The young wife, who had snapped her bonds asunder, breathed voluptuously in this atmosphere.  She was like a provincial woman enjoying Paris to the full.  She belonged to the romantic school, and was imbued with the principle that an artist must see everything, know everything, and have experienced himself all that he puts into his books.  She found a little group of her friends from Berry in Paris, among others Felix Pyat, Charles Duvernet, Alphonse Fleury, Sandeau and de Latouche.  This was the band she frequented, young men apprenticed either to literature, the law, or medicine.  With them she lived a student’s life.  In order to facilitate her various evolutions, she adopted masculine dress.  In her Histoite de ma vie she says:  “Fashion helped me in my disguise, for men were wearing long, square frock-coats styled a la proprietaire.  They came down to the heels, and fitted the figure so little that my brother, when putting his on, said to me one day at Nohant:  ’It is a nice cut, isn’t it?  The tailor takes his measures from a sentry-box, and the coat then fits a whole regiment.’  I had ‘a sentry-box coat’ made, of rough grey cloth, with trousers and waistcoat to match.  With a grey hat and a huge cravat of woollen material, I looked exactly like a first-year student. . . .”

Dressed in this style, she explored the streets, museums, cathedrals, libraries, painters’ studios, clubs and theatres.  She heard Frederick Lemaitre one day, and the next day Malibran.  One evening it was one of Dumas’ pieces, and the next night Moise at the Opera.  She took her meals at a little restaurant, and she lived in an attic.  She was not even sure of being able to pay her tailor, so she had all the joys possible.  “Ah, how delightful, to live an artist’s life!  Our device is liberty!” she wrote.(6) She lived in a perpetual state of delight, and, in February, wrote to her son Maurice as follows:  “Every one is at loggerheads, we are crushed to death in the streets, the churches are being destroyed, and we hear the drum being beaten all night."(7) In March she wrote to Charles Duvernet:  “Do you know that fine things are happening here?  It really is amusing to see.  We are living just as gaily among bayonets and riots as if everything were at peace.  All this amuses me."(8)

     (6) Correspondance:  To Boucoiran, March 4, 1831.

     (7) Ibid.  To Maurice Dudevant, February 15, 1831.

     (8) Ibid.  To Charles Duvernet, March 6, 1831.

She was amused at everything and she enjoyed everything.  With her keen sensitiveness, she revelled in the charm of Paris, and she thoroughly appreciated its scenery.

“Paris,” she wrote, “with its vaporous evenings, its pink clouds above the roofs, and the beautiful willows of such a delicate green around the bronze statue of our old Henry, and then, too, the dear little slate-coloured pigeons that make their nests in the old masks of the Pont Neuf . . ."(9)