Leone Leoni

by George Sand

This novel reverses the Abbe Prevost's Manon Lescaut and gives Manon's helplessly amoral character to a man, Leoni. Juliette, the girl he seduces, becomes the exponent of undying, endless, forgiving love. The setting is the demimonde of Venice, and the is thick with sinister figures whose influence drags the miserable lovers down.

Genres: Fiction, France, Classics, Literature, Romance, Literary Fiction, Adult Fiction

175 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1835

About the author

Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin de Francueil, best known by her pen name George Sand, was a French novelist, memoirist and journalist. One of the most popular writers in Europe in her lifetime, being more renowned than either Victor Hugo or Honoré de Balzac in England in the 1830s and 1840s, Sand is recognised as one of the most notable writers of the European Romantic era. She wrote more than 50 volumes of various works to her credit, including tales, plays and political texts, alongside her 70 novels.
Like her great-grandmother, Louise Dupin, whom she admired, George Sand advocated for women's rights and passion, criticized the institution of marriage, and fought against the prejudices of a conservative society. She was considered scandalous because of her turbulent love life, her adoption of masculine clothing, and her masculine pseudonym.

Reviews

[Ugnė Andriulaitytė · Rating 3 out of 5]

Apie moterys, kurios myli per stipriai, dažnai girdime iš kriminalų skilties. Muša muša, bet nu ką daryt, jeigu myli. Atrodo, kad išsuktos galūnės ir reguliariai atnaujinamos mėlynės po akimis tokią meilę veikia kaip žibalas ugnį. Sunku suprasti tos cheminės reakcijos prigimtį, bet susitaikai, kad tiesiog taip būna.

Iš principo tokio pobūdžio meilės istorija yra vaizduojama ir šioje knygoje. Tik viskas persikelia į XIX a. pradžią ir padabinama kailiais ir briliantais. Bet vis tiek, kad ir koks gražus tas sukčius Leonis bebūtų, kad ir koks charizmatiškas, artistiškas, talentų talentas, neprilygstamasis, nu bet kodėl ta per stipri meilė yra tokia akla, kurčia ir dar serganti amnezija? Atrodo jau sužinai, kad niekšas, bet vis tiek sutinki apsimesti seserimi ir gyventi pas jo mirštančią naująją meilužę princesę. Šoki pro langą, kai supranti, kad tamsoj tave bučiavo ne jis, o jo draugas, nusipirkęs tave nakčiai. Bet po to vis tiek šoki pas jį į gondolą, nes tu per silpna atsispirti tokiai meilei, tavo siela jau pražuvus ir tau vienintelė belikus savirealizacija yra tokia besąlyginė meilė ir pasiaukojimas.

Bet šiaip man patiko Žorž Sand rašymo stilius, pajutau tą XIX a. atmosferą ir veikėjai tikrai ryškūs, nepaisant to, kad nesupranti, kodėl jie taip elgiasi. Jau buvau pasiilgus tų laikų, kai nežinojau, ką skaityti ir iš bibliotekos imdavo atsitiktines knygas. O dabar, kai nespėju bėgioti paskui naujai išleidžiamas geras knygas, tai nusispjaunu ir skaitau tokias. Gal čia ir yra tikroji prabanga, kai tu renkiesi, o ne renkasi tave.

[Classic reverie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read many authors' comments on the brilliance of George Sand's writings, especially Balzac and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Balzac was a friend and Elizabeth with her husband Robert were Sand's guests.
When reading Balzac's The Muse of the Department, George Sand's Leone Leoni is mentioned.

"For extravagant inventions the imagination of women far outdoes that if men; witness "Frankenstein" by Mrs. Shelley, "Leone Leoni" by George Sand, the works of Anne Radcliffe, and the "Noveau Promethee" (New Prometheus) of Camille de Maupin. "

After reading "Leone Leoni", I come away amazed that George Sand brought such an interesting sordid story to a surprising end. It is an unsettling and makes the reader wonder. The main character being Juliette is not like Richardson's Clarissa Harlowe, Juliette makes the fatal step but proceeds to go along with her complete submission to Leoni, no matter the cost. I thought she would at last break the bond after a deadly event but it seems that the infatuation would die on its own. My spoiler section below will reveal more.

In the foreword, George Sand comments on her story. I will be reading "Manon Lescaut" to compare.

"I had read before leaving Paris was Manon Lescaut. I had discussed it, or rather listened to others discussing it, and I had said to myself that to make Manon Lescaut a man and Desgrieux a woman would be worth trying, and would present many tragic opportunities, vice being often very near crime in man, and enthusiasm closely akin to despair in woman."

"After the lapse of twenty years, I look it over, and can detect no such tendency in it. The Leone Leoni type, although not untrue to life, is exceptional, thank God! and I do not see that the infatuation he inspires in a weak mind is rewarded by very enviable joys. However, I have, at the present moment, a well-fixed opinion concerning the alleged morals of the novel, and I have expressed elsewhe re my deliberate ideas thereon. "

I will definitely be reading George Sand again.💕

💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢SPOILER ALERT💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢💢


I had liked Juliette but thought her foolish in leaving the ballroom where her parents thought she would remain, Leoni after seeing Henryet, Juliette's previous suitor, tells her if she loves him they must fly, without being noticed, costumes clad in her father's jewels, priceless. She goes and soon thinks little of her family, the theft and her disgrace, only her love for Leoni. Did he truly love her? He probably did but if she had not the wealth, I think he would have passed her though her beauty exceptional.

She starts to wonder about Leoni and his knave friends. Could be really love her if he tried to get her to love another for profit? When Henryet tries to help her escape, she overhears Leoni talk to his friend Lorenzo about meeting Henryet and killing him, instead of warning Henryet, she becomes senseless. A note is sent which has Henryet thinking he is meeting her, but sends him to his death. I did not care for her any longer because she then became an accomplice. His abuses did not steer her away especially after he tried to basically sell her to another man, she jumps out the window. She is left after the doctor arrives, he has used her in schemes to gain wealth by using other females, yet she stays. The story is told by Bustamente, a man who wants to marry Juliette knowing she is lost. She tells him she is unworthy and she tells her story which after he still wants to marry her, Juliette says she sees now that Leoni is not any longer worthy of her love.

The ending has Bustamente and Juliette walking in Venice, Juliette sees Leoni and leaves Bustamente without a thought. Instead of being happy that she has left, he is to have a duel with Leoni, which he received with the help of a woman, who says she hates Leoni. The duel is fought but Leoni seems a coward, and is killed. Bustamente sees Juliette on a ship with a man, which he finds out is Leoni, who he supposedly killed. He is told that he took Lorenzo's life. Was the woman who says she despised Leoni, really his friend and Lorenzo the patsy, though Lorenzo a knave? Did Juliette know? Though many say she was an angel, she had really no moral compass any longer and was weak. Bustamente now has to think how she once again brought a good man down and lifted up the unworthy.

[laure · Rating 3 out of 5]

this book revealed my hatred for men.
༄⋆
so i read this novel as a "complementary" read after manon lescaut which goes to show how much of a masochist i truly am. and i did not expect to enjoy it quite as much as i did.
don't get me wrong, i didn't LOVE it. but the primary concept it explored - as in, exchanging manon lescaut's main characters' genders - was fascinating. this has officially uncovered my hatred for men (/j, please don't attack me).
as George Sand once said, “making manon lescaut a man and desgrieux a woman would be a combination worth the try, as it would lead to tragic situations. in men's case vice is often close to crime, whereas for women enthusiasm is contiguous to despair.”. [by the way this is a relatively accurate translation i made myself so here's the actual text if you're interested: « faire de manon lescaut un homme, de desgrieux une femme, serait une combinaison à tenter et qui offrirait des situations assez tragiques, le vice étant souvent fort près du crime pour l’homme, et l’enthousiasme voisin du désespoir pour la femme ».]
i hate leone leoni more than i could ever express!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
anyways, i loved the way in which George Sand played around with gender stereotypes and romantic "formulas". i took delight in her writing (dearest Musset, i get the appeal) and definitely intend to read la mare au diable very very soon!!
i would probably never re-read though because it does sort of read like ^......fanfiction......^ at times. i think this feeling i had is due to my love for manon lescaut: leone leoni was just... not as good which did not allow me to fully appreciate it, hence the three-star-rating.
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"ô venise! que tu es changée! s'écria-t-elle; que je t'ai vue belle autrefois, et que tu me sembles aujourd'hui déserte et désolée!"

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm always baffled when people say they like Jane Austen for her progressive views. Austen is quite a conservative writer (socially and politically, according to her own letters), although perhaps not as bad as Stendhal or Balzac, and her novels always reaffirm that love’s natural end is the safe harbor of a traditional marriage. Her modern popularity is mistaken as “progressive” since her heroines “choose” their mates, overlooking that their “choice” merely reasserts the patriarchal necessity for marriage to be the end goal of young women. No matter how satirically the events play out, and no matter the “independent spirit” of Austen's young heroines, traditional marriage remains the desired outcome – because the patriarchal social order structures the very nature of desire. For actual proto-feminist works from this era – those women who actively resist this order rather than gently satirize it for their bourgeois readership – I turn to Maria Edgeworth (interracial marriage), Madame de Staël (advocating a women's revolution on par with the French Revolution), Mary Wollstonecraft (equal rights for women), and George Sand (resisting gender norms and the prison of marriage). Sand may have been writing a generation after those other women, but her work is exponentially more progressive than Austen’s.

In the case of Leone Leoni, Sand takes the old clichés in Abbe Prévost’s Manon Lescaut (the prostitute femme fatale foils the future of an honest, wealthy young man) and flips it on its head: a predatory, toxic man mooches on an empathetic, naive young woman, who gives and gives and gives until she is bled dry by the thief and gambler, ultimately ruined by the demands of his selfish lifestyle. In a clever twist, she sets the novel during Mardi Gras in Venice (Prevost's novel was set mostly in the New Orleans of New France).

The idea here is that in the social order of the time, it was far easier – and more common – for a man to prey upon a woman than vice versa. One understands why this novel was deemed “dangerous” by Sand’s contemporaries, according to her Introduction. Perhaps this description also explains why I’m bored by Austen and fascinated with Sand: the former wrote safe novels; the latter, dangerous ones.

[☆lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

OMG...... I wanted to tear my hair out every time Juliette came back and defended Leoni 💀😭

[Kristin · Rating 3 out of 5]

The more things change, the more they stay the same. This is the story of the abusive relationship of Juliette, a woman who literally cannot live without Leoni, the man who has ruined the her life and that of her family, and Busstamente, the man who adores her. Juliette lives in torment, at first in supposed ignorance of the dastardly deeds of her lover Leoni, and then stays with him in spite of them. He doesn't physically abuse her, but he definitely mentally abuses her. Evey time she even thinks about leaving, he professes his undying love along with all of his newly illuminated crimes. His power over her is such that she follows him to another city and even moves into his new lover's home, acting in the role of his sister. In the book, she is telling Bustamente, her new protector, of their love and why she can never truly love him. The ending is a superb irony, but there is really nothing unexpected in the plot for the modern reader. I found the prose to be overblown and insipid, which is what I suspect that Sand wants us to feel. I think that she wanted Leoni and Juliette to be ridiculous and unlikable, however, I was not sympathetic to Bustamente and the futility of his love either. Upon reflection, I find that I liked the book as a whole better than I did when I was actually reading it.

[Clay · Rating 1 out of 5]

I thought it was really annoying that this guy was always described as brilliant, highly intelligent and charming, because there were hardly any examples of those qualities. It would have been better to make him act or use more dialogues to let the reader make his own conclusions about him.

[Margaret · Rating 2 out of 5]

I would give it 2.5 stars if that was possible.

[Melissa B. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just finished this for book club. I liked it. It reminded me of Edgar Allen Poe. I'll save my other comments for book club.

[Steve Gordon]

A brilliant little book. Sand leaves the socialist tinge of her rural tales to the side for a bit to tell a tale of the madness of love. The ending was perfection.

[Aysegul · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read George Sand for the first time, I really enjoyed the book. The narration was so fluent, the entire story flows smoothly. I loved the passionate female character Juliette.

[Zlatko · Rating 1 out of 5]

Stupid, disgusting, etc.
This story sucks!
But worst of all, I found myself, enjoying in some chapters, and I feel guilt for it.

[Sabrina K · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 / 5 stars

"I became romantic, the most deplorable character that a woman can have."

Poor, sweet Juliette... My brows knit together in worry, pity, and despair for you. How can the greatest good, love, bring such melancholy? Why don't you follow your reason and depart from Leoni?

Such a beautifully sorrowful story. I imagine there aren't many women in existence today that share the same wholly forgiving, devoted, and passionate love Juliette has shown. Her actions are frustrating, but her virtue and demeanour bring out a want for her to end up happy in the end. The abuse of her virtuousness pained me.

Alas in the end, like Bustamente, there is nothing we can do to save her from Leoni - and I don't believe she wants us to.

"Do not hate me; you know that I do not belong to myself, that an invisible hand controls my actions and throws me against my will into that man's arms. (...) I love him. I cannot live without him."

[Robertas Jucaitis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jos busimasis žentas privalėjo turėti tam tikrus rankogalius, nepriekaištingą kaklaraištį, puikią figūrą, gražų veidą, Paryžiuje siūtus drabužius ir mokėti varinėti tuščius plepalus, nes tokį žmogų aukštuomenė dievina.

Il fallait que son futur gendre eût de certaines manchettes, une cravate irréprochable, une tournure exquise, une jolie figure, des habits faits à Paris, et cette espèce de bavardage insignifiant qui rend un homme adorable dans le monde.

[Kirsty · Rating 3 out of 5]

George Sand was an incredibly prolific author, and published many varied works over her career. Leone Leoni, first published in France in 1835, was released in this particular English translation by George Burnham Ives in 1900. The novel - or, rather, novella - is set in the early nineteenth century, and focuses upon the title character, as well as a young Belgian woman named Juliette Ruyter, and her 'protector, the noble Spaniard' Aleo Bustamente.

Juliette and Aleo have arrived in Venice just before its annual carnival, and receive the news that Leone Leoni is in the city 'with his wealthy playmates'. Juliette soon feels compelled to tell Aleo 'the whole story of her progress of ruin and degradation at the hands of one of the most infamous and charming scoundrels of his time'. The blurb writes that Leone Leoni 'tells of innocence trapped by debauchery in a dazzling round of intrigue, impersonation and emotional deception.'

Sand's introduction to the volume has been included here, and immediately intrigues: 'Being at Venice, in very cold weather and under very depressing circumstances, the carnival roaring and whistling outside with the icy north wind, I experienced the painful contrast which results from inward suffering, alone amid the wild excitement of a population of strangers.' Clearly, this firsthand experience of the city which Sand had allows her descriptions of Venice to feel incredibly present and immersive. The novella's opening sentence proclaims the following, in what feels like an echo of Sand's introduction: 'We were at Venice. The cold and the rain had driven the promenaders and the masks from the square and the quays... It was a fine carnival evening inside the palaces and theatres, but outside, everything was dismal, and the street-lights were reflected in the streaming pavements, where the hurried footsteps of a belated masker, wrapped in his cloak, echoed loudly from time to time.'

Leoni is cocky, and filled with his own self-importance, and delusions of grandeur. When Juliette tells Aleo of her history with Leoni, she describes the way in which she at first refused to dance with him at a ball, but was soon swept under his spell. At first, she is not at all happy with the way in which he deceives her mother, and pushes himself into their lives: 'By such petty agitations did the coming of Leoni, and the unhappy destiny that he brought, begin the disturb the profound peace in which I had always lived.' As time goes on, though, her feelings for him change: 'I was dominated by his glance, enthralled by his tales, surprised and fascinated by every new resource that he developed.'

The novella is told from the perspective of Aleo at first, and much of Juliette's later commentary is displayed in dialogue, thus allowing Sand to use a contrast of voices. These are perhaps not different enough, however, and do tend to blend a little, using similar phrases and exclamations. The real strength of Leone Leoni lies in Sand's descriptions, which pick up on the minutiae of place, movement, and character. Of Juliette, for instance, she writes: 'She rose and walked to the window; her white silk petticoat fell in numberless folds about her graceful form. Her chestnut hair escaped from the long pins of chased gold which only half confined it, and bathed her back in a flood of perfumed silk.'

The prose of Leone Leoni is rather melodramatic at times, although one can rather predict this if they are at all familiar with the period in which the story was written. Despite the sadness of her story, I felt no empathy whatsoever for Juliette, and the way in which she was treated; to me, she felt rather insipid, and seemed to spend most of her time swooning. Aleo was not much better. I found the plot of Leone Leoni to be rather predictable, and whilst the writing and translation are generally strong, I did feel rather disappointed with it overall.

[Jim Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s astounding to read a book almost 200 years old and see people behaving just as they do today. In Sand’s novel, Juliette, falls for the charming, titled, and, supposedly, rich Venetian Leone Leoni in her Brussels home. She ends up running away with him after a costume ball (at which he steals her father’s jewelry) to live a blissful six months in a cabin in Switzerland. When they finally move to his home in Venice, she slowly realizes he is a con man, a swindler, a cheat, and a user. Parts of this novel are hard to get through, even today, as we realize Juliette is on a long downward spiral with this guy. There is hope, as she finishes recounting her sad story to a man determined to help her, that she may finally find happiness, but then Leoni turns up again and she goes right back to him. It is a bitter, but all too familiar story. The bad boy/sociopath's charm overwhelms everything that tells a woman that he is poison. But amazingly, Sand does not feel compelled to give us a “moral” or happy ending. A powerful work.

[Karmen]

A woman, Juliet, does and endures everything for the man she loves..