The state of mind which can be read between the lines in George Sand’s letters to Flaubert is serenity, and this is also the characteristic of her work during the last period of her life.  Her “last style” is that of Jean de la Rocke, published in 1860.  A young nobleman, Jean de la Roche, loses his heart to the exquisite Love Butler.  She returns his affection, but the jealousy of a young brother obliges them to separate.  In order to be near the woman he loves, Jean de la Roche disguises himself as a guide, and accompanies the whole family in an excursion through the Auvergne mountains.  A young nobleman as a guide is by no means an ordinary thing, but in love affairs such disguises are admitted.  Lovers in the writings of Marivaux took the parts of servants, and in former days no one was surprised to meet with princes in disguise on the high-roads.

George Sand’s masterpiece of this kind is undoubtedly Le Marquis de Villemer, published in 1861.  A provincial chateau, an old aristocratic woman, sceptical and indulgent, two brothers capable of being rivals without ceasing to be friends, a young girl of noble birth, but poor, calumny being spread abroad, but quickly repudiated, some wonderful pages of description, and some elegant, sinuous conversations.  All this has a certain charm.  The poor girl marries the Marquis in the end.  This, too, is a return to former days, to the days when kings married shepherdesses.  The pleasure that we have in reading such novels is very much like that which we used to feel on hearing fairy-stories.

“If some one were to tell me the story of Peau d’Ane, I should be delighted,” confessed La Fontaine, and surely it would be bad form to be more difficult and over-nice than he was.  Big children as we are, we need stories which give food to our imagination, after being disappointed by the realities of life.  This is perhaps the very object of the novel.  Romance is not necessarily an exaggerated aspiration towards imaginary things.  It is something else too.  It is the revolt of the soul which is oppressed by the yoke of Nature.  It is the expression of that tendency within us towards a freedom which is impossible, but of which we nevertheless dream.  An iron law presides over our destiny.  Around us and within us, the series of causes and effects continues to unwind its hard chain.  Every single one of our deeds bears its consequence, and this goes on to eternity.  Every fault of ours will bring its chastisement.  Every weakness will have to be made good.  There is not a moment of oblivion, not an instant when we may cease to be on our guard.  Romantic illusion is, then, just an attempt to escape, at least in imagination, from the tyranny of universal order.