Shortly after their marriage the young couple proceeded to Nohant, where they spent the winter.  In June, 1823, they went to Paris, and there their son Maurice was born.  Their only other offspring, the daughter Solange, did not come into the world till fiveyears later.  The discrepancies of the husband and wife’s character, which became soon apparent, made themselves gradually more and more felt.  His was a practical, hers a poetic nature.  Under his management Nohant assumed an altogether different aspect—­there was now order, neatness, and economy, where there was previously confusion, untidiness, and waste.  She admitted that the change was for the better, but could not help regretting the state of matters that had been—­the old dog Phanor taking possession of the fire-place and putting his muddy paws upon the carpet; the old peacock eating the strawberries in the garden; and the wild neglected nooks, where as a child she had so often played and dreamed.  Both loved the country, but they loved it for different reasons.  He was especially fond of hunting, a consequence of which was that he left his wife much alone.  And when he was at home his society may not always have been very entertaining, for what liveliness he had seems to have been rather in his legs than in his brain.  Writing to her mother on April i, 1828, Madame Dudevant says:  “Vous savez comme il est paresseux de l’esprit et enrage des jambes.”  On the other hand, her temper, which was anything but uniformly serene, must have been trying to her husband.  Occasionally she had fits of weeping without any immediate cause, and one day at luncheon she surprised her husband by a sudden burst of tears which she was unable to account for.  As M. Dudevant attributed his wife’s condition to the dulness of Nohant, the recent death of her grandmother, and the air of the country, he proposed a change of scene, which he did the more readily as he himself did not in the least like Berry.  The pleasant and numerous company they found in the house of the friends with whom they went to stay at once revived her spirits, and she became us frolicsome as she had before been melancholy.  George Sand describes her character as continually alternating between “contemplative solitude and complete giddiness in conditions of primitive innocence.”  It is hardly to be wondered at that one who exhibited such glaring and unaccountable contrasts of character was considered by some people whimsical (bizarre) and by her husband an idiot.  She herself admits the possibility that he may not have been wrong.  At any rate, little by little he succeeded in making her feel the superiority of reason and intelligence so thoroughly that for a long time she was quite crushed and stupefied in company.  Afraid of finding themselves alone at Nohant, the ill-matched pair continued their migration on leaving their friends.  Madame Dudevant made great efforts to see through her husband’s eyes and to think and act as he wished, but no sooner did she accord