travelling, a present to a poor friend, a charity to a deserving person, and such like trifles, which, although not indispensable, make life pleasant.  “Irresponsibility is a state of servitude; it is something like the disgrace of the interdict.”  But servitude and disgrace are galling yokes, and it was not likely that so strong a character would long and meekly submit to them.  We have, however, not yet exhausted the grievances of Madame Dudevant.  Her brother Hippolyte, after mismanaging his own property, came and lived for the sake of economy at Nohant.  His intemperance and that of a friend proved contagious to her husband, and the consequence was not only much rioting till late into the night, but occasionally also filthy conversations.  She began, therefore, to consider how the requisite means might be obtained—­which would enable her to get away from such undesirable surroundings, and to withdraw her children from these evil influences.  For four years she endeavoured to discover an employment by which she could gain her livelihood.  A milliner’s business was out of the question without capital to begin with; by needlework no more than ten sous a day could be earned; she was too conscientious to make translation pay; her crayon and water-colour portraits were pretty good likenesses, but lacked originality; and in the painting of flowers and birds on cigar-cases, work-boxes, fans, &c., which promised to be more successful, she was soon discouraged by a change of fashion.

At last Madame Dudevant made up her mind to go to Paris and try her luck in literature.  She had no ambition whatever, and merely hoped to be able to eke out in this way her slender resources.  As regards the capital of knowledge she was possessed of she wrote:  “I had read history and novels; I had deciphered scores; I had thrown an inattentive eye over the newspapers....Monsieur Neraud [the Malgache of the “Lettres d’un Voyageur”] had tried to teach me botany.”  According to the “Histoire de ma Vie” this new departure was brought about by an amicable arrangement; her letters, as in so many cases, tell, however, a very different tale.  Especially important is a letter written, on December 3, 1830, to Jules Boucoiran, who had lately been tutor to her children, and whom, after the relation of what had taken place, she asks to resume these duties for her sake now that she will be away from Nohant and her children part of the year.  Boucoiran, it should be noted, was a young man of about twenty, who was a total stranger to her on September 2, 1829, but whom she addressed on November 30 of that year as “Mon cher Jules.”  Well, she tells him in the letter in question that when looking for something in her husband’s writing-desk she came on a packet addressed to her, and on which were further written by his hand the words “Do not open it till after my death.”  Piqued by curiosity, she did open the packet, and found in it nothing but curses upon herself.  “He had gathered up in it,” she says, “all his ill-humour and anger against me, all his reflections on my perversity.”  This was too much for her; she had allowed herself to be humiliated for eight years, now she would speak out.