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dice. We do not warrant the literal truth of his introduction. He says he was under the influence of nightmare, induced by solicitude concerning his coming article, when he was suddenly aroused from his uneasy condition by having a note to the following effect thrust into his hand :

"Madame Dudevant requests Mr. . . . . to call on her concerning a small command which she wishes to entrust to him.' (Then followed address and date).

I rubbed my eyes: it was certain that I was not sleeping. Still the contents of the note completely puzzled me. I knew, indeed, several eccentric celebrities who would very willingly give me a command for a biography; but besides my not consenting to undertake such a commission, the present did not seem to imply any order of this kind.

I was lost in conjecture when it came into my head to cast my eye on the envelope; I must have been stupid or half asleep not to have thought of it before. The address was M. . Chimney Doctor, and the mystery was at once explained. Deceived by a resemblance in the names, George Sand's Mercury, a sharp boy from La Creuse, and my porter, a lively Auvergnat, to match, had adopted the same notion on the subject. They had probably read somewhere those charming verses of Voltaire on glory and smoke, and had come to the just conclusion that between a smoke doctor and an historian of illustrious cotemporaries the difference is rather less than the diameter of the earth. So, thanks to the similarity of the professions, 1 was how possessed of an autograph destined for my quasi colleague. "Oh! happy sweep," I exclaimed, while I still retained so much honesty of purpose as to intend to restore the precious document to the rightful owner, "you are about seeing genius in dishabille. No one thinks of making a pose before a professor of your rank, while there is always arrangement of drapery more or less before a biographer. Ah! why can I not be smoke curer and historian at the same time! But what is to prevent me from becoming a pro. fessor of the Black Art? I have known advocates develope into ministers of state between evening and morning. I have some knowledge of physics: I will commence this moment to study the Article Smoke' in the Cyclopedia, and I will soon know the truth or falsehood of all the reports current on the subject of Lelia. I am told of her fierce and fascinating looks, and of her deep and terrible accents. They say that like St. Simon Stylites she inhabits a perch accessible only by ladders, and I read in the Petersburgh Gazette, that she is five feet six in height; that she wears a frock made out of her own hair; that she sticks moustaches on her lip, and has spurs on her boots. These reports require confirmation; and all that can be depended on is, that she is a great poet, and her chimnies encumbered with soot. What better occasion can I find to verify the rest ?"

The contents of the note seeming to imply no personal knowledge of the professor, I arose, dressed myself in haste, and was glad on

looking into a mirror, to perceive in my appearance, just the requisite measure of distinction and elegance befitting a sweep. I perused the article on smoke, clapped a superb two-foot ruler in my pocket, and departed, determined to encounter any function whatever, rather than miss any of those little personal and private details, for which the good public has such a voracious appetite.

I found myself in a small ante-chamber very like all other ante-cham bers. They demanded my name: I hesitated,but summoning up all the zeal of a biographer, I boldly told the lie, and assumed the style and title of the honest tradesman, who I amn sure, little dreamed of the fraud at that moment. I was told to wait a little, and I was not sorry for the suspense, which was barely necessary for conning over my part previous to representation.

Meanwhile the delay was long, and I had time to study the matter on its disagreeable side. A charming little girl with fine curling hair, passed and repassed, and her espiègle and inquisitive glances did not contribute to put me at my ease. It was, no doubt,the little Solange the beautiful child of the illustrious writer.

I began to think that if the theft came to be discovered I would cut a sorry figure in fine the prospect of a chimney to be swept caused me no little uneasiness, taking my want of skill into account. However there was no room for retreat.*

And now, trembling, I awaited the approach of the great, the terrible Lelia, recommending my scattering senses to some heathen goddess, and reciting by way of invocation, the flaming dithyrambus of an eloquent professor. "Lo! here comes the true priestess, the veritable victim of the god; the ground shakes under the impetuous tread of helia, &c. &c. I had some just cause for my awe, for a great clattering of chairs, and an energetic exclamation of the priestess on the awkwardness of the servants reached my ear, the door suddenly opened, and I shut my eyes in an access of fright.

When I opened them I found before me a lady of moderate height, of an embonpoint conformable, and not at all Dantesque. She wore a morning gown somewhat similar to those, we simple mortals of the male sex wear. Hair fine and perfectly black, whatever evil tongues may say, and separated over a forehead large and smooth as a mirror, fell on her cheeks as in the portraits of Raphael. A handkerchief was thrown neligently round her neck. Her look, which some painters persist in investing with force, had on the contrary a remarkable expression of mild melancholy. The sound of her voice was sweet and low; her mouth particularly expressed benevolence and kindness; and there was in her whole appearance and attitude, a striking character of simplicity, of nobleness, of calmness. Gall would have seen genius in the breadth of the temples, in the rich development of the forehead; and in the frank look, the oval visage, and the fine but fatigued looking features, Lavater would have read a sorrow ful past, a comfortless present, an extreme bias to enthusiasm, and conse. quently to discouragement. Lavater would have read many other things; but he certainly would not have discovered deceit, nor bitter

• Lerminier, beyond the Rhine, vol. 2, page 271.

ness, nor hatred, for they have no place on this sorrowful and composed countenance. The Lelia of my imagination disappeared before the reality; and what I had before me was simply a kind, sweet, sad, intelligent, and beautiful face.

In continuing my examination, I remarked with pleasure that the great Unhappy had not altogether renounced female vanities; for under the flowing sleeves of her robe, and at the junction of the wrist with the fine white hand, I beheld the sparkle of a bracelet set in gold, and of exquisite finish.

This womanly ornament, which by the way had a very fine effect, relieved my mind from the anxiety caused by the sombre hue and the politico-philosophical exaltation of some of the recent productions of George Sand.

One of the hands which I admiringly examined, concealed a cigarito; badly concealed indeed, for the smoke ascended behind the prophetess in thin, tell-tale volumes.

You may suppose that during this mental inventory my tongue had no holiday. Being set at ease by Lelia's gracious reception, and moreover, desirious to finish off in the most elaborate manner my perfidious biography, I purposely involved the economy of smoke in paraphrases and parentheses, while she listened to me with a goodnatured and courteous indulgence.

At last when I judged that the portrait was accurately traced on the retina of my mind, I cut short my confused exposition, and retired, being delighted to have to inform you that the St. Petersburgh Gazette knows not what it says, that the three fourths of those who gossip about George Sand are only amusing themselves at your expense; that it is true that the prophetess occasionally smokes a cigarito; that she condescends to envelope herself at times in our absurd frock; and that among her intimate acquaintance she answers to the name of George.

This, however, is not forbidden by the code, and falls very far short of the monstrous puerilities posted to her account; and persons well informed can cite many salons of Paris where the illus trious author is seen uniting to the prestige of the genius, the simplicity, the modest demeanor, and the becoming charms of the woman.

And now that you are as well informed on the subject of the lady's personality as myself, it remains to explain by what chain of circumstances the poet has been led to purchase glory at the price of repose.

In the early years of the Restoration the aristocratic convent of the English Ladies in the Rue des Fosses Saint Victor, which then enjoyed the monopoly of patrician education, opened its little gate one fine morning to a young and interesting pensionnaire. The new comer, who might be about fourteen years old, had just arrived from Berri. Her religious education seemed to have been sadly neglected, for the good sisters observed with pious terror, that she betrayed a very philosophic awkwardness in making the sign of the Cross, as if the exercise was not at all habitual. She was a handsome, black haired girl, her well defined features disclosing a wild untamed ptide. She bore with unconcern the unfriendly looks

which, at convent as well as college, are cast on the fresh arrived provincials; and there was in her deportment such an imprint of rustic brusquery, that her refined and aristocratic class-mates soon nicknamed her the garçon. But, as to birth and fortune, the new pupil might challenge equality with the proudest blood of France; for though by her mother's side she could only reckon an opulent family in commerce, through her father she laid claim to royal descent.

All the world knows (?) that Marshal Saxe was the son of Augustus II., king of Poland, by the fair Countess Konigsmark. Under a Saxon envelope, the hero of Fontenoy bore a genuine French heart. His daughter, Maria Aurora, born in 1750, was first married to Count Horn, and after his death she retired as a sort of lay sister to L'Abbaye aux Bois, where she presided with great eclat over a Bureau d'Esprit, the most distinguished of the last century. The Old Maréchal de Richelieu was one of her faithful slaves. M. Dupin de Francueil, son of the Farmer General Claude Dupin, became her second husband, and being named Farmer General of the appanage of Berri, he brought thither his wife; they resided at Chateauroux, and afterwards at Nohant, a league distant from La Châtre. She became a widow in 1786; and her son Maurice, who afterwards enjoyed a high military grade under the empire, being killed at La Châtre by a fall from his horse, his daughter, Marie Aurora, was entrusted to the care of her grand. mother.

This lady who held the Emile of Jean Jacques higher in estimation than the Bible, allowed her wild pupil to scamper in short petticoats all the day long on the banks of the Indre, and chase butterflies along the hollows of the Black Valley.

At the period of the religious reaction following the Restoration, the grandmother, though despising the taste of the day for its preference of the writings of St. Thomas Aquino to those of Rousseau, felt it due to the rank and birth of her grand-daughter to give her an education conformable to the spirit of the age.

Then it was that the little country beauty of Berri was obliged to quit her Black Valley, and enter among the Dames Anglaises with her awkwardnes in making the sign of the Cross, and her boyish propensities.

But very few months had gone by in the convent, when the young pupil was scarcely to be recognised: that fervent and manysided imagination, which, at a later period, flashed out in the abrupt sallies of the great writer, began to reveal itself in all its power. The majesty and splendor of the Catholic service, the uniform life, and the pious and peaceable atmosphere of the cloister, wrought a complete revolution in her soul; and Mdlle. Aurora found herself possessed by such a spirit of devotion, that the rule of the house did not appear to her sufficiently severe, nor the daily life sufficiently rough; and the Lady Superior was obliged to moderate her religious exaltation in consideration of her health, and to impress on her mind, that destined as she was, to live in the world, she would at a later period be obliged to reduce very sensibly the proportions of her asceticism.

All the literary demi monde is supposed to know that immediately after her education was completed at the convent, she lost her grandmother, that injudicious guardian to whom Nature and Rousseau stood in the same relation that Allah and Mahommed would stand had she been born in Turkey. She married a full brother of Parson Trulliber, a regular nymph-and-satyr union. It is a pity that neither Heathen poet nor painter has left us a picture of the domestic life of these their favorites after assuming the cares of a household, and submit. ting their necks to the yoke of the landlord and the tax collector. Ariel must shut her eyes to a desolate future if the thought of wedding Caliban gains an ascendancy in her mind. Mme. Duedevant after enduring her bitter bondage as long as she could afford, fled from her prison, and took the road to her former asylum.

In 1828, the Father Confessor of the Dames Anglaises, who had erewhile directed the conscience of Mdlle. Dupin, came one day to ask a favor of the Superior. He related how one of his penitents, a former pupil of the establishment, finding herself in a difficult and painful position, wished to make a pious retreat in her former happy asylum. She at first refused, alleging the usage and rule; but the priest persevered, and obtained the favor demanded; and the fugitive of Nohant once more crossed the threshold of the peaceful refuge where the years of her pure and fervent youth had been passed. But her destiny called her elsewhere; genius claimed its prey; and after some days she abruptly entered that world, to resign herself to all the ups and downs, the passions, the joys, and the woes of an artist's career.'

We

"We are near the dog-days of July, 1830; we are tired of dusty streets, of wearisome desk labours. We must get away to green meadows, to river sides, and the cool shades of forests. will submit to no King, no priest shall guide us; laws were made for slaves, religious rites for weak-minded devotees. All nature is pervaded by a spirit of some kind, not very deter mined in its operatious, nor iutelligible in its purposes. Our selves form a portion of that spirit. Why then should we pay painful worship to that of which ourselves are an integrant portion? Mankind is out of its infancy; we'll build no useless Churches, nor lose our time saying useless prayers, and marriage shall become a tradition of painful memory.

The good old days of Solomon will return; Fourrier, Proudhon, Joe Smith, and Brigham Young, will teach us to exert our energies, to prolong our lives indefinitely, to create new planets, and to render the passage into the unseen world of no more consequence than making a change in our diet. All these glorious views are yet in perspective, but a beginuing is made; Charles X. is in exile; the Parisian grocers have one of their guild on the throne; Christianity is out of favor at court,

T

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