she received the artists and authors of the gay city, herself arrayed in a man’s costume, and she astonished her male friends by smoking and joking with them like a man.  She was known only by the name of George Sand, and preferred to be called simply George.  She walked the Boulevards in a close fitting riding coat, over the collar of which fell her dark, luxuriant curls.  She carried in one hand her riding whip and in the other her cigar, which from time to time she would raise to her mouth.  Jules Sandeau was forgotten, and fled to Italy.  In after years George Sand bitterly repented her neglect of this friend, and she has written very touchingly in one of her books her repentance.  She now wrote two or three other stories which were caught up eagerly by the publishers.  She wrote against the institution of marriage and the critics at once attacked her, and with justice.  Story followed story from 1835 to 1837—­each filled with passionate, magnificent writing, and selling with great rapidity.  Her style was brilliant and elegant, and appealed to the French taste with great success.

In 1836 George Sand assumed her old name, that she might demand from her husband her fortune and children.  It was proved upon trial that he had treated her with brutality in the presence of her children, and in her absence had lived shamefully, and the judge gave back to Madame Dudevant her children and her fortune.  The children accompanied their mother to Paris, where she superintended their education.  She now became intimate with M. Lamnenais and went so far as to repudiate the bad sentiments of many of her books.  An end however soon came to her friendship for Lamnenais, and they separated in anger, and hating each other heartily.  She now wrote and published several Socialistic novels, which met with a poor sale in comparison with that of some of her previous works.  In fact, for the last ten years, her works have been decreasing in sale.  In the revolution of 1848, George Sand took side with the republicans.  At present she resides almost entirely at the chateau Nahant, where she has erected a little theater in which her pieces (for she wrote for the stage) are acted previous to their being brought out in Paris.  Her income is from ten to twelve thousand francs a year, and her life is pleasant and patriarchal.  She gathers the villagers round her, invites them to her table, and instructs them.  She once took into her house a woman covered with leprosy, who was cast off by all others, and with her own hand ministered to her wants, dressed her sores, and nursed her until she was cured.  George Sand lives in a plain style, clinging to everything which recalls her early life and her love of early friends.  She sleeps but five or six hours.  At eleven the breakfast bell rings.  Her son Maurice presides at the table in her absence.  She eats little, taking coffee morning and evening.  The most of her time she devotes to literary labors.  After breakfast she