We must not lose sight, though, of the fact that, contestable as Valentine certainly is as a novel of passion, there is a pastoral novel of the highest order contained in this book.  The setting of the story is delightful.  George Sand has placed the scene in that Black Valley which she knew so well and loved so dearly.  It is the first of her novels in which she celebrates her birthplace.  There are walks along the country pathways, long meditations at night, village weddings and fetes.  All the poetry and all the picturesqueness of the country transform and embellish the story.

In Jacques we have the history of a man unhappily married, and this, through the reciprocity which is inevitable under the circumstances, is another story of a woman unhappily married.

At the age of thirty-five, after a stormy existence, in which years count double, Jacques marries Fernande, a woman much younger than he is.  After a few unhappy months he sees the first clouds appearing in his horizon.  He sends for his sister Sylvia to come and live with himself and his wife.  Sylvia, like Jacques, is an exceptional individual.  She is proud, haughty and reserved.  It can readily be imagined that, the presence of this pythoness does not tend to restore the confidence which has become somewhat shaken between the husband and wife.  A young man named Octave, who was at first attracted by Sylvia, soon begins to prefer Fernande, who is not a romantic, ironical and sarcastic woman like her sister-in-law.  He fancies that he should be very happy with the gentle Fernande.  Jacques discovers that Octave and his wife are in love with each other.  There are various alternatives for him.  He can dismiss his rival, kill him, or merely pardon him.  Each alternative is a very ordinary way out of the difficulty, and Jacques cannot resign himself to anything ordinary.  He therefore asks his wife’s lover whether he really cares for his wife, whether he is in earnest, and also whether this attachment will be durable.  Quite satisfied with the result of this examination, he leaves Fernande to Octave.  He then disappears and kills himself, but he takes all necessary precautions to avert the suspicion of suicide, in order not to sadden Octave and Fernande in their happiness.  He had not been able to keep his wife’s love, but he does not wish to be the jailer of the woman who no longer loves him.  Fernande has a right to happiness and, as he has not been able to ensure that happiness, he must give place to another man.  It is a case of suicide as a duty.  There are instances when a husband should know that it is his duty to disappear. . . .  Jacques is “a stoic.”  George Sand has a great admiration for such characters.  She gives us her first sketch of one in Ralph, but Jacques is presented to us as a sublime being.

Personally, I look upon him as a mere greenhorn, or, as would be said in Wagner’s dramas, a “pure simpleton.”