Visits Flaubert at Croisset, dedicates Le Dernier Amour to him. Monsieur Sylvestre published.

1867

Return to Nohant. Publishes Le Dernier Amour.

1868

Birth of Gabrielle Sand Dudevant.

1870

Play L’Autre with Sarah Bernhardt. Pierre Qui Roule, Le Beau Laurence and Malgré Tout published.

1871

Death of Casimir Dudevant. Seige of Paris. Sand protests Paris Commune. Césatine Dietrich and Journal d’un Voyageur pendant la Guerre published.

1872

Turgenev visits Nohant. Francia and Nanon published.

1873

Flaubert and Turgenev at Nohant. Travels in France. Impressions et Souvenirs and Contes d’une Grand-mère published.

1874

Ma Soeur Jeanne published.

1875

Flamande and Les Deux Frères published.

1876

June 8: Death of George Sand. Le Tour de Percemont and Marianne Chevreuse published.

I

In the southeastern part of Berri there is a peculiarly picturesque bit of country some three or four leagues in extent. As the highroad from Paris to Clermont, which passes through it, is thickly settled on both sides, it is difficult for the traveller to suspect the beauty of the country near at hand. But he who, seeking shade and silence, should turn aside into one of the winding roads, enclosed between high banks, which branch off from the main highway at every moment, would soon see before him a cool and tranquil landscape, fields of a delicate green, melancholy streamlets, clumps of alders and ash trees—a delicious pastoral scene. In vain would he seek within a radius of several leagues a house built of stone or with a slated roof. At rare intervals a tiny thread of blue smoke, rising slowly above the foliage, would announce that a thatched roof was near at hand ; and if he should spy above the walnut trees on the hill the weather vane of a little church, a few steps farther on he would come upon a bell-tower sheathed in moss-covered tiles, a dozen scattered cottages surrounded by their orchards and their hemp-fields, a brook with its bridge formed of three pieces of timber, a cemetery a few rods square, enclosed by a quick-set hedge, five elms arranged in a quincunx and a ruined tower. This is what is called in the province a bourg.

There is nothing like the absolute repose of those unknown regions. Luxury has not found its way thither, nor the arts, nor the mania for scientific investigation, nor the hundred-armed monster called industry. Revolutions are hardly perceptible there, and the last war of which the soil retains a barely perceptible trace is that between Huguenots and Catholics ; and, even of that, the tradition is so uncertain and so faint that if you should question the natives, they would reply that those things took place at least two thousand years ago; for the principal virtue of that race of tillers of the soil is heedlessness in the matter of antiquities. You can travel all over their domains, pray before their saints, drink from their wells, without ever running the risk of having to listen to the usual feudal chronicles or the indispensable miraculous legend. The grave and silent disposition of the peasant is not one of the least potent attractions of that region. Nothing surprises him, nothing attracts him. Your chance presence in his pathway will not even make him turn his head, and, if you ask him to direct you to a town or a farm, his sole response will be a condescending smile, as if to prove to you that he is not deceived by your pleasantry. The peasant of Berri cannot understand how a man can walk without knowing where he is going. His dog will hardly deign to bark after you; his children will hide behind the hedge to evade your eyes or your questions, and the smallest of them, if he has not been able to follow his brothers in their flight, will throw himself into the ditch from fright, shrieking with all his strength. But the most impassive countenance will be that of a great white ox, the inevitable dean of every pasture, who, staring fixedly at you from among the bushes, will seem to hold in check the less solemn and less kindly disposed family of frightened bulls.

Aside from this initial coldness to the overtures of the stranger, the husbandman of that region is pleasant and hospitable, like his peaceful glades, like his aromatic meadows.

A particular tract of land between two small streams is especially remarkable for the healthy dark hues of its vegetation, which have caused it to be called the Black Valley. It is peopled only by scattered cottages and a few farms which yield a good revenue. The farm called Grangeneuve is of considerable size, but in the simplicity of its aspect there is nothing at variance with that of its surroundings. An avenue of maples leads to the house, and at the foot of the rustic buildings the Indre, in that place nothing more than a babbling brook, flows peacefully among the rushes and yellow irises of the meadow.

The first of May is a day of excitement and merrymaking for the people of the Black Valley. At its farther end, about two leagues from its centre, where Grangeneuve is situated, there is held one of those rustic fêtes which in every province bring together all the people of the neighborhood, from the sub-prefect of the department to the pretty grisette who has plaited that functionary’s shirt-frill on the preceding day ; from the noble châtelaine to the little shepherd—pâtour is the local word—who pastures his goat and his sheep at the expense of the seignioral hedges. They all come to eat and dance on the grass, with more or less appetite, more or less enjoyment ; they all exhibit themselves in calèches or on donkey-back, in caps or Italian straw hats, in clogs of poplar-wood or slippers of Turkish satin, in silk dresses or drugget skirts.