February 3, 2020 • 41 mins
She was an incredibly famous writer of incredible output. Her behavior and personal style were almost as talked about as her novels, and these factors combined made her into a figure that was admired by many, despised by some, and completely fascinating.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you missed in history class, the production
of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy D. Wilson.
I will apologize right out of the gate that I
have Torch Song voice. I think sometimes people wonder why
(00:22):
we don't uh maybe postpone recording if one of us
is ill. I suddenly I sound hoarse and I'm not
even the person who has been We already canceled last
week completely. Yeah, like we're at the point of no return.
We have to record an episode. The good news is,
I will tell you I'm mostly better, Like I'm not
suffering through this. My voice just hasn't fully recovered yet.
(00:43):
I'm at like good. Yeah, I just sound a little froggy. Yeah,
and I'm fine. But for some reason, the moment I
got on Mike just now, my voice was like, you know,
what I think I want to do is have sympathy
for Holly, right, sympathetic Frog, I unders, and but we're
gonna carry on because that's what we do. We're going
(01:04):
to talk about somebody that's been on my list forever,
which is George Song and the popular image of George
Sound is sort of this sexy artiste of early eight
hundreds Paris. It's not entirely off base, but she was,
above all else a writer of incredible output and was
in her time incredibly famous. Her behavior and her personal
(01:26):
style were almost as talked about as her novels, and
all of these factors combined made her into a figure
that was admired by many, despised by some. But it
seems like fascination with her was almost universal, and we
should mention George Sound was involved romantically with a lot
of people. She was kind of a serial monogamist um.
(01:47):
She would kind of bounce from one paramore to another,
and that was a big influence on her work. And
she wrote a lot of different works. We will not
list them all because, as we said, her output was astonishing.
We also won't list all of her paramore's or all
of her writing titles. But just no, we're giving you
a brief version. And I still think it's a pretty
full of of saucy adventure and writing. Yes, so if
(02:10):
we if we omit your favorite book or your favorite romance,
it's not personal. There are just a lot of them.
Don't worry Chopin is in here, which is what everybody's
thinking right now, right, They're not going to leave our Chopin. No.
I think that's actually how how she wound up moving
finally up to the top of your list. As we
had been brainstorming for a thing about people described as muses,
(02:34):
and there was the yeah for a whole separate thing,
and I was like, gosh, she's been on my list forever,
although I I had already started an episode on her.
You know how I'll do that. I'll start an episode,
write a few hundred to a thousand words, and then
be like, I'm gonna move on to something else for
a little while, and then that episode sort of wits
in its germination stage until I come back around on it.
(02:56):
So in terms of what we're actually talking about today,
we'll start at the beginning, as we often do. Almanty
Lucille roor Dupin was born on July first of eighteen
and four in Paris, and her family and friends normally
called her Aurora. Her father, Maurice Dupin, was an officer
in the French Army serving under Napoleon, and her mother
(03:18):
was Sophie de la Borde, who was a bird seller's daughter.
Bird selling as a profession just kind of delights me
a little bit here. Uh. Sophie and Maurice had been
together for several years before Aurora was born, but they
only got married a month before her birth. The two
of them already had children, both with other people and together.
(03:39):
Maurice refused to acknowledge his son from a prior relationship.
That was, although Maurice's mother made sure that the boy
and his own mother were provided for and moved them
into a house in the family property. Sophie had a
daughter from a previous relationship named Caroline Dillaboard, and the
children that Sophie and Maurice had together before Aura had
(04:00):
all died in infancy, so there were a lot of
members of this family, but also in the terms of
two of them together. Aurora was the first surviving child correct,
and just before or turned four, her parents had another child,
this time a son named August Louis and Agost Louis
was born in Madrid, as Sophie had traveled to Spain
(04:20):
to be with Maurice, that was where Napoleon had stationed him,
and then they all went back to France shortly after
Aroora's birthday. That was a trip that took them through
rural France during brutal famine, and it was something the
images of that trip really stuck with Aurora vividly for years.
The baby, August Louis died on September eight of eight
(04:41):
o eight, that was just shy of three months old.
Maurice had an accident and died eight days later after
falling off a horse, and then not long after that,
Sophie had to relinquish custody of aroor to her grandmother
because she just wasn't able to provide for her. Aurora
then spent most of her childhood Innant in central of France,
and this was her family's home, and she spent a
(05:03):
lot of time there on the family estate with her grandmother.
Sophie did not leave her daughter's life though, even though
she had relinquished custody. She still would spend time at
Nuance at the chateau each summer, and Aurora would also
sometimes travel to Paris for visits with her mother as well.
So Roora spent her formative years in this idyllic rural
environment of Nant and that's I believe to have informed
(05:25):
a lot of her writing. She was tutored by a
man named Jean Francois Dishart as a child. That was
the same person who had educated her father, and he
was something of an eccentric, So she got a little
haphazard sort of an education. It probably wouldn't qualify as
a formal education in any sense of the phrase. She
also had lessons alongside her half brother, although it was
(05:47):
unclear to the children exactly what their relationship was to
each other for quite some time. Yeah, they're reading about
uh Jean. His involvement in her life is sometimes was
glossed over in this weird sort of way about what
a weird education she got. I read one thing that
suggested that he started dressing her in boys clothes because
(06:09):
that just made more sense to him to have a
pupil that was dressed as a boy, because he was
only used to educating boys. I don't know if there's
any actual value in that information or fact to it, um,
but it is pretty widely accepted that whatever education she
got from him was a little bit cookie um. And
as she reached her early teenage years or or started
(06:30):
as many kids do, to rebel. Her grandmother was very
old fashioned and she expected ladylike behavior and that was
simply not in a Roor's nature. So the child started
telling her grandmother that was she wanted to do was
going to Paris and live with her mother. I feel
like this is the tale as old as time, right, Like,
you're not my real mom. I'm gonna go where so
(06:51):
I can be me not so much. Yeah. So there's
some speculation that Aroora's mother, Sophie, may have supported herself
with sex work when she was a teenager after her
parents had both died, and it seems that grandmother chose
this moment to tell Aurora about her mother's alleged profession
in the midst of this rebellion, presumably as a way
(07:12):
to try to shame or scare her into obedience. And
the end result of all this conflict, because or Or
still was not going to be happy staying at home,
was that at the age of thirteen, she was sent
to a convent in Paris to live with the English
Augustinian Sisters, and shifting from country life to being immerged
wholly in a religious environment in the city had a
(07:34):
very profound effect on the teenager. She became deeply interested
in mysticism during this time. But though she seemed very
very happy at the convent and even considered becoming a
nun herself, that was a little too far for what
her grandmother had in mind, and so her grandmother brought
her back to Noah. Just a couple of years later,
when she was seventeen, Aurora inherited the family estate. After
(07:56):
her grandmother died, Sophie came back to retrieve teenage daughter
brought her back to Paris, but at that point Aurora
was really not interested in answering to her mother, so
she got married because she thought that was going to
offer her some more independence. This is another story that
I feel like comes up in all kinds of modern tales,
and I'm like, George sam did this before anybody else.
(08:19):
I'm sure there were other people that did it before her.
But she got married to a man named Kasimir du
Devon on September seventeenth of eight, and the couple were
married in Paris, but they moved to Noon to settle down,
and du Devon was nine years older than a Roar.
He was the son of a baron who was born
out of wedlock, but he was acknowledged by his father
so in marrying him, Aroor became the Baroness du Devon.
(08:43):
The couple had a child in June following their wedding.
This is the son they named Maurice, and for the
next year they traveled, eventually settling in Paris at the
end of eighteen four. They kept traveling a great deal though,
including going back to Know What for extended visits, and
initially it kind of seems like Ror was trying to
make the best out of this marriage, but over time
(09:03):
she grew restless and unsatisfied in her life with dud Devon,
and she started to exhibit signs of what we would
probably categorize this depression today. Kazimir was a poor match
for her for a number of reasons. Roor was a
devout reader and the stories that she read made her
long for more than her domestic life. Kasimir was not
(09:24):
that he was not so much into the life of
the mind, and he tended to find solace with other
romantic interests that he found less complicated than his wife,
including their housemaids. And this kind of seems like one
of those cases where a couple with an age gap
gets married because initially the older partner seems cool to
the younger partner, but as the younger partner matures, it
turns out that they grow beyond that older partner, because
(09:47):
she was pretty done with him within a few years
in they were traveling in the Pyrenees and Aurora met
a young judge named Jean Pierre Aurelian Disas, and the
two of them were immediately attracted to one another, but
he was engaged. He said that he found his fiance
beautiful but dull, and Aurora, who was smart and insightful,
(10:10):
was just fascinating to him. The two of them exchanged
love letters over the next five years and what's often
described as a passionate but platonic love, although there is
debate about whether the platonic part was really true. Yeah,
we don't know. This experience of having such an intense
connection to someone made it abundantly clear to Roora that
(10:33):
her marriage by comparison would never offer her the same
kind of excitement or be very fulfilling, and she told
Casimir about her affection for just says and that they
needed to figure out some sort of way to make
their household livable. In eighty six, a man named Stefan
Jason de Grass reentered Aurora's life, and he had been
(10:55):
a tutor of hers earlier on, but when the two
of them became re acquainted, this intense attraction between them
led to a physical relationship. He was probably the father
of Aurora's daughter, Solage, who was born in September of eighteen.
In the year after her daughter was born, Aurora began writing.
In earnest She penned a travel memoir La Marne That's
(11:18):
the Godmother during this time, as well as his Tuil Deva,
which is story of a dreamer. That particular book was
never finished. In the summer of eighteen thirty, Aurora met
another man, this one seven years younger than she was,
who would really catalyze a significant life change that the
then year old Aurora had really been longing for. This
(11:39):
was Jules Sando, who was an aspiring writer, and the
two of them soon became romantically involved. I feel like
that phrase the two of them soon became romantically involved,
can just be repeated so many times throughout this episode. Uh,
this is a really significant turning point though for Aroor.
So we were gonna pause here for a quick sponsor
break before we get into how her life changed. In
(12:05):
early Roor moved to Paris with Jules Sando, leaving behind
her husband and her home. She had made an arrangement
with Kasimir regarding this move, though that arrangement was not
arrived at in a particularly amicable fashion. The dude of
all household had as Aroora became more and more restless,
become a place of persistent strife. Husband and wife argued
(12:26):
constantly and they only ever seemed to be happy in
relationships with people outside the marriage. So in eighteen thirty one,
the decision was made that a Roar would spend half
of each year in Paris, switching out with life at
Noan every three months, and during a Roor's times in Paris,
the children were split up, so her toddler daughter Solange
would stay in no Long with Kasimir and Maurice. Their
(12:49):
son was cared for by a tutor. Aurora started to
more seriously focus on writing in Paris, now writing under
the pseudonym Jules Sand or sometimes just Jason. That work
was published in La Figaro, which is a periodical run
by Ari Latouche, who would become one of Aroora's closest friends.
Latouche and you'll sometimes see his name as de la
(13:11):
Touche basically asked Aurora to write these satirical pieces as
a freelancer, and that marked the beginning of her professional
career as a writer. There's ongoing debate about these pieces.
They are generally believed to be collaborations between Aurora and
Jules Sando, but it's unclear about exactly how much of
them contributed. Yeah, how much either of them wrote of
(13:33):
any of those pieces will probably be debated forever. And
this is also the period of her life when Aurora
began wearing men's wear, and she would write of this
shift in her attire later quote, I had a century
box coat made of rough gray cloth, with trousers and
a waistcoat to match, with a gray hat and a
huge cravat of woolen material. I looked exactly like a
(13:54):
first year student. So this was scandalous to some people,
but it's also more important to note that it was
flat out illegal. Women in Paris were supposed to get
a permit to wear men's clothing. That was a law
that had been issued in eighteen hundred. If a woman
could prove that she needed to dress in men's wear
for a medical reason, she could get a permit to
(14:16):
do it, but Aurora and a handful of other women
did it without a permit. They didn't try to get
a permit, they wore whatever they wanted without much in
the way of real consequences. That law was actually still
on the books in Paris, not really enforced though until ten. Yeah.
If you look back at articles, they're like, finally women
(14:36):
can wear pants, which they're writing as a joke, because
of course people had been wearing pants forever um. And
this was a time when it seemed that Aurora was
truly defining the woman that she wanted to be, and
she was establishing her unique identity. She wasn't necessarily wearing
men's clothes to cause a stir. She found them more
practical and more comfortable than wearing dresses. But she did
(14:58):
also enjoy seeing the different way she was treated when
she was wearing men's wear. Her figure was not especially curvy,
so she was sometimes mistaken for a man, and that
was something which she seemed to quite enjoy, particularly when
she could reveal to the confused observer that in fact,
she was a woman. She wrote a first novel called
Indiana at the end of eighteen thirty one that was
(15:19):
published in May of eighteen thirty two under her new
pen name, which was George Sound. Eventually she grew tired
of Jules Sundo. She broke off their relationship and moved
into a new apartment nearby. Her daughter, Solange moved in
with her. Yeah that point, Solange was a little bit
older than her her toddler age, and she would have
needed more constant attention, so it worked out just fine.
(15:42):
Indiana is not surprisingly a story about a woman dissatisfied
with her marriage. She longs for passion and adoration, and
in that quest she puts her faith in the wrong man.
Uh spoiler alert. This is one of those classic tropes
where the right man was in front of her the
whole time, and the two do eventually end up together.
And this novel was an instant success. This is when
(16:05):
Aurora became famous and became publicly known as George Shun,
so we're gonna change over to addressing her by that name. Initially,
she chose a pen name because she wanted people to
appreciate the writing rather than marvel at the fact that
a woman had written it. But soon it was really
common knowledge that this was written by a woman and
she just kind of rolled with it. Yeah. I have
(16:27):
to wonder if her like constant love of revealing, like
in fact, I am not a student but a woman. Uh,
didn't help, you know, kind of dissipate any anonymity she
had been hoping for. Uh. Indiana was quickly followed by
another novel of Volenteine in November of that same year,
and at that point, George was kind of the it
writer in Paris. So keep in mind that this is
(16:49):
a time when novels were sort of equivalent to film
or television today in terms of their prominence's entertainment. So
she became something of an overnight celebrity following Indiana's publication.
The Volentine of this novel is the story is heroin
and she's an aristocrat who falls in love with a
poor farmer. In addition to the theme of true love
that can never be actualized because of a class disparity,
(17:12):
this book also serves as a feminist critique of the
poor standards of education for women. Volentine is prepared only
to be a wife and nothing more, and even if
she were to end up with her farmer love, she
would not be prepared well for the rigors of that
kind of a life. In early eighteen thirty three, George
song had a brief romantic relationship with a woman, and
(17:34):
this was the actress Marie d'Or val. This was a
heavy time for songd. Newly famous and free from the
domestic life that she had fled, she really had her
pick of suitors. Eighteen thirties three was also the year
that George published her third novel, Lalia, and not long
after she began her relationship with Dorval, Songed met fellow
writer Alfred D. Muse, who also became her lover and
(17:57):
with whom she had an on again, off again romance
that would I will any fiction. Lalia gave readers a
heroine who was a lot like Sound herself, an iconoclass
who did not care about societal convention. The titular character
finds happiness neither with her many love affairs nor in
being celibate. When Lalia tells her courtisan sister of this
(18:17):
whole situation, the sister suggests that Lalia should become a
courtisan herself. This catalyzes a plot that involves a poet
who's in love with Lalia, whose life falls apart after
she tries to seduce him and then betrays him. I
have not read this book. It sounds very complicated to me. Uh.
Lalia was also panned by the press. Yeah, uh and
(18:38):
again uh. In some ways she is pulling from her
own life and her various relationships, Like it is not
a surprise that at a time when she has met
a Fred the mouse, with whom she had a very
volatile relationship, uh, that she was also writing about these
sort of complicated romantic matters. Um. The end of eighteen
(18:59):
thirties three in the beginning of eighteen thirty four were
very chaotic and fraught. George and Musse decided to go
away to Italy, but that trip turned very sour. And
this really sounds like a telenovella plot. Things went completely awry.
First when George got dysentery. Muse then began having episodes
of delirium because it turned out he had typhoid fever.
(19:23):
Then George began an affair with the Italian doctor who
came to treat Muse. His name was Luigi Pagello. And
when Muse recovered enough to return to Paris, saw And
decided that she would stay behind in Venice with her
new beloved doctor. Three months after Mus returned to Paris,
Yours also felt as though she could go back to France,
(19:43):
particularly to see her children, so in June of eighteen
thirty four, she left Italy for Paris. She brought the
doctor with her, but not long after getting there, George
split up with him to return to Muse. Although the
reunion lasted less than a month. Um. I certain would
not recommend it as a piece of historical information. But
if you have ever seen or have not seen the
(20:06):
movie Impromptu, which is about Georg Sound, in which the
incomparable Judy Davis plays George Um, Mandy Patinkin plays Muse,
and he is spectacular UM, you get a sense of
all of their levels of drama when the two of
them are together on screen. Throughout all of this drama.
Though in her personal life, Sound was writing and publishing.
(20:28):
She published a series of stories in the literary magazine
Ruvoue de du Mond during her turbulent eighteen thirty four,
including Leon Leoni and Jacques, and at the beginning of
eighteen thirty five, Sound and Muse reunited one last time,
but their relationship was completely over by March of that year.
Post muse, George began seeing a lawyer in Noel named
(20:51):
Louis Michele. The next big event and George Sand's life
was finally legally separating herself from Kasimir dude Von. This
was a significant legal battle. Her lawyer Paramore could not
continue their relationship. He was married. He did not wish
to disrupt his life with a long term affair, but
he did manage George's legal separation before they split up,
(21:15):
getting significant judgment wins for her. In July eight thirty six,
the separation, although it was not a divorce, was finally settled.
The two key aspects of the legal decision that her
lawyer Louis Michelle had fought for, where that a George
got custody of the children and be her chateau and
property in no Want reverted entirely back to her. Her
(21:39):
son Maurice would have been thirteen at this point and
Solange was seven on the verge of turning eight. And
once she had married dud Devon, he had become the
controller of the family finances, so she had been given
an allowance out of what was rightfully her own inheritance,
so that was what she was seeking to to reverse
at this point. Even after the separation, Psalm did provide
(22:01):
her husband with an annual income. Around this time, Son
met previous podcast subject Franz List and his paramour, Marie Dougoux.
Franz and Marie traveled to No Want to Visit Sound
twice in eighteen thirty seven, and it was through this
friendship that George met the man she's most often associated with,
who we referenced back at the top of the show,
(22:21):
Frederic Chopin. The friendship with Marie in particular, would disintegrate
in time. It was revealed to George that she had
been gossiping about her and generally scheming against her. Son
eventually wrote, quote, your understanding of friendship is different than mine.
You just won't give up being a beautiful and witty
(22:41):
woman who slaughters and smashes all the others. And while
Sam was instantly taken with Chopin when she met him,
largely because of his musical skill, that interest was not
initially reciprocated. In a letter that he wrote to family,
Chopin wrote something about her repels me, But by May
of eighteen thirty eight, the two were lovers. They stayed
(23:04):
together for nine years and both of them were incredibly
productive during their romance. It's kind of considered like their
golden period for both of them as creators. Their relationship
was perplexing to their friends. At first. Chopin was quiet
and reserved, with delicate health. He was the polar opposite
of George, who lived however, she wished and was unafraid
(23:26):
of just about everything. There were whispers and their social
circle that the match might take a toll on Chopin,
who was perceived to be pretty fragile, and during their
first winter together, she took him along with her two children,
to ma Yorka to stay in a monastery. The weather
and the meager accommodations there were really rough on the composer.
(23:47):
He coughed up blood throughout this whole stay. After that debacle,
they returned to Neat, where George fawn over Frederick and
nursed him back to health. In addition to Chopin, Saul's
friendship with List and Dagou connected her to many of
Europe's most popular writers and artists. Many of those people
spent time with her at the Chateau in Noan, including
(24:08):
Honore de Balzac and Eugene Delacroix, who employed her son
Maurice as an apprentice for a time. In April of
eighteen forty, your Son tried her hand at a different
kind of writing, which was theater, and this did not
go so well. Her play Cosima, which was also titled
Lahan Daan Lamore, Hate and Love, was a flop. In
eighteen forty one, Song found herself in a battle with
(24:31):
the leadership of the Review de d Mond over her
new novel Horace. The periodicals editor had no wish to
publish this work, and this led to your Song developing
her own literary periodical, Review and Dependents, in which Pierre
LaRue and Louis Viardot were her partners. This offered her
a vehicle to publish her own work whenever she wanted
(24:52):
and as she saw fit. She had an increasing interest
in political matters at this point, and so George Son
was inspired at in eighteen forty four to start another periodical.
While Law Review Independant was an outlet for her romantic
literary work, her second paper, Leclearra, which is The Scout,
gave her a place to print her increasingly political and
(25:13):
particularly socialist writing. In eighteen forty seven, after nine years together,
a permanent rift formed between Song and Chopin. In February
of that year, Song and her daughter Solange sat for
sculptor August Clesigner, and Solange and the sculptor fell madly
in love. This was a little bit complicated because Solange
was engaged to someone else, but she broke off that
(25:35):
relationship to Mary Cleisigner three months after meeting him. Two
months after the wedding, which George had not really supported,
the writer got into a huge fight over money with
her daughter and her new son in law. Clesigner pulled
a gun and threatened Sound. In the midst of this
high tension family conflict. It was Solange and not George
(25:57):
the Chopin ultimately sided with. He broke up with son
by letter, and that's sans version. At least Chopin had
come to think of Solange as his own daughter and
he was not willing to cut her out of his life.
When the composer and the writer did see each other
again the year after their breakup, that's kind of written
about as though they kind of ran into each other accidentally.
(26:19):
Chopin gave George the news that Solange had given birth
to a daughter that was to be the last time
that Psalm and Chopin saw each other. Chopin died on
October of tuberculosis. Claus and j actually cast his death mask,
and George Song did not attend Chopin's funeral. Many people
(26:39):
actually blamed her for his death, even though his health
improved considerably during his time at Noan after that first
slightly disastrous winter. Psalm did, however, later reconcile with her daughter.
Next we will talk about George Son's life after Chopin,
But first we're going to pause for a word from
one of our sponsors, because we could not do this
(27:00):
show without them. The wave of revolutions that began in
France in February eighty eight led to the overthrow of
King Louis Philippe and the rise of the Second Republic.
The Second Republic, which Song believed would be closely aligned
(27:21):
with her own personal ideals, drew her back to Paris,
and she started another new periodical there, La Cause, The
Cause of the People. She also wrote for a number
of other socialist papers during that time. But in the
months after the overthrow of the monarchy, it became clear
that the new government of France was a lot more
conservative than san had hoped it would be. She was
(27:42):
completely disillusioned by this turn of events, and she went
back to a lot, where she spent most of her
time for the rest of her life. The rustic short
novel Francois le Champi was published in eighteen forty eight.
It is the story of a champi that is a
nickname that translates literally to little mushroom, but in this
context here first to a country orphan. This book was
(28:02):
very popular, and in eighteen forty nine it was staged
as a play at the Odeon Theater in Paris, and,
unlike her earlier foray into theater, Sawn met with great success,
with Francois on the stage. For Christmas. In eighteen forty nine,
sans Son Maurice invited his friend Alexandra Monceux to noat. Manceux,
who was an engraver, moved into the chateau permanently as
(28:25):
George's companion, and for the next two years they greeted
an assortment of visitors and know what, they put on
shows in the parlor theater there. In eighteen fifty two,
after Napoleon the Third came to power, George used her
considerable influence to broke her pardons from the new emperor
for many of his political opponents. She continued to advocate
(28:45):
politically with the Buonaparte family on behalf of peasants and
the working class, and as a consequence, she actually became
pretty good friends with Prince Jerome Napoleon, the cousin of
Napoleon the Third. In eighteen fifty four, George's autobiography is
ar dem Vi began publishing an installments in the journal
La Press. The story of her life spooled out over
(29:07):
the course of a hundred and thirty eight installments, and
then it was published and its entirety in book form
over the course of twenty volumes, which gives you a
sense of why we're not mentioning all of the individual details.
As she approached her fifties, George wanted to ensure that
her family would be taken care of long term after
(29:28):
her death, and she began to work on selling the
rights to future publication royalties for her work in an
effort to secure financial stability for the family. Family life
itself remained complex. In eighteen fifty three, Solange had entrusted
George with the care of her second daughter, Jeanne, who
went by Ninni, and as the marriage between Solange and
her sculpture husband broke down, Pleasant showed up at Noel
(29:51):
to take the child from Palmd, catalyzing a custody battle
over the five year old and those. Palm was able
to get custody of Nini after a months long legal fight.
The child contracted scarlet fever soon after and died in
eighteen fifty five. Suns, who had continued to write prolifically
throughout all of these personal dramas, signed a ten book
(30:12):
deal with Hashett three years later. She also made up
with Francois Bouleaux, who was the editor at Revue de
du Monts that she had fallen out with years earlier.
The literary magazine once again started publishing her work, starting
with Lome de la NAIs or The Snowman in eighteen
fifty eight. In eighteen fifty nine, Sun set off a
minor literary war when she published l a Louis That's
(30:35):
Her and Him in Installments and This was a fictionalized
version of her romance with Alfred de Muse years earlier.
Muse had died two years prior to Sun's story coming out.
Keep in mind this whole thing was more than twenty
years after their relationship, and Muse had had his say
when he published his version of their story in eighteen
(30:55):
thirty six. But just the same, Saul's story earned the
ire of Muse's brother, who wrote his own book titled
Louis a l and once again represented his brother's side
of the story. Despite the skirmish over her past romance
in eighteen fifty nine, Song remained a celebrity and a success.
At the end of that year, one of the first
(31:16):
celebrity licensed luxury since was created. That was Oh De
George sand for the Body and for the Hanky. Yet
another illustrious writer was still to step into George's life,
and that was Gustave Flaubert. The two men in eighteen
sixty while Sond was visiting Paris, later became friends and
went on to exchange letters for years. This is perhaps
(31:39):
a surprising friendship since Flaubert's work Madame Bovary, which came
out in eighteen fifty six, seemed to mock the very
sort of woman George Sond writes about in her books,
and indeed presented herself as Song like her heroine's was
obsessed with romance, with emotions, with the search for passion,
and if you have read Madame Bovarie, you know that
(32:00):
emmab Ovary is ultimately consumed by those very behaviors, and
it is not always terribly flattering of her. Um. We
should note that the interpretation of Flaubert's intent had been
argued since the book's publication, and that quote the of
Oftensey attributed to him Madame Bovari Smoi might indicate that
he was perhaps less condescending about romanticism than it might
(32:21):
appear at first glance. Regardless of the writers seem to
adore each other, despite the obviously different points of view
that were represented in their correspondence. Flaubert refers to Song
as dear Master. At one point, as they debated politics.
He wrote quote, ah, dear good master, if you could
only hate, that is what you lack hate. In spite
(32:43):
of your great sphinx eyes, you have seen the world
through a golden color. Their letters, which you can read online,
are absolutely darling. Some of them are u uh. It's
a very playful and sweet correspondence. It kind of reminds
me of the text that you might send to you
know your your best friend, and back and forth the
two of them tease and chastise each other, and at
(33:05):
one point in eighteen sixty six, Flobeart suggests that if
they stopped joking in their letters, Song will become instantly
bored with him. And they often just seem to be
trying to figure out times when their schedules intersect so
that they can have dinner together. But it's all peppered
throughout discussions of the human soul and the afterlife and
the nature of art. And as I said, it's a
very charming read. In eighteen sixty one, Yours and Solange
(33:28):
had another falling out. This time George accused Solange of
basically allowing a man to pay to keep her. The
two women had continued to butt heads over money, and
Solange had confided her financial problems to her mother. She
got a less than cordial reply by letter that read,
in part quote, you should live simply or learn to
(33:49):
work to anything anyone ever says to you. You reply
that it's impossible. My only advice is this, Both privation
and work require a strong will. And you say, how boring.
I've got nothing more to say. As a result, of
these disagreements, the two women did not speak for four years. Yeah,
they classic mother and daughter conflict relationship. George's son Maurice,
(34:15):
also had some sort of falling out with Alexandle Monceaux,
that is, his his friend who had become George Soon's
companion and lover, and he asked that his former friend
leave noan And it is unclear why this ultimatum was given.
It is possible that Maurice, who had married in eighteen
sixty two, suddenly saw Manceu as a freeloader in his
(34:37):
mother's world. But we have to give Monceux his due.
He was absolutely devoted to George. So many men had
fallen in love with her during her life, but Manceux
supported her in ways that few people ever experience in
a partner. Son was a constant and prolific writer. She
turned out twenty pages a day every day. Because the
(34:58):
chateau had constant tests that had needs and cost money,
and because she paid allowances to her children and rented
places in Paris, she just needed a constant stream of income,
so she wrote even when a party went on at
the chateau until the wee hours. She would then write
and write until sunrise, and when she would sit down
for a long session, Manceu would bring her everything she
(35:21):
might need, her paper and her ink, her cigarette, papers
and tobacco, any refreshments she might need. He actually purchased
a small cottage nearby for them to escape to when
the chateau got too crowded with guests for her to
be able to write. In short, he enabled her to
continue her career uninterrupted in the years that they were together. Yeah,
he wasn't like so supportive, Like it's like when everybody
(35:44):
dreams of in a partner that supports him and keeps
them going and unconditionally loves them. He was there for
all of them. So when Maurice insisted that Manceu had
to leave Noan, that is exactly what happened, and George
Sand left with him, and after they traveled for a bit,
the pair landed in Palizeau, just outside of Paris. Manceux
(36:05):
died of tuberculosis a year later, but it would be
two more years before George Sand would return to Noon.
The last ten years of her life were a mix
of the life that she loved so much at Noant
and travel and politics. She criticized both the radical Paris
Commune government which ruled for several months in eighteen seventy one,
and the toppling of that government. Because of the violent
(36:27):
and bloody conflict that took place, She and her family
fled Noant briefly due to a smallpox scare, and she
entertained loads of visitors at the chateau. As always, she
still wrote constantly along with all of that. At sixty nine,
she wrote Continent Dune Grandmere Tales of a Grandmother. In
late eighteen seventy five, Sawn organized all of her work
(36:48):
so it could be published as a complete collection, and
she wrote a preface for it. Soon thereafter, she started
work on a new novel, aut Been Fury. She died
on June eighth, eighteen seventy six, just a few weeks
shy of her seventy second birthday. In her lifetime, Sound
wrote more than fifty novels, more than a dozen play
her extensive autobiography, and innumerable pamphlets, essays, and letters. In
(37:13):
eighteen forty four, Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote a poem titled
to George Song, a recognition and celebration of the controversial
writer's ability to carve out her own exceptional life that
defied gender norms. Here's how that poem reads, Thou, large
brained woman and large hearted man, self called George Song,
(37:34):
whose soul amid the lions of thy tumultuous senses, moans
defiance and answers roar for roar as spirits can. I
would some mild, miraculous thunder ran above the applauded circus
and appliance of thine own nobler nature's strength and science,
drawing two pinions, white as wings of swan from thy
(37:55):
strong shoulders to amaze the place with holier light, that
Thou to woman's claim and man's might join, besides the
angel's grace of a pure genius, sanctified from blame, till
child and maiden pressed to thine, embraced to kiss upon
thy lips a stainless fame. Oh is your song, And
(38:15):
I love you so much. To her, um, it's funny
because I don't um super love her novels. Sure, this
is not my jam, but I love her as a
person and her biography. I think she's kind of fabulous
in the way that you know, saucy woman who sets
(38:36):
out to make her own life very much outside of
the norms of societal Morey's that is pretty fun. And
uh yeah, I can't say I would I would want
her romantic life. That sounds exhausting, but you know, she's
still very fun. Yeah. There are moments that I'm like,
that sounds like a lot of fun, and other moments
(38:56):
that I'm like, Okay, I'm tired now, right the light down.
I mean, I love the idea, like, oh, that's another
good time travel thing. I would love the chance to
visit Noah and like hang out. It's some of her
epic like perpetual parties that seemed to be going on
there with lots of interesting, fun, smart people. Right. Can
I just hang out at Noah with Delia for a while?
(39:17):
That sounds great. I have some listener mail that is
not about George Song, but it's sort of about another
woman that I'm a fan of in history. This is
from our listener Blaze, and she writes, high Holly and Tracy.
I was in a thrift store in a small town
in northern New Mexico recently, and I came across the
enclosed postcards related to Queen Victoria and her clothing. I thought, you,
(39:39):
especially Hollywood enjoy them, so I'm sending them along. I've
never been to London, but I'm glad someone none of
us have ever met went to the Museum of London
and bought postcards that they never managed to send. I
hope you also enjoy this card from the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta.
Balloons are a big deal in New Mexico. Thanks for
all your hard work and sharing history with the masses.
I've been listening to the show since and you, in
(40:00):
the previous hosts have helped me through some really lonely times.
I appreciate you all the best. Blaze. That's so cool, Blaze,
thank you so much. There um beautiful pictures there are
of Queen Victoria, uh, some of her later in life
garments that were on display at the Museum of London
at some point in time. Her Jubilee portrait, which I love.
(40:24):
Some bonnets from the era. They are the only known
examples of Queen Victoria's bonnets before eighteen sixty one, which
are beautiful. One of them has a beautiful rose bread
or rose ribbon trim. Anyway, I love these, of course
because Uh, thank you so much, Blaze for sending those.
Those are awesome. If you would like to write to us,
you can do so at History Podcast at i heart
(40:44):
radio dot com. You can also find us everywhere on
social media as Missed in History. If you would like
to subscribe to the show that Sounds Just Grand, you
can do that on the I heart radio app, an
Apple podcast, or wherever it is you listen. Stuff you
Missed in History Class is a production of I heart
Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my heart Radio,
(41:07):
visit the heart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff you missed in history class, the production
of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy D. Wilson.
I will apologize right out of the gate that I
have Torch Song voice. I think sometimes people wonder why
(00:22):
we don't uh maybe postpone recording if one of us
is ill. I suddenly I sound hoarse and I'm not
even the person who has been We already canceled last
week completely. Yeah, like we're at the point of no return.
We have to record an episode. The good news is,
I will tell you I'm mostly better, Like I'm not
suffering through this. My voice just hasn't fully recovered yet.
(00:43):
I'm at like good. Yeah, I just sound a little froggy. Yeah,
and I'm fine. But for some reason, the moment I
got on Mike just now, my voice was like, you know,
what I think I want to do is have sympathy
for Holly, right, sympathetic Frog, I unders, and but we're
gonna carry on because that's what we do. We're going
(01:04):
to talk about somebody that's been on my list forever,
which is George Song and the popular image of George
Sound is sort of this sexy artiste of early eight
hundreds Paris. It's not entirely off base, but she was,
above all else a writer of incredible output and was
in her time incredibly famous. Her behavior and her personal
(01:26):
style were almost as talked about as her novels, and
all of these factors combined made her into a figure
that was admired by many, despised by some. But it
seems like fascination with her was almost universal, and we
should mention George Sound was involved romantically with a lot
of people. She was kind of a serial monogamist um.
(01:47):
She would kind of bounce from one paramore to another,
and that was a big influence on her work. And
she wrote a lot of different works. We will not
list them all because, as we said, her output was astonishing.
We also won't list all of her paramore's or all
of her writing titles. But just no, we're giving you
a brief version. And I still think it's a pretty
full of of saucy adventure and writing. Yes, so if
(02:10):
we if we omit your favorite book or your favorite romance,
it's not personal. There are just a lot of them.
Don't worry Chopin is in here, which is what everybody's
thinking right now, right, They're not going to leave our Chopin. No.
I think that's actually how how she wound up moving
finally up to the top of your list. As we
had been brainstorming for a thing about people described as muses,
(02:34):
and there was the yeah for a whole separate thing,
and I was like, gosh, she's been on my list forever,
although I I had already started an episode on her.
You know how I'll do that. I'll start an episode,
write a few hundred to a thousand words, and then
be like, I'm gonna move on to something else for
a little while, and then that episode sort of wits
in its germination stage until I come back around on it.
(02:56):
So in terms of what we're actually talking about today,
we'll start at the beginning, as we often do. Almanty
Lucille roor Dupin was born on July first of eighteen
and four in Paris, and her family and friends normally
called her Aurora. Her father, Maurice Dupin, was an officer
in the French Army serving under Napoleon, and her mother
(03:18):
was Sophie de la Borde, who was a bird seller's daughter.
Bird selling as a profession just kind of delights me
a little bit here. Uh. Sophie and Maurice had been
together for several years before Aurora was born, but they
only got married a month before her birth. The two
of them already had children, both with other people and together.
(03:39):
Maurice refused to acknowledge his son from a prior relationship.
That was, although Maurice's mother made sure that the boy
and his own mother were provided for and moved them
into a house in the family property. Sophie had a
daughter from a previous relationship named Caroline Dillaboard, and the
children that Sophie and Maurice had together before Aura had
(04:00):
all died in infancy, so there were a lot of
members of this family, but also in the terms of
two of them together. Aurora was the first surviving child correct,
and just before or turned four, her parents had another child,
this time a son named August Louis and Agost Louis
was born in Madrid, as Sophie had traveled to Spain
(04:20):
to be with Maurice, that was where Napoleon had stationed him,
and then they all went back to France shortly after
Aroora's birthday. That was a trip that took them through
rural France during brutal famine, and it was something the
images of that trip really stuck with Aurora vividly for years.
The baby, August Louis died on September eight of eight
(04:41):
o eight, that was just shy of three months old.
Maurice had an accident and died eight days later after
falling off a horse, and then not long after that,
Sophie had to relinquish custody of aroor to her grandmother
because she just wasn't able to provide for her. Aurora
then spent most of her childhood Innant in central of France,
and this was her family's home, and she spent a
(05:03):
lot of time there on the family estate with her grandmother.
Sophie did not leave her daughter's life though, even though
she had relinquished custody. She still would spend time at
Nuance at the chateau each summer, and Aurora would also
sometimes travel to Paris for visits with her mother as well.
So Roora spent her formative years in this idyllic rural
environment of Nant and that's I believe to have informed
(05:25):
a lot of her writing. She was tutored by a
man named Jean Francois Dishart as a child. That was
the same person who had educated her father, and he
was something of an eccentric, So she got a little
haphazard sort of an education. It probably wouldn't qualify as
a formal education in any sense of the phrase. She
also had lessons alongside her half brother, although it was
(05:47):
unclear to the children exactly what their relationship was to
each other for quite some time. Yeah, they're reading about
uh Jean. His involvement in her life is sometimes was
glossed over in this weird sort of way about what
a weird education she got. I read one thing that
suggested that he started dressing her in boys clothes because
(06:09):
that just made more sense to him to have a
pupil that was dressed as a boy, because he was
only used to educating boys. I don't know if there's
any actual value in that information or fact to it, um,
but it is pretty widely accepted that whatever education she
got from him was a little bit cookie um. And
as she reached her early teenage years or or started
(06:30):
as many kids do, to rebel. Her grandmother was very
old fashioned and she expected ladylike behavior and that was
simply not in a Roor's nature. So the child started
telling her grandmother that was she wanted to do was
going to Paris and live with her mother. I feel
like this is the tale as old as time, right, Like,
you're not my real mom. I'm gonna go where so
(06:51):
I can be me not so much. Yeah. So there's
some speculation that Aroora's mother, Sophie, may have supported herself
with sex work when she was a teenager after her
parents had both died, and it seems that grandmother chose
this moment to tell Aurora about her mother's alleged profession
in the midst of this rebellion, presumably as a way
(07:12):
to try to shame or scare her into obedience. And
the end result of all this conflict, because or Or
still was not going to be happy staying at home,
was that at the age of thirteen, she was sent
to a convent in Paris to live with the English
Augustinian Sisters, and shifting from country life to being immerged
wholly in a religious environment in the city had a
(07:34):
very profound effect on the teenager. She became deeply interested
in mysticism during this time. But though she seemed very
very happy at the convent and even considered becoming a
nun herself, that was a little too far for what
her grandmother had in mind, and so her grandmother brought
her back to Noah. Just a couple of years later,
when she was seventeen, Aurora inherited the family estate. After
(07:56):
her grandmother died, Sophie came back to retrieve teenage daughter
brought her back to Paris, but at that point Aurora
was really not interested in answering to her mother, so
she got married because she thought that was going to
offer her some more independence. This is another story that
I feel like comes up in all kinds of modern tales,
and I'm like, George sam did this before anybody else.
(08:19):
I'm sure there were other people that did it before her.
But she got married to a man named Kasimir du
Devon on September seventeenth of eight, and the couple were
married in Paris, but they moved to Noon to settle down,
and du Devon was nine years older than a Roar.
He was the son of a baron who was born
out of wedlock, but he was acknowledged by his father
so in marrying him, Aroor became the Baroness du Devon.
(08:43):
The couple had a child in June following their wedding.
This is the son they named Maurice, and for the
next year they traveled, eventually settling in Paris at the
end of eighteen four. They kept traveling a great deal though,
including going back to Know What for extended visits, and
initially it kind of seems like Ror was trying to
make the best out of this marriage, but over time
(09:03):
she grew restless and unsatisfied in her life with dud Devon,
and she started to exhibit signs of what we would
probably categorize this depression today. Kazimir was a poor match
for her for a number of reasons. Roor was a
devout reader and the stories that she read made her
long for more than her domestic life. Kasimir was not
(09:24):
that he was not so much into the life of
the mind, and he tended to find solace with other
romantic interests that he found less complicated than his wife,
including their housemaids. And this kind of seems like one
of those cases where a couple with an age gap
gets married because initially the older partner seems cool to
the younger partner, but as the younger partner matures, it
turns out that they grow beyond that older partner, because
(09:47):
she was pretty done with him within a few years
in they were traveling in the Pyrenees and Aurora met
a young judge named Jean Pierre Aurelian Disas, and the
two of them were immediately attracted to one another, but
he was engaged. He said that he found his fiance
beautiful but dull, and Aurora, who was smart and insightful,
(10:10):
was just fascinating to him. The two of them exchanged
love letters over the next five years and what's often
described as a passionate but platonic love, although there is
debate about whether the platonic part was really true. Yeah,
we don't know. This experience of having such an intense
connection to someone made it abundantly clear to Roora that
(10:33):
her marriage by comparison would never offer her the same
kind of excitement or be very fulfilling, and she told
Casimir about her affection for just says and that they
needed to figure out some sort of way to make
their household livable. In eighty six, a man named Stefan
Jason de Grass reentered Aurora's life, and he had been
(10:55):
a tutor of hers earlier on, but when the two
of them became re acquainted, this intense attraction between them
led to a physical relationship. He was probably the father
of Aurora's daughter, Solage, who was born in September of eighteen.
In the year after her daughter was born, Aurora began writing.
In earnest She penned a travel memoir La Marne That's
(11:18):
the Godmother during this time, as well as his Tuil Deva,
which is story of a dreamer. That particular book was
never finished. In the summer of eighteen thirty, Aurora met
another man, this one seven years younger than she was,
who would really catalyze a significant life change that the
then year old Aurora had really been longing for. This
(11:39):
was Jules Sando, who was an aspiring writer, and the
two of them soon became romantically involved. I feel like
that phrase the two of them soon became romantically involved,
can just be repeated so many times throughout this episode. Uh,
this is a really significant turning point though for Aroor.
So we were gonna pause here for a quick sponsor
break before we get into how her life changed. In
(12:05):
early Roor moved to Paris with Jules Sando, leaving behind
her husband and her home. She had made an arrangement
with Kasimir regarding this move, though that arrangement was not
arrived at in a particularly amicable fashion. The dude of
all household had as Aroora became more and more restless,
become a place of persistent strife. Husband and wife argued
(12:26):
constantly and they only ever seemed to be happy in
relationships with people outside the marriage. So in eighteen thirty one,
the decision was made that a Roar would spend half
of each year in Paris, switching out with life at
Noan every three months, and during a Roor's times in Paris,
the children were split up, so her toddler daughter Solange
would stay in no Long with Kasimir and Maurice. Their
(12:49):
son was cared for by a tutor. Aurora started to
more seriously focus on writing in Paris, now writing under
the pseudonym Jules Sand or sometimes just Jason. That work
was published in La Figaro, which is a periodical run
by Ari Latouche, who would become one of Aroora's closest friends.
Latouche and you'll sometimes see his name as de la
(13:11):
Touche basically asked Aurora to write these satirical pieces as
a freelancer, and that marked the beginning of her professional
career as a writer. There's ongoing debate about these pieces.
They are generally believed to be collaborations between Aurora and
Jules Sando, but it's unclear about exactly how much of
them contributed. Yeah, how much either of them wrote of
(13:33):
any of those pieces will probably be debated forever. And
this is also the period of her life when Aurora
began wearing men's wear, and she would write of this
shift in her attire later quote, I had a century
box coat made of rough gray cloth, with trousers and
a waistcoat to match, with a gray hat and a
huge cravat of woolen material. I looked exactly like a
(13:54):
first year student. So this was scandalous to some people,
but it's also more important to note that it was
flat out illegal. Women in Paris were supposed to get
a permit to wear men's clothing. That was a law
that had been issued in eighteen hundred. If a woman
could prove that she needed to dress in men's wear
for a medical reason, she could get a permit to
(14:16):
do it, but Aurora and a handful of other women
did it without a permit. They didn't try to get
a permit, they wore whatever they wanted without much in
the way of real consequences. That law was actually still
on the books in Paris, not really enforced though until ten. Yeah.
If you look back at articles, they're like, finally women
(14:36):
can wear pants, which they're writing as a joke, because
of course people had been wearing pants forever um. And
this was a time when it seemed that Aurora was
truly defining the woman that she wanted to be, and
she was establishing her unique identity. She wasn't necessarily wearing
men's clothes to cause a stir. She found them more
practical and more comfortable than wearing dresses. But she did
(14:58):
also enjoy seeing the different way she was treated when
she was wearing men's wear. Her figure was not especially curvy,
so she was sometimes mistaken for a man, and that
was something which she seemed to quite enjoy, particularly when
she could reveal to the confused observer that in fact,
she was a woman. She wrote a first novel called
Indiana at the end of eighteen thirty one that was
(15:19):
published in May of eighteen thirty two under her new
pen name, which was George Sound. Eventually she grew tired
of Jules Sundo. She broke off their relationship and moved
into a new apartment nearby. Her daughter, Solange moved in
with her. Yeah that point, Solange was a little bit
older than her her toddler age, and she would have
needed more constant attention, so it worked out just fine.
(15:42):
Indiana is not surprisingly a story about a woman dissatisfied
with her marriage. She longs for passion and adoration, and
in that quest she puts her faith in the wrong man.
Uh spoiler alert. This is one of those classic tropes
where the right man was in front of her the
whole time, and the two do eventually end up together.
And this novel was an instant success. This is when
(16:05):
Aurora became famous and became publicly known as George Shun,
so we're gonna change over to addressing her by that name. Initially,
she chose a pen name because she wanted people to
appreciate the writing rather than marvel at the fact that
a woman had written it. But soon it was really
common knowledge that this was written by a woman and
she just kind of rolled with it. Yeah. I have
(16:27):
to wonder if her like constant love of revealing, like
in fact, I am not a student but a woman. Uh,
didn't help, you know, kind of dissipate any anonymity she
had been hoping for. Uh. Indiana was quickly followed by
another novel of Volenteine in November of that same year,
and at that point, George was kind of the it
writer in Paris. So keep in mind that this is
(16:49):
a time when novels were sort of equivalent to film
or television today in terms of their prominence's entertainment. So
she became something of an overnight celebrity following Indiana's publication.
The Volentine of this novel is the story is heroin
and she's an aristocrat who falls in love with a
poor farmer. In addition to the theme of true love
that can never be actualized because of a class disparity,
(17:12):
this book also serves as a feminist critique of the
poor standards of education for women. Volentine is prepared only
to be a wife and nothing more, and even if
she were to end up with her farmer love, she
would not be prepared well for the rigors of that
kind of a life. In early eighteen thirty three, George
song had a brief romantic relationship with a woman, and
(17:34):
this was the actress Marie d'Or val. This was a
heavy time for songd. Newly famous and free from the
domestic life that she had fled, she really had her
pick of suitors. Eighteen thirties three was also the year
that George published her third novel, Lalia, and not long
after she began her relationship with Dorval, Songed met fellow
writer Alfred D. Muse, who also became her lover and
(17:57):
with whom she had an on again, off again romance
that would I will any fiction. Lalia gave readers a
heroine who was a lot like Sound herself, an iconoclass
who did not care about societal convention. The titular character
finds happiness neither with her many love affairs nor in
being celibate. When Lalia tells her courtisan sister of this
(18:17):
whole situation, the sister suggests that Lalia should become a
courtisan herself. This catalyzes a plot that involves a poet
who's in love with Lalia, whose life falls apart after
she tries to seduce him and then betrays him. I
have not read this book. It sounds very complicated to me. Uh.
Lalia was also panned by the press. Yeah, uh and
(18:38):
again uh. In some ways she is pulling from her
own life and her various relationships, Like it is not
a surprise that at a time when she has met
a Fred the mouse, with whom she had a very
volatile relationship, uh, that she was also writing about these
sort of complicated romantic matters. Um. The end of eighteen
(18:59):
thirties three in the beginning of eighteen thirty four were
very chaotic and fraught. George and Musse decided to go
away to Italy, but that trip turned very sour. And
this really sounds like a telenovella plot. Things went completely awry.
First when George got dysentery. Muse then began having episodes
of delirium because it turned out he had typhoid fever.
(19:23):
Then George began an affair with the Italian doctor who
came to treat Muse. His name was Luigi Pagello. And
when Muse recovered enough to return to Paris, saw And
decided that she would stay behind in Venice with her
new beloved doctor. Three months after Mus returned to Paris,
Yours also felt as though she could go back to France,
(19:43):
particularly to see her children, so in June of eighteen
thirty four, she left Italy for Paris. She brought the
doctor with her, but not long after getting there, George
split up with him to return to Muse. Although the
reunion lasted less than a month. Um. I certain would
not recommend it as a piece of historical information. But
if you have ever seen or have not seen the
(20:06):
movie Impromptu, which is about Georg Sound, in which the
incomparable Judy Davis plays George Um, Mandy Patinkin plays Muse,
and he is spectacular UM, you get a sense of
all of their levels of drama when the two of
them are together on screen. Throughout all of this drama.
Though in her personal life, Sound was writing and publishing.
(20:28):
She published a series of stories in the literary magazine
Ruvoue de du Mond during her turbulent eighteen thirty four,
including Leon Leoni and Jacques, and at the beginning of
eighteen thirty five, Sound and Muse reunited one last time,
but their relationship was completely over by March of that year.
Post muse, George began seeing a lawyer in Noel named
(20:51):
Louis Michele. The next big event and George Sand's life
was finally legally separating herself from Kasimir dude Von. This
was a significant legal battle. Her lawyer Paramore could not
continue their relationship. He was married. He did not wish
to disrupt his life with a long term affair, but
he did manage George's legal separation before they split up,
(21:15):
getting significant judgment wins for her. In July eight thirty six,
the separation, although it was not a divorce, was finally settled.
The two key aspects of the legal decision that her
lawyer Louis Michelle had fought for, where that a George
got custody of the children and be her chateau and
property in no Want reverted entirely back to her. Her
(21:39):
son Maurice would have been thirteen at this point and
Solange was seven on the verge of turning eight. And
once she had married dud Devon, he had become the
controller of the family finances, so she had been given
an allowance out of what was rightfully her own inheritance,
so that was what she was seeking to to reverse
at this point. Even after the separation, Psalm did provide
(22:01):
her husband with an annual income. Around this time, Son
met previous podcast subject Franz List and his paramour, Marie Dougoux.
Franz and Marie traveled to No Want to Visit Sound
twice in eighteen thirty seven, and it was through this
friendship that George met the man she's most often associated with,
who we referenced back at the top of the show,
(22:21):
Frederic Chopin. The friendship with Marie in particular, would disintegrate
in time. It was revealed to George that she had
been gossiping about her and generally scheming against her. Son
eventually wrote, quote, your understanding of friendship is different than mine.
You just won't give up being a beautiful and witty
(22:41):
woman who slaughters and smashes all the others. And while
Sam was instantly taken with Chopin when she met him,
largely because of his musical skill, that interest was not
initially reciprocated. In a letter that he wrote to family,
Chopin wrote something about her repels me, But by May
of eighteen thirty eight, the two were lovers. They stayed
(23:04):
together for nine years and both of them were incredibly
productive during their romance. It's kind of considered like their
golden period for both of them as creators. Their relationship
was perplexing to their friends. At first. Chopin was quiet
and reserved, with delicate health. He was the polar opposite
of George, who lived however, she wished and was unafraid
(23:26):
of just about everything. There were whispers and their social
circle that the match might take a toll on Chopin,
who was perceived to be pretty fragile, and during their
first winter together, she took him along with her two children,
to ma Yorka to stay in a monastery. The weather
and the meager accommodations there were really rough on the composer.
(23:47):
He coughed up blood throughout this whole stay. After that debacle,
they returned to Neat, where George fawn over Frederick and
nursed him back to health. In addition to Chopin, Saul's
friendship with List and Dagou connected her to many of
Europe's most popular writers and artists. Many of those people
spent time with her at the Chateau in Noan, including
(24:08):
Honore de Balzac and Eugene Delacroix, who employed her son
Maurice as an apprentice for a time. In April of
eighteen forty, your Son tried her hand at a different
kind of writing, which was theater, and this did not
go so well. Her play Cosima, which was also titled
Lahan Daan Lamore, Hate and Love, was a flop. In
eighteen forty one, Song found herself in a battle with
(24:31):
the leadership of the Review de d Mond over her
new novel Horace. The periodicals editor had no wish to
publish this work, and this led to your Song developing
her own literary periodical, Review and Dependents, in which Pierre
LaRue and Louis Viardot were her partners. This offered her
a vehicle to publish her own work whenever she wanted
(24:52):
and as she saw fit. She had an increasing interest
in political matters at this point, and so George Son
was inspired at in eighteen forty four to start another periodical.
While Law Review Independant was an outlet for her romantic
literary work, her second paper, Leclearra, which is The Scout,
gave her a place to print her increasingly political and
(25:13):
particularly socialist writing. In eighteen forty seven, after nine years together,
a permanent rift formed between Song and Chopin. In February
of that year, Song and her daughter Solange sat for
sculptor August Clesigner, and Solange and the sculptor fell madly
in love. This was a little bit complicated because Solange
was engaged to someone else, but she broke off that
(25:35):
relationship to Mary Cleisigner three months after meeting him. Two
months after the wedding, which George had not really supported,
the writer got into a huge fight over money with
her daughter and her new son in law. Clesigner pulled
a gun and threatened Sound. In the midst of this
high tension family conflict. It was Solange and not George
(25:57):
the Chopin ultimately sided with. He broke up with son
by letter, and that's sans version. At least Chopin had
come to think of Solange as his own daughter and
he was not willing to cut her out of his life.
When the composer and the writer did see each other
again the year after their breakup, that's kind of written
about as though they kind of ran into each other accidentally.
(26:19):
Chopin gave George the news that Solange had given birth
to a daughter that was to be the last time
that Psalm and Chopin saw each other. Chopin died on
October of tuberculosis. Claus and j actually cast his death mask,
and George Song did not attend Chopin's funeral. Many people
(26:39):
actually blamed her for his death, even though his health
improved considerably during his time at Noan after that first
slightly disastrous winter. Psalm did, however, later reconcile with her daughter.
Next we will talk about George Son's life after Chopin,
But first we're going to pause for a word from
one of our sponsors, because we could not do this
(27:00):
show without them. The wave of revolutions that began in
France in February eighty eight led to the overthrow of
King Louis Philippe and the rise of the Second Republic.
The Second Republic, which Song believed would be closely aligned
(27:21):
with her own personal ideals, drew her back to Paris,
and she started another new periodical there, La Cause, The
Cause of the People. She also wrote for a number
of other socialist papers during that time. But in the
months after the overthrow of the monarchy, it became clear
that the new government of France was a lot more
conservative than san had hoped it would be. She was
(27:42):
completely disillusioned by this turn of events, and she went
back to a lot, where she spent most of her
time for the rest of her life. The rustic short
novel Francois le Champi was published in eighteen forty eight.
It is the story of a champi that is a
nickname that translates literally to little mushroom, but in this
context here first to a country orphan. This book was
(28:02):
very popular, and in eighteen forty nine it was staged
as a play at the Odeon Theater in Paris, and,
unlike her earlier foray into theater, Sawn met with great success,
with Francois on the stage. For Christmas. In eighteen forty nine,
sans Son Maurice invited his friend Alexandra Monceux to noat. Manceux,
who was an engraver, moved into the chateau permanently as
(28:25):
George's companion, and for the next two years they greeted
an assortment of visitors and know what, they put on
shows in the parlor theater there. In eighteen fifty two,
after Napoleon the Third came to power, George used her
considerable influence to broke her pardons from the new emperor
for many of his political opponents. She continued to advocate
(28:45):
politically with the Buonaparte family on behalf of peasants and
the working class, and as a consequence, she actually became
pretty good friends with Prince Jerome Napoleon, the cousin of
Napoleon the Third. In eighteen fifty four, George's autobiography is
ar dem Vi began publishing an installments in the journal
La Press. The story of her life spooled out over
(29:07):
the course of a hundred and thirty eight installments, and
then it was published and its entirety in book form
over the course of twenty volumes, which gives you a
sense of why we're not mentioning all of the individual details.
As she approached her fifties, George wanted to ensure that
her family would be taken care of long term after
(29:28):
her death, and she began to work on selling the
rights to future publication royalties for her work in an
effort to secure financial stability for the family. Family life
itself remained complex. In eighteen fifty three, Solange had entrusted
George with the care of her second daughter, Jeanne, who
went by Ninni, and as the marriage between Solange and
her sculpture husband broke down, Pleasant showed up at Noel
(29:51):
to take the child from Palmd, catalyzing a custody battle
over the five year old and those. Palm was able
to get custody of Nini after a months long legal fight.
The child contracted scarlet fever soon after and died in
eighteen fifty five. Suns, who had continued to write prolifically
throughout all of these personal dramas, signed a ten book
(30:12):
deal with Hashett three years later. She also made up
with Francois Bouleaux, who was the editor at Revue de
du Monts that she had fallen out with years earlier.
The literary magazine once again started publishing her work, starting
with Lome de la NAIs or The Snowman in eighteen
fifty eight. In eighteen fifty nine, Sun set off a
minor literary war when she published l a Louis That's
(30:35):
Her and Him in Installments and This was a fictionalized
version of her romance with Alfred de Muse years earlier.
Muse had died two years prior to Sun's story coming out.
Keep in mind this whole thing was more than twenty
years after their relationship, and Muse had had his say
when he published his version of their story in eighteen
(30:55):
thirty six. But just the same, Saul's story earned the
ire of Muse's brother, who wrote his own book titled
Louis a l and once again represented his brother's side
of the story. Despite the skirmish over her past romance
in eighteen fifty nine, Song remained a celebrity and a success.
At the end of that year, one of the first
(31:16):
celebrity licensed luxury since was created. That was Oh De
George sand for the Body and for the Hanky. Yet
another illustrious writer was still to step into George's life,
and that was Gustave Flaubert. The two men in eighteen
sixty while Sond was visiting Paris, later became friends and
went on to exchange letters for years. This is perhaps
(31:39):
a surprising friendship since Flaubert's work Madame Bovary, which came
out in eighteen fifty six, seemed to mock the very
sort of woman George Sond writes about in her books,
and indeed presented herself as Song like her heroine's was
obsessed with romance, with emotions, with the search for passion,
and if you have read Madame Bovarie, you know that
(32:00):
emmab Ovary is ultimately consumed by those very behaviors, and
it is not always terribly flattering of her. Um. We
should note that the interpretation of Flaubert's intent had been
argued since the book's publication, and that quote the of
Oftensey attributed to him Madame Bovari Smoi might indicate that
he was perhaps less condescending about romanticism than it might
(32:21):
appear at first glance. Regardless of the writers seem to
adore each other, despite the obviously different points of view
that were represented in their correspondence. Flaubert refers to Song
as dear Master. At one point, as they debated politics.
He wrote quote, ah, dear good master, if you could
only hate, that is what you lack hate. In spite
(32:43):
of your great sphinx eyes, you have seen the world
through a golden color. Their letters, which you can read online,
are absolutely darling. Some of them are u uh. It's
a very playful and sweet correspondence. It kind of reminds
me of the text that you might send to you
know your your best friend, and back and forth the
two of them tease and chastise each other, and at
(33:05):
one point in eighteen sixty six, Flobeart suggests that if
they stopped joking in their letters, Song will become instantly
bored with him. And they often just seem to be
trying to figure out times when their schedules intersect so
that they can have dinner together. But it's all peppered
throughout discussions of the human soul and the afterlife and
the nature of art. And as I said, it's a
very charming read. In eighteen sixty one, Yours and Solange
(33:28):
had another falling out. This time George accused Solange of
basically allowing a man to pay to keep her. The
two women had continued to butt heads over money, and
Solange had confided her financial problems to her mother. She
got a less than cordial reply by letter that read,
in part quote, you should live simply or learn to
(33:49):
work to anything anyone ever says to you. You reply
that it's impossible. My only advice is this, Both privation
and work require a strong will. And you say, how boring.
I've got nothing more to say. As a result, of
these disagreements, the two women did not speak for four years. Yeah,
they classic mother and daughter conflict relationship. George's son Maurice,
(34:15):
also had some sort of falling out with Alexandle Monceaux,
that is, his his friend who had become George Soon's
companion and lover, and he asked that his former friend
leave noan And it is unclear why this ultimatum was given.
It is possible that Maurice, who had married in eighteen
sixty two, suddenly saw Manceu as a freeloader in his
(34:37):
mother's world. But we have to give Monceux his due.
He was absolutely devoted to George. So many men had
fallen in love with her during her life, but Manceux
supported her in ways that few people ever experience in
a partner. Son was a constant and prolific writer. She
turned out twenty pages a day every day. Because the
(34:58):
chateau had constant tests that had needs and cost money,
and because she paid allowances to her children and rented
places in Paris, she just needed a constant stream of income,
so she wrote even when a party went on at
the chateau until the wee hours. She would then write
and write until sunrise, and when she would sit down
for a long session, Manceu would bring her everything she
(35:21):
might need, her paper and her ink, her cigarette, papers
and tobacco, any refreshments she might need. He actually purchased
a small cottage nearby for them to escape to when
the chateau got too crowded with guests for her to
be able to write. In short, he enabled her to
continue her career uninterrupted in the years that they were together. Yeah,
he wasn't like so supportive, Like it's like when everybody
(35:44):
dreams of in a partner that supports him and keeps
them going and unconditionally loves them. He was there for
all of them. So when Maurice insisted that Manceu had
to leave Noan, that is exactly what happened, and George
Sand left with him, and after they traveled for a bit,
the pair landed in Palizeau, just outside of Paris. Manceux
(36:05):
died of tuberculosis a year later, but it would be
two more years before George Sand would return to Noon.
The last ten years of her life were a mix
of the life that she loved so much at Noant
and travel and politics. She criticized both the radical Paris
Commune government which ruled for several months in eighteen seventy one,
and the toppling of that government. Because of the violent
(36:27):
and bloody conflict that took place, She and her family
fled Noant briefly due to a smallpox scare, and she
entertained loads of visitors at the chateau. As always, she
still wrote constantly along with all of that. At sixty nine,
she wrote Continent Dune Grandmere Tales of a Grandmother. In
late eighteen seventy five, Sawn organized all of her work
(36:48):
so it could be published as a complete collection, and
she wrote a preface for it. Soon thereafter, she started
work on a new novel, aut Been Fury. She died
on June eighth, eighteen seventy six, just a few weeks
shy of her seventy second birthday. In her lifetime, Sound
wrote more than fifty novels, more than a dozen play
her extensive autobiography, and innumerable pamphlets, essays, and letters. In
(37:13):
eighteen forty four, Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote a poem titled
to George Song, a recognition and celebration of the controversial
writer's ability to carve out her own exceptional life that
defied gender norms. Here's how that poem reads, Thou, large
brained woman and large hearted man, self called George Song,
(37:34):
whose soul amid the lions of thy tumultuous senses, moans
defiance and answers roar for roar as spirits can. I
would some mild, miraculous thunder ran above the applauded circus
and appliance of thine own nobler nature's strength and science,
drawing two pinions, white as wings of swan from thy
(37:55):
strong shoulders to amaze the place with holier light, that
Thou to woman's claim and man's might join, besides the
angel's grace of a pure genius, sanctified from blame, till
child and maiden pressed to thine, embraced to kiss upon
thy lips a stainless fame. Oh is your song, And
(38:15):
I love you so much. To her, um, it's funny
because I don't um super love her novels. Sure, this
is not my jam, but I love her as a
person and her biography. I think she's kind of fabulous
in the way that you know, saucy woman who sets
(38:36):
out to make her own life very much outside of
the norms of societal Morey's that is pretty fun. And
uh yeah, I can't say I would I would want
her romantic life. That sounds exhausting, but you know, she's
still very fun. Yeah. There are moments that I'm like,
that sounds like a lot of fun, and other moments
(38:56):
that I'm like, Okay, I'm tired now, right the light down.
I mean, I love the idea, like, oh, that's another
good time travel thing. I would love the chance to
visit Noah and like hang out. It's some of her
epic like perpetual parties that seemed to be going on
there with lots of interesting, fun, smart people. Right. Can
I just hang out at Noah with Delia for a while?
(39:17):
That sounds great. I have some listener mail that is
not about George Song, but it's sort of about another
woman that I'm a fan of in history. This is
from our listener Blaze, and she writes, high Holly and Tracy.
I was in a thrift store in a small town
in northern New Mexico recently, and I came across the
enclosed postcards related to Queen Victoria and her clothing. I thought, you,
(39:39):
especially Hollywood enjoy them, so I'm sending them along. I've
never been to London, but I'm glad someone none of
us have ever met went to the Museum of London
and bought postcards that they never managed to send. I
hope you also enjoy this card from the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta.
Balloons are a big deal in New Mexico. Thanks for
all your hard work and sharing history with the masses.
I've been listening to the show since and you, in
(40:00):
the previous hosts have helped me through some really lonely times.
I appreciate you all the best. Blaze. That's so cool, Blaze,
thank you so much. There um beautiful pictures there are
of Queen Victoria, uh, some of her later in life
garments that were on display at the Museum of London
at some point in time. Her Jubilee portrait, which I love.
(40:24):
Some bonnets from the era. They are the only known
examples of Queen Victoria's bonnets before eighteen sixty one, which
are beautiful. One of them has a beautiful rose bread
or rose ribbon trim. Anyway, I love these, of course
because Uh, thank you so much, Blaze for sending those.
Those are awesome. If you would like to write to us,
you can do so at History Podcast at i heart
(40:44):
radio dot com. You can also find us everywhere on
social media as Missed in History. If you would like
to subscribe to the show that Sounds Just Grand, you
can do that on the I heart radio app, an
Apple podcast, or wherever it is you listen. Stuff you
Missed in History Class is a production of I heart
Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my heart Radio,
(41:07):
visit the heart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
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