Juliette died at the age of fifteen and Heloise entered a convent.  The Venice lovers did not have to pay for their celebrity as dearly as that.  They wanted to give an example, to light a torch on the road of humanity.  “People shall know my story,” writes George Sand.  “I will write it. . . .  Those who follow along the path I trod will see where it leads.” Et nunc erudimini.  Let us see for ourselves, and learn.

Their liaison dates from August, 1833.

George Sand was twenty-nine years of age.  It was the time of her greatest charm.  We must try to imagine the enchantress as she then was.  She was not tall and she was delightfully slender, with an extraordinary-looking face of dark, warm colouring.  Her thick hair was very dark, and her eyes, her large eyes, haunted Musset for years after.

     “Ote-moi, memoire importune,
     Ote-moi ces yeux que je vois toujours!”

he writes.

And this woman, who could have been loved passionately, merely for her charm as a woman, was a celebrity!  She was a woman of genius!  Alfred de Musset was twenty-three years old.  He was elegant, witty, a flirt, and when he liked he could be irresistible.  He had won his reputation by that explosion of gaiety and imagination, Les Contes d’Espagne el d’Italle.  He had written some fine poetry, dreamy, disturbing and daring.  He had also given Les Caprices de Marianne, in which he figures twice over himself, for he was both Octave the sceptic, the disillusioned man, and Coelio, the affectionate, candid Coelio.  He imagined himself Rolla.  It was he, and he alone, who should have been styled the sublime boy.

And so here they both are.  We might call them Lelia and Stenio, but Lelia was written before the Venice adventure.  She was not the reflection of it, but rather the presentiment.  This is worthy of notice, but not at all surprising.  Literature sometimes imitates reality, but how much more often reality is modelled on literature!

It was as though George Sand had foreseen her destiny, for she had feared to meet Musset.  On the 11th of March, she writes as follows to Sainte-Beuve:  “On second thoughts, I do not want you to bring Alfred de Musset.  He is a great dandy.  We should not suit each other, and I was really more curious to see him than interested in him.”  A little later on, though, at a dinner at the Freres provencaux, to which Buloz invited his collaborators, George Sand found herself next Alfred de Musset.  She invited him to call on her, and when Lelia was published she sent him a copy, with the following dedication written in the first volume:  A Monsieur mon gamin d’Allred; and in the second volume:  A Monsieur le vicomte Allred de Musset, hommage respectueux de son devoue serviteur George Sand.  Musset replied by giving his opinion of the new book.  Among the letters which followed, there is one that begins with these words:  “My