De Musset died in 1857 and after his death Sand startled Paris with “Elle et Lui,” an obvious answer to “Confessions of a Child of the Age, “De Musset’s version—­an uncomplimentary one to himself—­of their separation.  The poet’s brother Paul rallied to his memory with “Lui et Elle,” and even Louisa Colet ventured into the fracas with a trashy novel called “Lui.”  During all this mud-throwing the cause of the trouble calmly lived in the little Italian town of Belluno.  It was Dr. Giuseppe Pagello who will go down in literary history as the one man that played Joseph to George Sand.

Now do you ask why I believe that Sand left Chopin when she was bored with him?  The words “some days afterwards” are significant.  I print the Pagello story not only because it is new, but as a reminder that George Sand in her love affairs was always the man.  She treated Chopin as a child, a toy, used him for literary copy--pace Mr. Hadow!—­and threw him over after she had wrung out all the emotional possibilities of the problem.  She was true to herself even when she attempted to palliate her want of heart.  Beware of the woman who punctuates the pages of her life with “heart” and “maternal feelings.”  “If I do not believe any more in tears it is because I saw thee crying!” exclaimed Chopin.  Sand was the product of abnormal forces, she herself was abnormal, and her mental activity, while it created no permanent types in literary fiction, was also abnormal.  She dominated Chopin, as she had dominated Jules Sandeau, Calmatta the mezzotinter, De Musset, Franz Liszt, Delacroix, Michel de Bourges—­I have not the exact chronological order—­and later Flaubert.  The most lovable event in the life of this much loved woman was her old age affair—­ purely platonic—­with Gustave Flaubert.  The correspondence shows her to have been “maternal” to the last.

In the recently published “Lettres a l’etrangere” of Honore de Balzac, this about Sand is very apropos.  A visit paid to George Sand at Nohant, in March 1838, brought the following to Madame Hanska: 

It was rather well that I saw her, for we exchanged confidences regarding Sandeau.  I, who blamed her to the last for deserting him, now feel only a deep compassion for her, as you will have for me, when you learn with whom we have had relations, she of love, I of friendship.

  But she has been even more unhappy with Musset.  So here she
  is, in retreat, denouncing both marriage and love, because in
  both she has found nothing but delusion.

I will tell you of her immense and secret devotion to these two men, and you will agree that there is nothing in common between angels and devils.  All the follies she has committed are claims to glory in the eyes of great and beautiful souls.  She has been the dupe of la Dorval, Bocage, Lamenais, etc.; through the same sentiment she is the dupe of Liszt and Madame d’Agoult.

So let us accept without too much questioning as did Balzac, a reader of souls, the Sand-Chopin partnership and follow its sinuous course until 1847.