June 17, 2023 • 40 mins
This 2020 episode covers George Sand, 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 polarizing figure.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Happy Saturday, everybody. In our behind the scenes that followed
our episode on missus Patrick Campbell, we read a letter
she received that described her pants as wounding the letter writer.
She was wearing those pants in a play where she
was portraying George Sound.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
We have an episode on George Song that came out
on February third, twenty twenty, and it's Today's Saturday Classic
Enjoy Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class, a
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Frye and
I'm Tracy d Wilson. I will apologize right out of
the gate that I have Torch Song voice.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
I think sometimes people wonder why we don't maybe postpone
recording if one of.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Us is ill.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Suddenly I sound horse and I'm not even the person
who has been ill. We already canceled last week completely. Yeah,
like we're 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. I
met like eighty five to ninety percent good. Yeah, I
(01:15):
just sound a little Froggy. Yeah, and I'm fine. But
for some reason, the moment I got on mic just now,
my voice was like, you know, what I think I
want to do is have sympathy for Holly.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Right, you know, sympathetic frog. I understand. Uh, But we're
going to carry on because that's what we do. We
are going to talk about somebody that's been on my
list forever, which is George Sond. And the popular image
of George Sond is sort of this sexy artiste of
early eighteen hundreds Paris. It's not entirely off base, but
(01:46):
she was, above all else a writer of incredible output
and was in her time incredibly famous. Her behavior and
her personal 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
(02:07):
we should mention George Sound was involved romantically with a
lot of people. She was kind of a serial monogamist.
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 paramours or all
(02:29):
of her writing titles. But just know we're giving you
a brief version, and I still think it's a pretty
full of saucy adventure and writing.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Yes, So if we omit your favorite book or your
favorite romance, it's not personal.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
There are just a lot of them. Don't worry, Chopin
is in here, which is what everybody's thinking right now,
right Well, they're not going to leave out Chopin.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
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, and there was.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
The yeah for a whole separate thing, and I was like, gosh,
but on my list forever, although 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 two one
thousand words, and then be like, I'm gonna move on
to something else for a little while, and then that
episode sort of waits in its germination stage until I
come back around on it.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
So, in terms of what we're actually talking about today.
We'll start at the beginning, as we often do. Amnty.
Lucille arrolor Dupin was born on July first of eighteen
oh 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
(03:46):
was Sophie de la Borde, who was a bird seller's daughter.
Bird Selling is a profession just kind of delights me
a little bit here. 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.
(04:07):
Maurice refused to acknowledge his son from a prior relationship
that was Ippolit Chateron, although Maurice's mother made sure that
the boy and his own mother were provided for and
moved them into a house and the family property. Sophie
had a daughter from a previous relationship named Caroline Delabord,
and the children that Sophie and Maurice had together before
(04:27):
Aurora had all died in infancy, so there were a
lot of members of this family but also in the
terms of the two of them together.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Aurora was the first arriving child correct and just before
aur turned four, her parents had another child, this time
a son named August Louis, and August Louis was born
in Madrid, as Sophie had traveled to Spain to be
with Maurice. That was where Napoleon had stationed him, and
then they all went back to France shortly after Aurora's birthday.
(04:55):
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.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
The baby, August Louis, died on September eighth of eighteen
oh 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 Aurora to her grandmother
because she just wasn't able to provide for her.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Aurora then spent most of her childhood in Naant in
central France, and this was her family's home and she
spent a 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 Naant at the chateau each summer, and Aurora
would also sometimes travel to Paris for visits with her
(05:45):
mother as well. So Aurora spent her formative years in
this idyllic rural environment of Nant, and that's believe to
have informed a lot of her riding. She was tutored
by a man named Jean Francois Dischardt 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.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
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 unclear to the children exactly
what their relationship was to each other for quite some time.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Yeah, they're reading about Jean Francois des Schalte. His involvement
in her life is sometimes 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 that just made more sense
to him to have a pupil that was dressed as
(06:40):
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, but it is pretty widely
accepted that whatever education she got from him was a
little bit kooky. And as she reached her early teenage
years or or started, as many kids do, rebel. Her
(07:01):
grandmother was very old fashioned and she expected ladylike behavior
and that was simply not in Aurora's nature. So the
child started telling her grandmother that what she wanted to
do was go to Paris and live with her mother.
Feel like, this is the tale as old as time, right, Like, yeah,
you're not my real mom. I'm gonna go where so
I can be me not so much. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
So there's some speculation that Aurora'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 to try to shame or scare her into obedience.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
And the end result of all this conflict, because Aurora
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 immersed
wholly in a relation bigeous environment in the city had
a very profound effect on the teenager. She became deeply
(08:05):
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 Nooh. Just a couple of years later.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
When she was seventeen, Aurora inherited the family estate. After
her grandmother died, Sophie came back to retrieve for 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.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
This is another story that I feel like comes up
in all kinds of modern tales, and I'm like George
Soum did this before anybody else. I'm sure there were
other people that did it before her. But she got
married to a man named Casimir du Duvon on September
seventeenth of eighteen twenty two, and the couple were married
in Paris, but they moved to Nooan to settle down,
(09:00):
and Duduvont was nine years older than Auror. He was
the son of a baron who was born out of wedlock,
but he was acknowledged by his father, so in marrying him,
Auror became the Baroness Duduvon. 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 twenty four.
(09:21):
They kept traveling a great deal though, including going back
to Nauwant for extended visits, and initially it kind of
seems like Auror was trying to make the best out
of this marriage, but over time she grew restless and
unsatisfied in her life with Duduvon, and she started to
exhibit signs of what we would probably categorize as depression today.
Casimir was a poor match for her for a number
(09:42):
of reasons. Auror was a devout reader and the stories
that she read made her long for more than her
domestic life. Kasimir was not 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
(10:03):
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 she was pretty done with
him within a few years. In eighteen twenty five, they
were traveling in the Pyrenees and Aurora met a young
judge named Jean Pierre Aurelian de SiZ and the two
(10:27):
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, 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
(10:49):
about whether the platonic part was really true. Yeah, uh,
we don't know. This experience of having such an intense
connection to someone made it a abundantly clear to Aurora
that 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 Dessays and that they
(11:13):
needed to figure out some sort of way to make
their household livable.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
In eighteen twenty six, a man named Stefan Ajasson de
Grassgna re entered Aurora's life, and he had been a.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Tutor of hers earlier on, but when.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
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 twenty eight.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
In the year after her daughter was born, Auror began writing.
In earnest. She penned a travel memoir La Marenne That's
the Godmother during this time, as well as Histois d'l revaux,
which is story of a dreamer. That particular book was
never finished.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
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 twenty
six year old Aurora had really been longing for. This
was Jules Sandeaux, who was an aspiring writer, and the
two of them soon became romantically involved.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
I feel like that phrase the two of them soon
became romantically involved, can just be repeated so many times
throughout this episode. This is a really significant turning point
though for Auror. So we were going to pause here
for a quick sponsor break before we get into how
her life changed. In early eighteen thirty one, Aurora moved
(12:37):
to Paris with Jules Sandeau, leaving behind her husband and
her home. She had made an arrangement with Casimir regarding
this move, though that arrangement was not arrived at in
a particularly amicable fashion. The dude of all household had
as Aurora became more and more restless, become a place
of persistent strife. Husband and wife argued constantly and they
(12:57):
only ever seemed to be happy in really relationships with
people outside the marriage. So in eighteen thirty one, the
decision was made that Aurora would spend half of each
year in Paris, switching out with life at noon every
three months. And during Aurora's times in Paris, the children
were split up, so her toddler daughter Solange would stay
in no On with Casimir and Maurice. Their son was
(13:20):
cared for by a tutor.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Aurora started to more seriously focus on writing in Paris,
now writing under the pseudonym Jules sand or sometimes just
J's Song. That work was published in La Figaro, which
is a periodical run by Henri Latouche, who would become
one of Aurora's closest friends. Latouche and you'll sometimes see
his name as de la Touche, basically asked Aurora to
(13:43):
write these satirical pieces as a freelancer, and that marked
the beginning of her professional career as a writer. There's
i'mgoing debate about these pieces. They are generally believed to
be collaborations between Aurora and Jule Sandou, but it's unclear
about exactly how much of them cantributed.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Yeah, how much either of them wrote of 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 sentry box coat
made of rough gray cloth, with trousers and a waistcoat
to match, with a gray hat and a huge cravat
(14:22):
of woolen material. I looked exactly like a first year student.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
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 do it. But Aurora
(14:48):
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 twenty thirteen.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Yeah, if you look back at articles in twenty thirteen,
they're like, finally women can wear pants, which they're writing
as a joke, because of course people had been wearing
pants forever, and this was a time when it seemed
that Aurar 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
(15:24):
found them more practical and more comfortable than wearing dresses,
but she did 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.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
First novel called Indiana at the end of eighteen thirty
one that was published in May of eighteen thirty two
under her new pen name, which was Jorge Sound. Eventually
she grew tired of Jules Sando. She broke off their
relationship and moved into a new apartment nearby. Her daughter,
Solange moved in with her.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
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. 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. A spoiler alert,
(16:24):
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.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
This is when Aurora became famous and became publicly known
as George Sohn, so we're gonna change over to addressing
her by that name.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
Initially, she chose a pen.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
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.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Yeah. I have to wonder if her like constant love
of revealing, like in fact, I am not a student
but a woman, didn't help, you know, kind of dissipate
any anonymity she had been hoping for. Indiana was quickly
followed by another novel of Volentine in November of that
same year, and at that point George was kind of
the it writer in Paris. So keep in mind that
(17:19):
this is a time when novels were sort of equivalent
to film or television today in terms of their prominence
as entertainment, so she became something of an overnight celebrity
following Indiana's publication.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
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,
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
(17:53):
she were to end up with her farmer love, she
would not be prepared well for the rigors of that
kind of a life.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
In early eighteen thirty three, George Sond had a brief
romantic relationship with a woman, and this was the actress
Marie d'Orval. This was a heady time for Sond. Newly
famous and free from the domestic life that she had fled,
she really had her pick of suitors. Eighteen thirty three
was also the year that George published her third novel, Lealia,
and not long after she began her relationship with d'rval
(18:22):
sond met fellow writer Alfred de Mussey, who also became
her lover and with whom she had an on again,
off again romance that would rival any fiction.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
Lealia gave readers a heroine who was a lot like
Sound herself, an iconoclast 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 courtesan
sister of this whole situation, the sister suggests that Lealiah
should become a Cortazan herself. This catalyzes a plot that
(18:54):
involves a poet who's in love with Lealiah whose life
falls apart after she tries to seduce him and then
betrays him. I've not read this book. It sounds very
complicated to me. Lalia was also panned by the press.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Yeah and again. 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 Alfred de Mussey, with whom she had a very
volatile relationship, that she was also writing about these sort
of complicated romantic matters. The end of eighteen thirty three
(19:31):
in the beginning of eighteen thirty four were very chaotic
and fraught. George and Mussey decided to go away to Italy,
but that trip turned very sour. And this really sounds
like a Telenevella plot. Things went completely awry. First when
George got dysentery. Mouse then began having episodes of delirium
because it turned out he had typhoid fever. Then George
(19:54):
began an affair with the Italian doctor who came to
treat Moosey. His name was Luigi Pegelle, and when mose
recovered enough to return to Paris, Sond decided that she
would stay behind in Venice with her new beloved doctor.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Three months after Jose's return to Paris, Desors also felt
as though she could go back to France, 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 Mousey. Although the reunion lasted less
than a month.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
I certainly would not recommend it as a piece of
historical information, but if you have ever seen or have
not seen the movie Impromptu, which is about George Sond,
in which the incomparable Judy Davis plays George, Mandy Patinkin
plays Mouse, and he is spectacular. You get a sense
of all of their levels of drama when the two
(20:51):
of them are together on screen. Throughout all of this drama.
Though in her personal life, Sond was writing and publishing.
She published a series of stories in the literary magazine
Revue de du Monde during her turbulent eighteen thirty four,
including Leon, Leoni and Jacques, and at the beginning of
eighteen thirty five, Sons and Muse reunited one last time,
(21:14):
but their relationship was completely over by March of that year.
Post Mouse, George began seeing a lawyer in Noan named
Louis Michel.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
The next big event in George Son's life was finally
legally separating herself from Casimir du Devon. 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, getting significant judgment
(21:47):
wins for her. In July eighteen 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 were that a George got
custody of the children and b her chateau and property
in noan reverted entirely back to her. Her son Maurice
(22:10):
would have been thirteen at this point and Solange was seven.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
On the verge of turning eight. And once she had
married Dudu Vont 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 reverse at this point. Even
after the separation, Soam did provide her husband with an
annual income.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
Around this time, Son met previous podcast subject Franz List
and his paramour Marie du Gout. Franz and Marie traveled
to Nowant to visit Son 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, Friedrich Chopam. The friendship
(22:55):
with Marie in particular, would disintegrate in time. It was
revealed to 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 woman who slaughters and
smashes all the others.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
And while Palmde 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 together for nine years, and both of them
(23:37):
were incredibly productive during their romance. It's kind of considered
like their golden period for both of them as creators.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Their relationship was perplexing to their friends.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
At first.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Chopin was quiet and reserved, with delicate health. He was
the polar opposite of George, who lived however she wished
and was unafraid of just about everything. There were whispers
in 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
(24:08):
with her two children to New Yorca to stay in
a monastery. The weather and the meager accommodations there were
really rough on the composer. He coughed up blood throughout
this whole stay. After that debacle, they returned to Nowant,
where George fond over Frederick and nursed him back to health.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
In addition to Chopin, Song's friendship with Liszt 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 Honore de Balzac and Eugene de
la Croix, who employed her son Maurice as an apprentice
for a time.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
In April of eighteen forty, George San tried her hand
at a different kind of writing, which was theater, and
this did not go so well. Her play Gozima, which
was also titled La Han da Lamour Hate in Love,
was a flop.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
In eighteen forty one, Saw found herself in a battle
with the leadership of the Review de du Monde over
her new novel Horus. The periodical's editor had no wish
to publish this work, and this led to George Song
developing her own literary periodical, Revue and Dependent, in which
Pierre LaRue and Louis Viardeau were her partners. This offered
(25:19):
her a vehicle to publish her own work whenever she
wanted and as she saw fit.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
She had an increasing interest in political matters at this point,
and so George Sound was inspired in eighteen forty four
to start another periodical. While Law Review into Pendent was
an outlet for her romantic literary work, her second paper,
La Claire, which is The Scout, gave her a place
to print her increasingly political and particularly socialist writing.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
In eighteen forty seven, after nine years together, a permanent
rift formed between Son and Chopin. In February of that year,
Sond and her daughter Solange sat for sculptor Auguste Clesigner,
and Solange and the sculptor fell madly in love of
This was a little bit complicated because Solange was engaged
to someone else, but she broke off that relationship to
(26:07):
Mary Clesignier three months after meeting him.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
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, Klasagnier
pulled a gun and threatened sound in the midst of
this high tenent family conflict. It was Solange and not
George that Chopin ultimately sided with. He broke up with
(26:31):
son by letter, and that's Son's 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. Chopin gave George the news that Solane
(26:51):
had given birth to a daughter. That was to be
the last time that Sond and Chopin saw each other.
Chopin died on October seventeenth, eighteen forty nine, of tuberculosis.
Cleisinger actually cast his death mask. When George Son did
not attend Chopin's funeral, many people actually blamed her for
his death, even though his health improved considerably during his
(27:14):
time at Nauan after that first slightly disastrous winter. Som did, however,
later reconcile with her daughter. Next, we'll 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 show without them. The wave of
(27:40):
revolutions that began in France in February eighteen forty eight
led to the overthrow of King Louis Philippe and the
rise of the Second Republic. The Second Republic, which Sohm
believed would be closely aligned with her own personal ideals,
drew her back to Paris, and she started another new
periodical there, La Carse du Peubre, The Cause of the People.
She also wrote for a number of other socialist papers
(28:03):
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 Son had
hoped it would be. She was completely disillusioned by this
turn of events, and she went back to Noat, where
she spent most of her time for the rest of
her life.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
The rustic short novel Francois le Champi was published in
eighteen forty eight. It is the story of a champill
that is a nickname that translates literally to little mushroom,
but in this context it refers to a country orphan.
This book was 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, Sahn
(28:42):
met with great success with Francois on the stage.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
For Christmas in eighteen forty nine, Son's son Maurice invited
his friend Alexandra Monceaux to Nowant. Monceaux, who was an engraver,
moved into the chateau permanently as George's companion, and for
the next two years they agree did an assortment of
visitors in Naant. They put on shows in the Parlor
theater there.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
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 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,
(29:25):
the cousin of Napoleon the.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
Third, In eighteen fifty four, George's autobiography Istoi de m Ville,
began publishing an installments in the journal La Presse. The
story of her life spooled out over the course of
one hundred and thirty eight installments, and then it was
published in its entirety in book form over the course
of twenty volumes, which gives you a sense of why
(29:49):
we're not mentioning all of the individual details.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
As she approached her fifties, George wanted to ensure that
her family would be taken care of long term after
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, June, who
(30:15):
went by Nini, and as the marriage between Solange and
her sculptor husband broke down, Clesingay showed up at Noel
to take the child from Sond, catalyzing a custody battle
over the five year old, and though Sond was able
to get custody of Nini after a month's long legal fight,
the child contracted scarlet fever soon after and died in.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
Eighteen fifty five. Sonde, who had continued to write prolifically
throughout all of these personal dramas, signed a ten book
deal with Haschet three years later. She also made up
with Francois Bouleaus, who was the editor at Revue des
deu Mont that she had fallen out with years earlier.
The literary magazine once again started publishing her work, starting
(30:57):
with Lome de la Neige or the Snowman in a
teen fifty eight.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
In eighteen fifty nine, Songs set off a minor literary
war when she published El e Louis That's Her and
Him in Installments, and this was a fictionalized version of
her romance with Alfred de Mussey years earlier. Moose had
died two years prior to Song's story coming out. Keep
in mind this whole thing was more than twenty years
after their relationship, and Mousey had had his say when
(31:24):
he published his version of their story in eighteen thirty six.
But just the same Saul's story earned the ire of
Mousey's brother, who wrote his own book titled Louis Eel
and once again represented his brother's side of the story.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
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 celebrity licensed luxury
sense was created. That was Ou de George sound for
the body and for the hanky.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Yet another illustrious writer was still to step into George's life,
and that was Good Style Flaubert. The two met in
eighteen sixty while Song was visiting Paris. Later became friends
and went on to exchange letters for years. This is
perhaps a surprising friendship since Flaubert's work Madame Beauverie, which
came out in eighteen fifty six, seemed to mock the
(32:16):
very sort of woman George Sond writes about in her books,
and indeed presented herself as Song, like her heroines, was
obsessed with romance, with emotions, with this search for passion.
And if you have read Madame Beauverie, you know that
Emma Bovverie is ultimately consumed by those very behaviors, and
it is not always terribly flattering of her. We should
(32:37):
note that the interpretation of Flaubert's intent had been argued
since the book's publication, and that quote the i all
offense he attributed to him Madame Beauvrie semoi, might indicate
that he was perhaps less condescending about romanticism than it
might appear at first glance.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
Regardless, the writers seemed to adore each other, despite the
obviously different points of view that were presented 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 can only hate, that is what you lack hate.
In spite of your great sphinx eyes, you have seen
(33:16):
the world through a golden color.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
Their letters, which you can read online, are absolutely darling,
some of them are. It's a very playful and sweet correspondence.
It kind of reminds me of the text that you
might send to your best friend. And back and forth.
The two of them tease and chastise each other, and
at one point in eighteen sixty six, Flaubert suggests that
(33:39):
if they stop 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
Solage had another falling out. This time George accused Solange
(34:04):
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 learned to
work to anything anyone ever says to you. You reply
(34:24):
that it's impossible. My only advice is this, both privation
and work require a strong will. And when 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 a classic mother and daughter
conflict relationship. George's son Maurice also had some sort of
(34:48):
falling out with alexandle Monceaux, that is, his friend who
had become George Soon's companion and lover, and he asked
that his former friend leave Noah and It is unclear
why this ultimatum was given. It is possible that Maurice,
who had married in eighteen sixty two, suddenly saw Manceaux
as a freeloader in his mother's world. But we have
(35:10):
to give Monceaux his due. He was absolutely devoted to Georgsand.
Many men had fallen in love with her during her life,
but Manceaux supported her in ways that few people ever
experience in a partner.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Sound was a constant and prolific writer. She turned out
twenty pages a day every day. Because the chateau had
constant guests 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
(35:42):
until the wee hours. She would then write and write
until sunrise, and when she would sit down for a
long session, Monceaux would bring her everything she might need,
her paper and her ink, her cigarette, papers and tobacco,
any refreshments she might need. He actually purchased a small
cottage near by for them to escape to when the
chateau got too crowded with guests for her to.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
Be able to write.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
In short, he enabled her to continue her career uninterrupted
in the years that they were together.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
Yeah, he was so supportive Lake and Sik. What everybody
dreams of in a partner that supports in and keeps
him going and unconditionally loves them. He was there for
all of that. So when Maurice insisted that Manceaux had
to leave Noon, that is exactly what happened, and George
soAnd left with him, And after they traveled for a bit,
(36:31):
the pair landed in Palisseau, just outside of Paris. Manceau
died of tuberculosis a year later, but it would be
two war years before George Sound would return to Noon.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
The last ten years of her life were a mix
of the life that she loved so much at Naant
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
and bloody conflict that took place. She and her family
fled no Want briefly due to a smallpox scare, and
(37:04):
she entertained loads of visitors at the chateau. As always,
she still wrote constantly along with all of that. At
sixty nine, she wrote Conte dun Grammer Tales of a Grandmother.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
In late eighteen seventy five, Sond organized all of her
works 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, Albinfiori.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
She died on June eighth, eighteen seventy six, just a
few weeks shy of her seventy second birthday.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
In her lifetime, Sound wrote more than fifty novels, more
than a dozen play her extensive autobiography, and innumerable pamphlets, essays,
and letters.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
In eighteen forty four, Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote a poem
titled Tou George Sond, a recognition in celebration of the
controversial writer's ability to carve out her own exceptional life
that defied gender norms. Here's how that poem reads. Large
brained woman and large hearted man, self called George Sond,
(38:05):
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 to pinions white as wings of swan from thy
(38:26):
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 embrace, to kiss upon
thy lips a stainless fame.
Speaker 1 (38:45):
Oh youorg song, I love you so much. Good her.
Uh It's funny because I don't 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, a saucy woman
(39:06):
who sets out to make her own life very much
outside of the norms of societal mores. This 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.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
There are moments where I'm like, that sounds like a
lot of fun, and other moments are I'm like, Okay,
I'm tired now right, I just.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
Want to lie 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 at some
of her epic like perpetual parties that seem to be
going on there with lots of interesting, fun, smart people. Right.
Can I just hang out at Noah with De la
Croix for a while. That sounds great?
Speaker 2 (39:55):
Thanks so much for joining us on this Saturday. Since
this episode is out of the archive, at an email
address or a Facebook RL or something similar over the
course of the show that could be obsolete now. Our
current email address is History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
Our old house Stuffworks email address no longer works. You
(40:15):
can find us all over social media at missed Inhistory,
and you can subscribe to our show on Apple podcasts,
Google Podcasts, the iHeartRadio app, and wherever else you.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
Listen to podcasts.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Happy Saturday, everybody. In our behind the scenes that followed
our episode on missus Patrick Campbell, we read a letter
she received that described her pants as wounding the letter writer.
She was wearing those pants in a play where she
was portraying George Sound.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
We have an episode on George Song that came out
on February third, twenty twenty, and it's Today's Saturday Classic
Enjoy Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class, a
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Frye and
I'm Tracy d Wilson. I will apologize right out of
the gate that I have Torch Song voice.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
I think sometimes people wonder why we don't maybe postpone
recording if one of.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Us is ill.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Suddenly I sound horse and I'm not even the person
who has been ill. We already canceled last week completely. Yeah,
like we're 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. I
met like eighty five to ninety percent good. Yeah, I
(01:15):
just sound a little Froggy. Yeah, and I'm fine. But
for some reason, the moment I got on mic just now,
my voice was like, you know, what I think I
want to do is have sympathy for Holly.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Right, you know, sympathetic frog. I understand. Uh, But we're
going to carry on because that's what we do. We
are going to talk about somebody that's been on my
list forever, which is George Sond. And the popular image
of George Sond is sort of this sexy artiste of
early eighteen hundreds Paris. It's not entirely off base, but
(01:46):
she was, above all else a writer of incredible output
and was in her time incredibly famous. Her behavior and
her personal 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
(02:07):
we should mention George Sound was involved romantically with a
lot of people. She was kind of a serial monogamist.
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 paramours or all
(02:29):
of her writing titles. But just know we're giving you
a brief version, and I still think it's a pretty
full of saucy adventure and writing.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Yes, So if we omit your favorite book or your
favorite romance, it's not personal.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
There are just a lot of them. Don't worry, Chopin
is in here, which is what everybody's thinking right now,
right Well, they're not going to leave out Chopin.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
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, and there was.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
The yeah for a whole separate thing, and I was like, gosh,
but on my list forever, although 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 two one
thousand words, and then be like, I'm gonna move on
to something else for a little while, and then that
episode sort of waits in its germination stage until I
come back around on it.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
So, in terms of what we're actually talking about today.
We'll start at the beginning, as we often do. Amnty.
Lucille arrolor Dupin was born on July first of eighteen
oh 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
(03:46):
was Sophie de la Borde, who was a bird seller's daughter.
Bird Selling is a profession just kind of delights me
a little bit here. 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.
(04:07):
Maurice refused to acknowledge his son from a prior relationship
that was Ippolit Chateron, although Maurice's mother made sure that
the boy and his own mother were provided for and
moved them into a house and the family property. Sophie
had a daughter from a previous relationship named Caroline Delabord,
and the children that Sophie and Maurice had together before
(04:27):
Aurora had all died in infancy, so there were a
lot of members of this family but also in the
terms of the two of them together.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Aurora was the first arriving child correct and just before
aur turned four, her parents had another child, this time
a son named August Louis, and August Louis was born
in Madrid, as Sophie had traveled to Spain to be
with Maurice. That was where Napoleon had stationed him, and
then they all went back to France shortly after Aurora's birthday.
(04:55):
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.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
The baby, August Louis, died on September eighth of eighteen
oh 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 Aurora to her grandmother
because she just wasn't able to provide for her.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Aurora then spent most of her childhood in Naant in
central France, and this was her family's home and she
spent a 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 Naant at the chateau each summer, and Aurora
would also sometimes travel to Paris for visits with her
(05:45):
mother as well. So Aurora spent her formative years in
this idyllic rural environment of Nant, and that's believe to
have informed a lot of her riding. She was tutored
by a man named Jean Francois Dischardt 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.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
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 unclear to the children exactly
what their relationship was to each other for quite some time.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Yeah, they're reading about Jean Francois des Schalte. His involvement
in her life is sometimes 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 that just made more sense
to him to have a pupil that was dressed as
(06:40):
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, but it is pretty widely
accepted that whatever education she got from him was a
little bit kooky. And as she reached her early teenage
years or or started, as many kids do, rebel. Her
(07:01):
grandmother was very old fashioned and she expected ladylike behavior
and that was simply not in Aurora's nature. So the
child started telling her grandmother that what she wanted to
do was go to Paris and live with her mother.
Feel like, this is the tale as old as time, right, Like, yeah,
you're not my real mom. I'm gonna go where so
I can be me not so much. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
So there's some speculation that Aurora'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 to try to shame or scare her into obedience.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
And the end result of all this conflict, because Aurora
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 immersed
wholly in a relation bigeous environment in the city had
a very profound effect on the teenager. She became deeply
(08:05):
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 Nooh. Just a couple of years later.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
When she was seventeen, Aurora inherited the family estate. After
her grandmother died, Sophie came back to retrieve for 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.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
This is another story that I feel like comes up
in all kinds of modern tales, and I'm like George
Soum did this before anybody else. I'm sure there were
other people that did it before her. But she got
married to a man named Casimir du Duvon on September
seventeenth of eighteen twenty two, and the couple were married
in Paris, but they moved to Nooan to settle down,
(09:00):
and Duduvont was nine years older than Auror. He was
the son of a baron who was born out of wedlock,
but he was acknowledged by his father, so in marrying him,
Auror became the Baroness Duduvon. 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 twenty four.
(09:21):
They kept traveling a great deal though, including going back
to Nauwant for extended visits, and initially it kind of
seems like Auror was trying to make the best out
of this marriage, but over time she grew restless and
unsatisfied in her life with Duduvon, and she started to
exhibit signs of what we would probably categorize as depression today.
Casimir was a poor match for her for a number
(09:42):
of reasons. Auror was a devout reader and the stories
that she read made her long for more than her
domestic life. Kasimir was not 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
(10:03):
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 she was pretty done with
him within a few years. In eighteen twenty five, they
were traveling in the Pyrenees and Aurora met a young
judge named Jean Pierre Aurelian de SiZ and the two
(10:27):
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, 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
(10:49):
about whether the platonic part was really true. Yeah, uh,
we don't know. This experience of having such an intense
connection to someone made it a abundantly clear to Aurora
that 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 Dessays and that they
(11:13):
needed to figure out some sort of way to make
their household livable.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
In eighteen twenty six, a man named Stefan Ajasson de
Grassgna re entered Aurora's life, and he had been a.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Tutor of hers earlier on, but when.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
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 twenty eight.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
In the year after her daughter was born, Auror began writing.
In earnest. She penned a travel memoir La Marenne That's
the Godmother during this time, as well as Histois d'l revaux,
which is story of a dreamer. That particular book was
never finished.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
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 twenty
six year old Aurora had really been longing for. This
was Jules Sandeaux, who was an aspiring writer, and the
two of them soon became romantically involved.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
I feel like that phrase the two of them soon
became romantically involved, can just be repeated so many times
throughout this episode. This is a really significant turning point
though for Auror. So we were going to pause here
for a quick sponsor break before we get into how
her life changed. In early eighteen thirty one, Aurora moved
(12:37):
to Paris with Jules Sandeau, leaving behind her husband and
her home. She had made an arrangement with Casimir regarding
this move, though that arrangement was not arrived at in
a particularly amicable fashion. The dude of all household had
as Aurora became more and more restless, become a place
of persistent strife. Husband and wife argued constantly and they
(12:57):
only ever seemed to be happy in really relationships with
people outside the marriage. So in eighteen thirty one, the
decision was made that Aurora would spend half of each
year in Paris, switching out with life at noon every
three months. And during Aurora's times in Paris, the children
were split up, so her toddler daughter Solange would stay
in no On with Casimir and Maurice. Their son was
(13:20):
cared for by a tutor.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Aurora started to more seriously focus on writing in Paris,
now writing under the pseudonym Jules sand or sometimes just
J's Song. That work was published in La Figaro, which
is a periodical run by Henri Latouche, who would become
one of Aurora's closest friends. Latouche and you'll sometimes see
his name as de la Touche, basically asked Aurora to
(13:43):
write these satirical pieces as a freelancer, and that marked
the beginning of her professional career as a writer. There's
i'mgoing debate about these pieces. They are generally believed to
be collaborations between Aurora and Jule Sandou, but it's unclear
about exactly how much of them cantributed.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Yeah, how much either of them wrote of 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 sentry box coat
made of rough gray cloth, with trousers and a waistcoat
to match, with a gray hat and a huge cravat
(14:22):
of woolen material. I looked exactly like a first year student.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
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 do it. But Aurora
(14:48):
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 twenty thirteen.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Yeah, if you look back at articles in twenty thirteen,
they're like, finally women can wear pants, which they're writing
as a joke, because of course people had been wearing
pants forever, and this was a time when it seemed
that Aurar 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
(15:24):
found them more practical and more comfortable than wearing dresses,
but she did 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.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
First novel called Indiana at the end of eighteen thirty
one that was published in May of eighteen thirty two
under her new pen name, which was Jorge Sound. Eventually
she grew tired of Jules Sando. She broke off their
relationship and moved into a new apartment nearby. Her daughter,
Solange moved in with her.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
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. 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. A spoiler alert,
(16:24):
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.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
This is when Aurora became famous and became publicly known
as George Sohn, so we're gonna change over to addressing
her by that name.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
Initially, she chose a pen.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
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.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Yeah. I have to wonder if her like constant love
of revealing, like in fact, I am not a student
but a woman, didn't help, you know, kind of dissipate
any anonymity she had been hoping for. Indiana was quickly
followed by another novel of Volentine in November of that
same year, and at that point George was kind of
the it writer in Paris. So keep in mind that
(17:19):
this is a time when novels were sort of equivalent
to film or television today in terms of their prominence
as entertainment, so she became something of an overnight celebrity
following Indiana's publication.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
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,
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
(17:53):
she were to end up with her farmer love, she
would not be prepared well for the rigors of that
kind of a life.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
In early eighteen thirty three, George Sond had a brief
romantic relationship with a woman, and this was the actress
Marie d'Orval. This was a heady time for Sond. Newly
famous and free from the domestic life that she had fled,
she really had her pick of suitors. Eighteen thirty three
was also the year that George published her third novel, Lealia,
and not long after she began her relationship with d'rval
(18:22):
sond met fellow writer Alfred de Mussey, who also became
her lover and with whom she had an on again,
off again romance that would rival any fiction.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
Lealia gave readers a heroine who was a lot like
Sound herself, an iconoclast 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 courtesan
sister of this whole situation, the sister suggests that Lealiah
should become a Cortazan herself. This catalyzes a plot that
(18:54):
involves a poet who's in love with Lealiah whose life
falls apart after she tries to seduce him and then
betrays him. I've not read this book. It sounds very
complicated to me. Lalia was also panned by the press.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Yeah and again. 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 Alfred de Mussey, with whom she had a very
volatile relationship, that she was also writing about these sort
of complicated romantic matters. The end of eighteen thirty three
(19:31):
in the beginning of eighteen thirty four were very chaotic
and fraught. George and Mussey decided to go away to Italy,
but that trip turned very sour. And this really sounds
like a Telenevella plot. Things went completely awry. First when
George got dysentery. Mouse then began having episodes of delirium
because it turned out he had typhoid fever. Then George
(19:54):
began an affair with the Italian doctor who came to
treat Moosey. His name was Luigi Pegelle, and when mose
recovered enough to return to Paris, Sond decided that she
would stay behind in Venice with her new beloved doctor.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Three months after Jose's return to Paris, Desors also felt
as though she could go back to France, 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 Mousey. Although the reunion lasted less
than a month.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
I certainly would not recommend it as a piece of
historical information, but if you have ever seen or have
not seen the movie Impromptu, which is about George Sond,
in which the incomparable Judy Davis plays George, Mandy Patinkin
plays Mouse, and he is spectacular. You get a sense
of all of their levels of drama when the two
(20:51):
of them are together on screen. Throughout all of this drama.
Though in her personal life, Sond was writing and publishing.
She published a series of stories in the literary magazine
Revue de du Monde during her turbulent eighteen thirty four,
including Leon, Leoni and Jacques, and at the beginning of
eighteen thirty five, Sons and Muse reunited one last time,
(21:14):
but their relationship was completely over by March of that year.
Post Mouse, George began seeing a lawyer in Noan named
Louis Michel.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
The next big event in George Son's life was finally
legally separating herself from Casimir du Devon. 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, getting significant judgment
(21:47):
wins for her. In July eighteen 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 were that a George got
custody of the children and b her chateau and property
in noan reverted entirely back to her. Her son Maurice
(22:10):
would have been thirteen at this point and Solange was seven.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
On the verge of turning eight. And once she had
married Dudu Vont 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 reverse at this point. Even
after the separation, Soam did provide her husband with an
annual income.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
Around this time, Son met previous podcast subject Franz List
and his paramour Marie du Gout. Franz and Marie traveled
to Nowant to visit Son 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, Friedrich Chopam. The friendship
(22:55):
with Marie in particular, would disintegrate in time. It was
revealed to 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 woman who slaughters and
smashes all the others.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
And while Palmde 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 together for nine years, and both of them
(23:37):
were incredibly productive during their romance. It's kind of considered
like their golden period for both of them as creators.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Their relationship was perplexing to their friends.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
At first.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Chopin was quiet and reserved, with delicate health. He was
the polar opposite of George, who lived however she wished
and was unafraid of just about everything. There were whispers
in 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
(24:08):
with her two children to New Yorca to stay in
a monastery. The weather and the meager accommodations there were
really rough on the composer. He coughed up blood throughout
this whole stay. After that debacle, they returned to Nowant,
where George fond over Frederick and nursed him back to health.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
In addition to Chopin, Song's friendship with Liszt 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 Honore de Balzac and Eugene de
la Croix, who employed her son Maurice as an apprentice
for a time.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
In April of eighteen forty, George San tried her hand
at a different kind of writing, which was theater, and
this did not go so well. Her play Gozima, which
was also titled La Han da Lamour Hate in Love,
was a flop.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
In eighteen forty one, Saw found herself in a battle
with the leadership of the Review de du Monde over
her new novel Horus. The periodical's editor had no wish
to publish this work, and this led to George Song
developing her own literary periodical, Revue and Dependent, in which
Pierre LaRue and Louis Viardeau were her partners. This offered
(25:19):
her a vehicle to publish her own work whenever she
wanted and as she saw fit.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
She had an increasing interest in political matters at this point,
and so George Sound was inspired in eighteen forty four
to start another periodical. While Law Review into Pendent was
an outlet for her romantic literary work, her second paper,
La Claire, which is The Scout, gave her a place
to print her increasingly political and particularly socialist writing.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
In eighteen forty seven, after nine years together, a permanent
rift formed between Son and Chopin. In February of that year,
Sond and her daughter Solange sat for sculptor Auguste Clesigner,
and Solange and the sculptor fell madly in love of
This was a little bit complicated because Solange was engaged
to someone else, but she broke off that relationship to
(26:07):
Mary Clesignier three months after meeting him.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
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, Klasagnier
pulled a gun and threatened sound in the midst of
this high tenent family conflict. It was Solange and not
George that Chopin ultimately sided with. He broke up with
(26:31):
son by letter, and that's Son's 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. Chopin gave George the news that Solane
(26:51):
had given birth to a daughter. That was to be
the last time that Sond and Chopin saw each other.
Chopin died on October seventeenth, eighteen forty nine, of tuberculosis.
Cleisinger actually cast his death mask. When George Son did
not attend Chopin's funeral, many people actually blamed her for
his death, even though his health improved considerably during his
(27:14):
time at Nauan after that first slightly disastrous winter. Som did, however,
later reconcile with her daughter. Next, we'll 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 show without them. The wave of
(27:40):
revolutions that began in France in February eighteen forty eight
led to the overthrow of King Louis Philippe and the
rise of the Second Republic. The Second Republic, which Sohm
believed would be closely aligned with her own personal ideals,
drew her back to Paris, and she started another new
periodical there, La Carse du Peubre, The Cause of the People.
She also wrote for a number of other socialist papers
(28:03):
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 Son had
hoped it would be. She was completely disillusioned by this
turn of events, and she went back to Noat, where
she spent most of her time for the rest of
her life.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
The rustic short novel Francois le Champi was published in
eighteen forty eight. It is the story of a champill
that is a nickname that translates literally to little mushroom,
but in this context it refers to a country orphan.
This book was 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, Sahn
(28:42):
met with great success with Francois on the stage.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
For Christmas in eighteen forty nine, Son's son Maurice invited
his friend Alexandra Monceaux to Nowant. Monceaux, who was an engraver,
moved into the chateau permanently as George's companion, and for
the next two years they agree did an assortment of
visitors in Naant. They put on shows in the Parlor
theater there.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
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 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,
(29:25):
the cousin of Napoleon the.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
Third, In eighteen fifty four, George's autobiography Istoi de m Ville,
began publishing an installments in the journal La Presse. The
story of her life spooled out over the course of
one hundred and thirty eight installments, and then it was
published in its entirety in book form over the course
of twenty volumes, which gives you a sense of why
(29:49):
we're not mentioning all of the individual details.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
As she approached her fifties, George wanted to ensure that
her family would be taken care of long term after
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, June, who
(30:15):
went by Nini, and as the marriage between Solange and
her sculptor husband broke down, Clesingay showed up at Noel
to take the child from Sond, catalyzing a custody battle
over the five year old, and though Sond was able
to get custody of Nini after a month's long legal fight,
the child contracted scarlet fever soon after and died in.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
Eighteen fifty five. Sonde, who had continued to write prolifically
throughout all of these personal dramas, signed a ten book
deal with Haschet three years later. She also made up
with Francois Bouleaus, who was the editor at Revue des
deu Mont that she had fallen out with years earlier.
The literary magazine once again started publishing her work, starting
(30:57):
with Lome de la Neige or the Snowman in a
teen fifty eight.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
In eighteen fifty nine, Songs set off a minor literary
war when she published El e Louis That's Her and
Him in Installments, and this was a fictionalized version of
her romance with Alfred de Mussey years earlier. Moose had
died two years prior to Song's story coming out. Keep
in mind this whole thing was more than twenty years
after their relationship, and Mousey had had his say when
(31:24):
he published his version of their story in eighteen thirty six.
But just the same Saul's story earned the ire of
Mousey's brother, who wrote his own book titled Louis Eel
and once again represented his brother's side of the story.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
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 celebrity licensed luxury
sense was created. That was Ou de George sound for
the body and for the hanky.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Yet another illustrious writer was still to step into George's life,
and that was Good Style Flaubert. The two met in
eighteen sixty while Song was visiting Paris. Later became friends
and went on to exchange letters for years. This is
perhaps a surprising friendship since Flaubert's work Madame Beauverie, which
came out in eighteen fifty six, seemed to mock the
(32:16):
very sort of woman George Sond writes about in her books,
and indeed presented herself as Song, like her heroines, was
obsessed with romance, with emotions, with this search for passion.
And if you have read Madame Beauverie, you know that
Emma Bovverie is ultimately consumed by those very behaviors, and
it is not always terribly flattering of her. We should
(32:37):
note that the interpretation of Flaubert's intent had been argued
since the book's publication, and that quote the i all
offense he attributed to him Madame Beauvrie semoi, might indicate
that he was perhaps less condescending about romanticism than it
might appear at first glance.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
Regardless, the writers seemed to adore each other, despite the
obviously different points of view that were presented 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 can only hate, that is what you lack hate.
In spite of your great sphinx eyes, you have seen
(33:16):
the world through a golden color.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
Their letters, which you can read online, are absolutely darling,
some of them are. It's a very playful and sweet correspondence.
It kind of reminds me of the text that you
might send to your best friend. And back and forth.
The two of them tease and chastise each other, and
at one point in eighteen sixty six, Flaubert suggests that
(33:39):
if they stop 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
Solage had another falling out. This time George accused Solange
(34:04):
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 learned to
work to anything anyone ever says to you. You reply
(34:24):
that it's impossible. My only advice is this, both privation
and work require a strong will. And when 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 a classic mother and daughter
conflict relationship. George's son Maurice also had some sort of
(34:48):
falling out with alexandle Monceaux, that is, his friend who
had become George Soon's companion and lover, and he asked
that his former friend leave Noah and It is unclear
why this ultimatum was given. It is possible that Maurice,
who had married in eighteen sixty two, suddenly saw Manceaux
as a freeloader in his mother's world. But we have
(35:10):
to give Monceaux his due. He was absolutely devoted to Georgsand.
Many men had fallen in love with her during her life,
but Manceaux supported her in ways that few people ever
experience in a partner.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Sound was a constant and prolific writer. She turned out
twenty pages a day every day. Because the chateau had
constant guests 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
(35:42):
until the wee hours. She would then write and write
until sunrise, and when she would sit down for a
long session, Monceaux would bring her everything she might need,
her paper and her ink, her cigarette, papers and tobacco,
any refreshments she might need. He actually purchased a small
cottage near by for them to escape to when the
chateau got too crowded with guests for her to.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
Be able to write.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
In short, he enabled her to continue her career uninterrupted
in the years that they were together.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
Yeah, he was so supportive Lake and Sik. What everybody
dreams of in a partner that supports in and keeps
him going and unconditionally loves them. He was there for
all of that. So when Maurice insisted that Manceaux had
to leave Noon, that is exactly what happened, and George
soAnd left with him, And after they traveled for a bit,
(36:31):
the pair landed in Palisseau, just outside of Paris. Manceau
died of tuberculosis a year later, but it would be
two war years before George Sound would return to Noon.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
The last ten years of her life were a mix
of the life that she loved so much at Naant
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
and bloody conflict that took place. She and her family
fled no Want briefly due to a smallpox scare, and
(37:04):
she entertained loads of visitors at the chateau. As always,
she still wrote constantly along with all of that. At
sixty nine, she wrote Conte dun Grammer Tales of a Grandmother.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
In late eighteen seventy five, Sond organized all of her
works 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, Albinfiori.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
She died on June eighth, eighteen seventy six, just a
few weeks shy of her seventy second birthday.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
In her lifetime, Sound wrote more than fifty novels, more
than a dozen play her extensive autobiography, and innumerable pamphlets, essays,
and letters.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
In eighteen forty four, Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote a poem
titled Tou George Sond, a recognition in celebration of the
controversial writer's ability to carve out her own exceptional life
that defied gender norms. Here's how that poem reads. Large
brained woman and large hearted man, self called George Sond,
(38:05):
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 to pinions white as wings of swan from thy
(38:26):
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 embrace, to kiss upon
thy lips a stainless fame.
Speaker 1 (38:45):
Oh youorg song, I love you so much. Good her.
Uh It's funny because I don't 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, a saucy woman
(39:06):
who sets out to make her own life very much
outside of the norms of societal mores. This 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.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
There are moments where I'm like, that sounds like a
lot of fun, and other moments are I'm like, Okay,
I'm tired now right, I just.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
Want to lie 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 at some
of her epic like perpetual parties that seem to be
going on there with lots of interesting, fun, smart people. Right.
Can I just hang out at Noah with De la
Croix for a while. That sounds great?
Speaker 2 (39:55):
Thanks so much for joining us on this Saturday. Since
this episode is out of the archive, at an email
address or a Facebook RL or something similar over the
course of the show that could be obsolete now. Our
current email address is History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
Our old house Stuffworks email address no longer works. You
(40:15):
can find us all over social media at missed Inhistory,
and you can subscribe to our show on Apple podcasts,
Google Podcasts, the iHeartRadio app, and wherever else you.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
Listen to podcasts.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts,
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