Chapter Nineteen

“LET US DEPART, MY OLD FRIEND, LET US LEAVE”

A mere few months after the wedding, young Madame Maurice was expecting. George Sand was beside herself with excitement! Almost ten years after Jeanne’s death, Sand witnessed the birth of her grandson on July 14, 1863. “He is big and strong, and he looked at me with a conscious and attentive gaze when I held him in my apron. I feel like we already know each other, and he seemed to want to say, ‘Oh, it’s you!’”359 The midwife dunked the newborn in a warm wine bath, where he wriggled around—she would become a permanent fixture in the house. Then, he was given to his mother to nurse. On this anniversary of the taking of the Bastille, as well as for George Sand’s birthday, cannons were shot and songs were sung. Maurice wept. All was well.

“As for the grandmother, she is overjoyed. I see her smile, and that makes me happy,” reported Manceau, deeply moved.360 Letters streamed out of Nohant, heralding the news: “It’s a boy!” They gave François-Marc-Antoine Dudevant the legal last name of Sand and the nickname of Cocoton. George Sand had fathered a dynasty! She was never at a loss for advice for the young couple, and the entire family’s lives revolved around the baby. Even “Manceau is taking the week-old kid for a walk in the garden and giving him his first entomology lesson. We’ve told him that it’s a bit early for that!”361 The weather was nice and warm, and Cocoton, rolling around naked on a blanket, “loved to show his bottom to the world.”362 Maurice became a veritable father hen and cared expertly for his son. He proved himself “a great nanny and an excellent diaper-warmer,” as his mother wrote to Victor Borie, who was himself a new father. Times had changed. “In these years, many people have taken up the mantle of paternity. . . . It’s like a show about yourself, an exhibitionist production. In short, we are now fathers whereas we were once citizens, almost a century ago: with great fanfare,” wrote the Goncourt brothers, who knew nothing of the wholesome joys of paternity.363

They fussed over Cocoton’s first smile (so named after Lina’s own pet name, Cocote) and fawned over his first tooth. His proud grandmother found him especially alert, happy, intelligent, and precocious. Drawing from her own rich experience (she had nursed both her children, a true disciple of Emile), she was full of praise for Lina’s nursing skills. She worried over the slightest sign of colic in the child and the wine that he was given to calm him down in the evenings, and understandably so. Broth was fine, so was cow’s milk, but wine, at six months old? Surely it would be better to avoid exciting him by playing so close to his bedtime and to give him calming oatmeal or tilleul baths.

Of the four childhood friends—Maurice, Victor Borie, Eugène Lambert, and Manceau—only one remained unmarried. Despite his continual coughs, fevers, and fatigue, Manceau continued to devote himself, body and soul, to the woman of his dreams. But his physical ups and downs, his energy and hyperactivity and grumblings and joys, his swings from exhaustion to overexcitement made George Sand more anxious than she’d have liked to admit. He didn’t know how to slow down. He wouldn’t follow his prescribed diet, munching instead on peppers and gherkins. He was suffering. George shared her concerns with Manceau’s cousin, Louis Maillard, a former engineer, who had returned from the Ile Bourbon with his wife and two adopted children.364 Maillard loved botany and was as kind as his cousin—and equally worried about his health. Sand would update him with news about Manceau and try to reassure him, “He’s so lively!” she wrote. Manceau, for his part, read her Pushkin and immersed himself completely in the theater of Nohant, as usual, “as if nothing was the matter.”365 He started writing poetry again, reawakening bygone pleasures, even spending entire evenings writing while others played cards and talked. One April evening, he read the play he had recently finished to George Sand. She was moved to tears.

Those tears no doubt sparked Maurice’s jealousy. He had never fully accepted the love between his mother and his former friend. Manceau’s position in Nohant had become intolerable. The same thing had happened years earlier with Chopin, who had suffered the incessant “nitpicking” from the son of the household.366 But Maurice had been a young man then, and Chopin a genius. According to many, the beloved son’s attitude as well as the incriminating role of Solange were key in the musician’s departure. Maurice’s lengthy stays in Paris had left a place wide open for Manceau. But the marriage and his son’s birth had reinforced his new role: master of the house. Granted, he still didn’t pay anything and did no work around the house, so the running of the household was left to his mother and Manceau. To avoid any false situation, the latter had paid a sum of 1,200 francs per year and, according to George Sand, had poured his income back into Nohant for years.367

It was perfectly normal for two generations to live together in the same house, but the tension in Nohant kept building. Had Maurice’s four months surrounded by aristocracy on Prince Napoléon’s yacht given him delusions of grandeur? Manceau felt his disdain. “It’s so easy to tire of one’s old friends,” Manceau wrote bitterly. “They become unpleasant to the eye, like old clothes.”368 The rivalry between the two men was becoming more and more apparent. Maurice had recently turned forty. The little boy of ten, whose mother had been stolen away by a lover named Musset, was ravaged by jealousy, which the ever-present Manceau only exacerbated. For years, his only well-formed drawings had been reworked by the engraver. Manceau had also cared for and added to Maurice’s butterfly collection. He had redone the workshop, and his abundant energy was the sole reason why the theater—Maurice’s new passion, which had replaced marionettes—still existed. Manceau had been responsible for making the theater run smoothly. This was what Maurice had predicted from his very first caricatures! He himself had introduced the wolf into the fold. Now, his former friend had taken charge over everything.

Manceau had not only taken over Maurice’s passions but he had snatched away the love of his life, his mother. Manceau had replaced him. From then on, Manceau and George Sand’s relationship would pervade everything. Manceau was not only her secretary, manager, confidant, and lover but he had become her best friend, a lifelong companion. He was part of the family, as George highlighted at the end of her letters to Prince Napoléon. And what’s worse, he was encroaching into the world of writing, that sacred ground, which Maurice, much like his sister, had started to claim as his birthright. Maurice had made sporadic efforts in writing, for which Mama supplied the story, editing, and corrections—or simply rewrote the entire thing. As he was trying to send his work to publishers and theater directors, they were outdone by Manceau’s new composition, a play in verse.

This was the final straw. Manceau’s writing! Fromentin, Dumas, and Gautier had enjoyed his play, and the entire clan at Nohant had lauded him. Worse, it had even moved his mother to tears. At first, Maurice only criticized Manceau for “absorbing himself in his literature.” “One act in fourteen years! What dedication!” the new playwright replied sarcastically.369

The house would be filled for the entire summer with guests, such as “young” Alexandre, Théophile Gautier and Charles Marchal, Louis Maillard, the actress Marie Lambert, the Fleurys (former Nohant boarders), and Eugène “Lambrouche” Lambert and his young wife (who would stay until January). Maurice was away at Guillery, visiting his father during Gautier’s brief visit. Théo, as they called him, had once appeared on the front lines of the battle in Hernani, in his long hair, black beard, cape, and red waistcoat. He had already confirmed his distance from sentimental and social romanticism in his 1835 preface to Mademoiselle Maupin. “There is nothing truly beautiful except that which serves no purpose; everything useful is ugly,” reads his creed, which lays the path to Parnassianism. His 1852 anthology, Enamels and Cameos (Emaux et camées), was praised by the likes of Baudelaire, Leconte de Lisle, Bancille, and Flaubert. His ideas were the exact opposite of what George Sand touted as a writer’s mission, but he was a major presence in the artistic world and a good friend of Alexandre Dumas fils. She even visited him in Neuilly at his little house on the rue de Longchamp, where he lived with his companion, Ernesta Grisi, his daughters, and his cats . . . whose stench would follow George Sand down the street.

The Goncourt brothers were kind enough to provide a record of Gautier’s visit: as somber as a Moravian monastery, breakfast at ten o’clock with a half-asleep George Sand, sexual prudence, Marchal’s farts and dirty jokes, boules in the garden, dinner at six o’clock, hours of mineralogy, and of course, Manceau’s unwavering care for his companion, fulfilling her every desire.370

Gautier’s letter to Ernesta Grisi describes his visit: “My dear Nini, I’ve arrived safe and sound at Nohant, where I have received the most gracious welcome. Marchal and the young Dumas are also here. This place seems very isolated, even though it’s just along the edge of the road. The small chateau is very pretty, with ivy climbing up its old gray walls within a large enclosure, part park, part garden. Everything is fairly unkempt, but only enough to provide charm. My room is large and very practical, with a nice bed, a dressing table, and everything I’d ever need. Today, I watched the game of boules and took a very relaxing walk among the trees, which I needed, as I was still tired from the parties. Madame Sand is the picture of tranquility. She rolls her cigarettes, smokes, and remains mostly silent, for she works until three or four o’clock in the morning every night and then is half-asleep until noon or one, when she starts to wake up and laughs at Dumas’ jokes, although it takes her a while to understand them. It’s quite impossible to be the best woman and the best guy at the same time.”371

For this visit, Manceau served as master of the house, keeping Théophile Gautier company and talking with him. After writing the first act of Le Marquis de Villemer, a new play adapted from his novel, Dumas fils was helping George Sand with the framework. He also gave Manceau advice on his play, Marceline, which would become A Day in Dresde (Une journée à Dresde). (Marceline was Lina’s name . . .

At the end of October, La Rounat, Odéon’s director, announced that he would produce Manceau’s play at his theater. He also attended the four-hour-long reading of Villemer. Everyone crammed into the hall except Maurice. Both plays—first Manceau’s, then George Sand’s—would play at the Odéon within the year. Manceau was proud and overjoyed. And as for Maurice, his jealousy found no bounds.

He was known to have temper tantrums. “He’s not my brother,” Solange wrote to Emile Aucante, “he’s a wet blanket. He can only really get mad once or twice per year, enough for an awkward and violent outburst.”372

No one knows what set Maurice off so badly this time. Was it Marie Caillaud’s refusal to follow Manceau’s stage directions during the rehearsals for Datura fastuosa?373 Her success on the intimate stage may have gone to her head, as well as her liaisons with the journalist and playwright Edouard Cadol, who had spent several months at Nohant. Manceau had already caused tears with a joke a few weeks prior, and Maurice had taken her side. Finally, the two men’s rivalry came to a head. Maurice went to his mother and demanded that she choose between him and Manceau, as he had done with Chopin. True to form, George likely hemmed and hawed, and agreed with Bouli, trying to calm him down. He returned to Manceau triumphant and laid out his instructions.

Sickened, Manceau’s shaking hand recorded the tone and content of Maurice’s “awkward and violent outburst” in the Diaries on Monday, November 23, 1863. “After I don’t know what conversation, I was informed to depart on June 24, at the next St. Jean’s—a catholic, national holiday. It didn’t take long. That was all, after fifteen years of devotion. I’d like to record it here so I shed no tears over it, and I hope to be smiling about it later. No matter. Humanity saddens me. I will go off and be free again, and if I so choose to love someone and devote myself to that person again, loving being my great joy in life, I will be free to do so.”374

Maurice humiliated his former friend by dismissing him at midsummer, like a hired hand coming to the end of his contract. Manceau’s sadness and decimated dignity was confronted by Maurice’s stubborn hatred. After his mother’s death, he would continue by scribbling mountains of notes in the margins of the Diaries:

[boxed] reread Tartuffe! Maurice

Tartuffe, that hypocrite who slid his way into Orgon’s good graces to embezzle the family fortune. Worse than a simple rivalry, this had become classist contempt manifested as a servant’s dismissal. What a completely unfair suspicion of motive, considering Manceau’s generosity and honesty! This was no mere tantrum but a deep grudge rooted in years of brooding. Maurice’s annotations to the Diaries proved it. George Sand’s son would also censor every single reference to Alexandre Manceau in the first edition of Correspondence, published twenty years later. His instructions were so strict that they would even be respected after his own death. This may be the reason why the engraver’s role in George Sand’s life has been ignored for so long.375

But after a night of reflection and tears, George Sand responded to her companion via the Diaries: “I am not sad, and you know why? Because we knew all of this, we knew it was going badly. Because I, too, will go off and be free again. Because we will not part from each other; and because this change may be for the better; and because I was hoping for any such change in this bitter and unjust life. Therefore, let us take leave from one another, my old friend, without bitterness, without rancor. We will never part from each other. Let them keep everything, everything except our dignity. We will not sacrifice our friendship, NEVER EVER,” (which was double-underlined in her hand).376

George Sand had a man for whom she was prepared to leave Maurice, her son. It would be difficult to find a greater proof of her love. In one night, she showed her companion all of her attachment to him and gratitude for fourteen years of devotion.

One week later, Manceau left for Paris. George was beset by nightmares, dreaming of being “sentenced to death without knowing why.” He returned after a few days. “Tonight my brave, valiant Mancel returned, he is well, in spite of so much running around, so much cold and heat and readings and sleeplessness. Everything is well again.”377

The end-of-year festivities were marked by sadness and futile arguments. Despite the truffle partridges, petit pois, meringues, candy, and embracing, New Year’s Eve was spent without joy.

The crisis averted, the house fell into a calm but dreary state. George learned how to cook macaroni and gnocchi, and sewed costumes for the marionettes. Lina doted on her child. In January, George left with Manceau for Paris. She told everyone who asked that she had wanted to live more freely for a while, to relieve herself of the too-heavy burden of Nohant, which had been placed entirely on her own shoulders. But news travels fast in the countryside. Marie des Poules, the chambermaid, couldn’t help but tell her own version of the story. She “rummaged through my wastepaper basket and snooped in my diary—go away,” wrote a furious George Sand. To the questions about a suspected falling out, she reaffirmed that her entire family got along perfectly well. In fact, nothing in her almost daily letters to her son and daughter-in-law, in the presents she sent, in the showered affection, would have given the slightest hint of a disagreement. Each missive even included “best wishes from Manceau” at the end.

The couple took advantage of their visit to Paris to sit for Nadar. The famous photographer was the obvious choice for the portraits that George Sand’s admirers requested of her. Born Félix Tournachon, Nadar was a former journalist and caricaturist, a fervent republican, and a long-time admirer of George Sand. His talent had already been fully recognized. In 1852, Richebourg had taken an early daguerreotype of the novelist, but the results were so catastrophic that she asked him (in vain) to destroy the negatives. Now, she arrived with Manceu at the photography studio at 35, boulevard des Capucines. Every wall of the building, inside and out, was painted red, and Nadar’s glowing signature was lit by gas on the outside. Nadar himself was a large man, dressed in a red blouse, with fiery red hair and mustache. He squired them into the salon, where they would pose, taking turns. (He would later photograph Manceau at age forty-seven, withered away by the tuberculosis that would eventually take his life.) Mancea proved to be a poor model, according to Sand. Posing must have been difficult for an active man, living in someone’s shadow. The photographs are quite touching. Wearing a frock coat and a silk cravat, Manceau has a serious, almost worried expression, with a wide forehead, wrinkles, and overall, a profound look. The opposite effect emanated from George Sand, with her thick, curly hair styled with a band of silk, her large brown eyes, and full lips: an astounding expression of dignity, goodness, and serenity. But that day, even she suffered coughing fits while modeling. The photographer took many shots, and Sand and Manceau would keep many series of negatives, including the famous portraits in her striped outfit, and set of amusing shots with her in a Molière-style curly wig. “Manceau can’t look more handsome than I do, and we keep singing, Oh, too bad if Nadar is ill!”378 The pictures were retouched with care, and she would be satisfied with the end result. George Sand would finally be able to send her photograph to everyone who had requested it, especially to Armand Barbes and Victor Hugo who had remained in self-exile.

A Day in Dresde premiered on January 13, 1864, at the Odéon. Its 2,000 verses reflected Manceau’s admiration for the Napoleonic era. A French health officer imprisoned at Dresde falls in love with a young widow, Marceline, the jailer’s stepdaughter.379 He wins her love over a Saxon rival and is freed after the green French army’s victory at Lützen in 1813. Love, honor, glory, and country! George didn’t hesitate to tell Maurice of Manceau’s great success. All their friends attended, along with every last one of the critics. Prince Napoleon sat in the box reserved for authors, overlooking Manceau who sat down with the musicians. Applause rang out. Prince Napoléon loved the play and the performance, and shouted his praise across the house to Manceau. The author, suffering from stage fright, had come down with a bad cold and showed little enthusiasm for his own play—contrary to a few weeks later, at the opening of his lady’s play, where he showed great admiration.

March 1, 1864: Le Marquis de Villemer’s premiere explodes into the theatrical event of the season. Students start camping outside the Odéon at ten in the morning and storm over police barriers into the theater. Shouts, cries, and applause drown out the actors. The huzzamen are utterly overwhelmed. It’s a full house, 3,000 to 4,000 people had to be turned away. The imperial family can’t stop clapping, the emperor weeps without shame, even Flaubert is in tears. Prince Napoleon loudly yells his enthusiasm. It is a complete triumph. George Sand is swamped by two hundred people congratulating her in the lobby. The students escort her all the way back to her apartment, crying: “Long live George Sand! Long live Mademoiselle La Quintinie! Down with the clergy!” It will take all night for the police to break up the demonstrations.

The anticlerical protests were all the more surprising in that nothing in the play makes any reference to the subject. A strong melodrama, with love triumphing over social prejudices, whose first act had been infused with Dumas fils’ brilliance. It tells the story of two brothers. One is introverted, serious, and very close to his mother, and he refuses to marry. Eventually, he ends up marrying a young, virtuous, upright lady-in-waiting. The other brother is a forty-year-old libertine, amiable and witty, who marries an heiress fresh out of a convent. The characters were well designed, the plot had a good pace, and the entire play glowed with George Sand’s aura. Every performance would be a triumph. The box office took in incredible receipts. The Odéon, once considered “grubby, deserted, and far away,” had overnight been transformed with luxurious carriages cramming into the back alleys around the theater. Elegant ladies would be seen standing in line for tickets at the box office every morning.380 Now, it was lit up and full every night!

Sand had recently read Ernest Renan’s Life of Jesus (Vie de Jésus), which described the Nazarene as a simple human being. Le Marquis de Villemer crystalized George Sand’s anticlerical opposition—after Mademoiselle La Quintinie, she had once and for all become the movement’s champion. Her success had made her even more hostile to Catholicism. She could not accept Jesus’ divinity, or their version of hell, or confession, and as for abstinence? “Abstinence! From what? Imbeciles. Abstain from what is bad, for all of your days. Did God make good things for us to deprive ourselves of them? Abstain from feeling the warm sun on your face and from watching the lilacs bloom.”381 With her staunch anticlerical parrion, she was constantly denouncing the Church’s hypocrisy and intolerance.

When Maurice and Lina decided to have a religious wedding and baptize their son, for pure respect of social convention, they chose Protestantism. George insisted on a liberal minister. After carrying on lengthy discussions with the cream of the Protestant crop, she agreed to be the child’s godmother. Jules Boucoiran, Maurice’s tutor in 1829 and a journalist for the Courrier du Gard, would be the godfather.

Maurice and Lina’s marriage and baptism reunited the family in Nohant. It also set the course for her future with Manceau.

Originally, the couple had considered staying at Gargilesse on the Creuse river. But the village was much too far away from Paris’ theaters. Thus, they decided to move just outside of Paris and keep a pied-à-terre in the capital. They left their expensive double apartment on the rue Racine in favor of a terrace apartment at 97, rue des Feuillantines (now 90, rue Claude-Bernard). Thanks to Manceau’s cousin, Louis Maillard, who had a residence in Palaiseau, they found a house there, with a garden. It was a charming location, one hour by rail from the Gare de Sceaux (now the Gare de Denfert-Rochereau). Manceau rented the house in his name and took charge of the renovations and the ordering of new furniture. Despite his fatigue, he also handled the move to the new apartment in Paris and supervised the twelve crates shipped from Nohant.

Later, thanks to earnings from the sale of a Delacroix’s engraving, purchased by Edourad Rodrigues, they would purchase the Palaiseau house outright, in Manceau’s name. Delacroix’s reputation had soared, and his art was much in demand. Maurice would benefit from the sale of all the other Delacroix paintings in Nohant, except Giaour’s Confession (La Confession de Giaour), the painter’s first present to them, and Centaur (Centaure), which his mother wanted to keep. George also proposed that her son and his wife take in Nohant’s revenues, against their assuming its upkeep.

But panic seized Maurice and Lina. How could they take responsibility for Nohant and live there alone, without Mama? They refused and planned to move to Paris, to George’s delight. The family would almost be completely reunited. However, unable to find anything to their liking, they stayed in Nohant. To all those in Nohant who deplored her moving away, George wrote endless explanations about how happy she was. But her departure turned the Vallée Noire upside down. There were countless letters from laborers in La Châtre, letters of thanks and farewells. Old Monsieur Aulard, the former mayor of the commune, cried.

George Sand was reveling in her newfound freedom and independence. This departure from Nohant possibly made her recall her youth, a time when she had negotiated with Casimir Dudevant the right to spend six months of the year in Paris. First she left the father, now the son. And once again, she avoided any quarrel. The only regret for her was the thought of not seeing her grandson as often. Cocoton had now four teeth and had started gnawing on bread crusts. He could almost say “Daddy.”

Packing had begun. The sun peeped through to the garden in between rain showers. On Saturday evening, June 11, 1864, Lina offered a brief after-dinner recital in her sweet, dulcet voice. Alexandre Manceau wrote the following:

“LAST NIGHT IN NOHANT

“It was a night to remember, for all of us. There is nothing left for me to write about this final evening. And yet, I can’t help but think that in the fourteen years I have spent here, I have laughed more, cried more, and lived more than I did in the thirty-three years that preceded this.

“From here on, I will be alone with her. What a responsibility! What an honor! What joy!”382

They would leave, as Maurice had wished, at midsummer.

Alexandre Manceau and George Sand slept in Palaiseau for the first time on Sunday the 12th. “I adore absolutely everything,” wrote George, “the countryside, the little garden, the view, the house, the furniture, the dining room, the maid, the silence. It’s enchanting. My good Mancel has thought of everything. It’s perfect!”25

She would celebrate her sixtieth birthday two weeks later. A new life had begun.