we like a man to be adored by all women, as this seems to us a guarantee that he will only care for one of them.

“Champi” is a word peculiar to a certain district, meaning “natural son.”  Dumas fils wrote a play entitled Le Fils naturel.  The hero is also a superior man, who plays the part of Providence to the family which has refused to recognize him.

In Claudie, as in Francois le Champi, the rural setting is one of the great charms of the play.  The first act is one of the most picturesque scenes on the stage.  It takes place in a farmyard, the day when the reapers have finished their task, which is just as awe-inspiring as that of the sowers.  A cart, drawn by oxen, enters the yard, bringing a sheaf all adorned with ribbons and flowers.  The oldest of the labourers, Pere Remy, addresses a fine couplet to the sheaf of corn which has cost so much labour, but which is destined to keep life in them all.  Claudie is one of those young peasant girls, whom we met with in the novel entitled Jeanne.  She had been unfortunate, but Jeanne, although virtuous and pure herself, did not despise her, for in the country there is great latitude in certain matters.  This is just the plain story, but on the stage everything becomes more dramatic and is treated in a more detailed and solemn fashion.  Claudie’s misfortune causes her to become a sort of personage apart, and it raises her very high in her own esteem.