Amandine Aurore Lucile Dupin, later Baroness (French:baronne) Dudevant (1 July 1804 – 8 June 1876), best known by her pseudonym George Sand (), was a French novelist and feminist.
Early life
Sand's father, Maurice Dupin, was the grandson of the Marshall General of France, Maurice, Comte de Saxe. He was also a distant relative of Louis XVI. Her mother, Sophie-Victoire Delaborde was a common woman. Sand was born in Paris. She spent much of her childhood with her grandmother, Marie Aurore de Saxe, Madame Dupin de Franceuil. Her grandmother lived in her estate, Nohant, in the French region of Berry. She later used the setting in many of her novels. In 1822, at age 19, she married Baron Casimir Dudevant (1795–1871), illegitimate son of Jean-François. She and Dudevant had two children: Maurice (1823–1889) and Solange (1828–1899). In early 1831 she left her prosaic husband and entered upon a four- or five-year period of "romantic rebellion." In 1835 she was legally separated from Dudevant.
How other people who lived at the time saw her
Sand started to wear men's clothes in public. This harmed her reputation. She said that men's clothes were tougher, and also less expensive to buy than women's. The clothes she wore were comfortable, and they also allowed her to go around Paris more freely than the other women, even those of her own social standing.
Sand also smoked in public. This led to a scandal. At her time, women were not supposed to smoke, not even those of her standing. Franz Liszt had a relationship with a woman called Marie D'Agoult, who did this as well. D'Argoult smoked large cigars. These and other behaviors were exceptional for a woman of the early and mid-19th century, when social codes–especially in the upper classes–were very important.
Poet Charles Baudelaire was a contemporary critic of George Sand: "She is stupid, heavy and garrulous. Her ideas on morals have the same depth of judgment and delicacy of feeling as those of janitresses and kept women.... The fact that there are men who could become enamoured of this slut is indeed a proof of the abasement of the men of this generation."
Relationships
Sand had affairs with several men. Some lasted longer, others shorter. These men included Jules Sandeau (1831), Prosper Mérimée, Alfred de Musset (summer 1833 – March 1834), Louis-Chrystosome Michel, Charles Didier, Pierre-François Bocage, Félicien Mallefille and Frédéric Chopin (1837–47).
Later in life, she wrote letters to Gustave Flaubert. Despite their obvious differences in temperament and aesthetic preference, they eventually became good friends.
She was engaged in an intimate friendship with actress Marie Dorval, which led to widespread but unconfirmed rumors of a lesbian affair.
In Majorca one can still visit the (then abandoned) Carthusian monastery of Valldemossa, where she spent the winter of 1838–39 with Chopin and her children. This trip to Majorca was described by her in Un Hiver à Majorque (A Winter in Majorca), published in 1855.
Chopin left her two years before his death, because of a family disturbance wherein he supported her daughter Solange's marriage choice, which had caused Sand to disown the daughter.
Writing career
A liaison with the writer Jules Sandeau heralded her literary debut. They published a few stories in collaboration, signing them "Jules Sand." She consequently adopted, for her first independent novel, Indiana (1832), the pen name that made her famous – George Sand.
Her first published novel, Rose et Blanche (1831), was written in collaboration with Jules Sandeau.
Drawing from her childhood experiences of the countryside, she wrote the rural novels La Mare au Diable (1846), François le Champi (1847–1848), La Petite Fadette (1849), and Les Beaux Messieurs Bois-Doré (1857). A Winter in Majorca described the period that she and Chopin spent on that island in 1838-9.
Her other novels include Indiana (1832), Lélia (1833), Mauprat (1837), Le Compagnon du Tour de France (1840), Consuelo (1842–1843), and Le Meunier d'Angibault (1845).
Further theatre pieces and autobiographical pieces include Histoire de ma vie (1855), Elle et Lui (1859) (about her affair with Musset), Journal Intime (posthumously published in 1926), and Correspondence. Sand often performed her theatrical works in her small private theatre at the Nohant estate.
In addition, Sand authored literary criticism and political texts. Her most widely used quote being, "There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved."