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Correspondance
Correspondance entre George Sand et Gustave Flaubert / préf. de Henri Amic
Date de l'édition 1904
Le présent ouvrage s'inscrit dans une politique de conservation patrimoniale des ouvrages de la littérature Française mise en place avec la BNF.
HACHETTE LIVRE et la BNF proposent ainsi un catalogue de titres indisponibles, la BNF ayant numérisé ces oeuvres et HACHETTE LIVRE les imprimant à la demande.
Certains de ces ouvrages reflètent des courants de pensée caractéristiques de leur époque, mais qui seraient aujourd'hui jugés condamnables.
Ils n'en appartiennent pas moins à l'histoire des idées en France et sont susceptibles de présenter un intérêt scientifique ou historique.
Le sens de notre démarche éditoriale consiste ainsi à permettre l'accès à ces oeuvres sans pour autant que nous en cautionnions en aucune façon le contenu.
Pour plus d'informations, rendez-vous sur www.hachettebnf.fr
Date de l'édition 1904
Le présent ouvrage s'inscrit dans une politique de conservation patrimoniale des ouvrages de la littérature Française mise en place avec la BNF.
HACHETTE LIVRE et la BNF proposent ainsi un catalogue de titres indisponibles, la BNF ayant numérisé ces oeuvres et HACHETTE LIVRE les imprimant à la demande.
Certains de ces ouvrages reflètent des courants de pensée caractéristiques de leur époque, mais qui seraient aujourd'hui jugés condamnables.
Ils n'en appartiennent pas moins à l'histoire des idées en France et sont susceptibles de présenter un intérêt scientifique ou historique.
Le sens de notre démarche éditoriale consiste ainsi à permettre l'accès à ces oeuvres sans pour autant que nous en cautionnions en aucune façon le contenu.
Pour plus d'informations, rendez-vous sur www.hachettebnf.fr
500 pages, Paperback
Published October 1, 2020
23 people want to read
About the author
George Sand
2,903 books929 followersAmantine 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.
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.
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October 18, 2018George Sand and Marie d'Agoult are two of the smartest and freest women of their 19th century. In 1835, a sudden and exalted friendship was born. They expressed it at first through letters of a deep tenderness, and then, in Paris, they opened together a salon where they received the most famous writers and musicians. Then, at home, George welcomed Marie who was in poor health. Suddenly, it's breaking up. Their exceptional intelligence did not overcome the wounds of self-esteem.
The letters they exchanged at the height of their friendship, testify to the exceptional character of these two women who, braving the prejudices of their class, wanted to be mistresses of their destiny.
This was a summary of the background cover. Charles F. Dupêchez, knows Marie d'Agoult very well and did a lot of work on this correspondence that he presents and which he enlightens us by notes. That said, I don’t always agree with his notes: I had the impression that he showed too much the negative sides of the two women; not that there is none, who does not have some? But I find that he does not reckon enough the difficult private circumstances of each of the two women during the two or three years of this correspondence. George Sand was divorcing a husband (whom I would have divorced too!), Marie was in full questioning about herself, about her position vis-à-vis her lover and in society.
That's why I didn't rate this book, because I would have given 5 stars to George Sand and Marie d'Agoult, but not to the narrator, sorry.
A friendship generally starts with the meeting of two people who feel attracted to each other. So, a discussion is started, serious, humorous, light, whatever. Then we decide to meet again, because the current went well on both sides. Finally, trusting in the friend, one can entrust to him deeper thoughts, because one knows that, even if he disagrees on certain points, the friendship will not suffer.
I believe that George Sand, just like Marie d'Agoult needed a feminine friendship in this moment of their lives, but they simply idealized one another before throwing themselves into a fictional friendship.
So here is an epistolary story whose end is known in advance, since it is the letters of these two writers that tell it to us. And this story of friendship between two women ends badly. Personally, I am not in a position, at this moment, to endure an unhappy end. But I really wanted to read this correspondence, because, if I know very little about Marie d'Agoult, I know George Sand more and I admire her.
So, I had the idea to read the letters from last to first. Thus, I go back, over the book, from the sad separation to the happy birth of friendship! So we can discuss the wrongs of each of the two women, rank with each other preferably ... Personally, I preferred to take the best of each, and it’s nothing but happiness!
So here’s the story of an unfortunate female friendship, from the end to the beginning, through some quotes which reflects the intelligence and the heart of these two women:
Marie: "Basically, there is something irreparable between us: I think that George pointed out the right point by saying that our friendship was fake, that I had yielded to my love for Franz (Liszt), to my desire to please him, to share all his feeling." (Franz Liszt was friends with George Sand) "But George's nature was unpleasant to me."
George: "I think that ink and paper were invented to poetize life, not to dissect it. So, when you are ready, tell me your day and your time, either at my home, at yours or at Mrs. Marliani's, at your pleasure."
Mary: "Love and forgiveness of Men attracts, like a divine magnet, God's love and forgiveness."
George: "Good evening my dear children (Franz Liszt and Marie d'Agoult). Love me only half of what I love you, and it will be a lot. I do not have the right to ask you more. You care so much about each other's hearts and minds it does not remain a part of first quality for people of my species. But that does not prevent me from putting you in the front line in my affections."
Mary: "What are, for me, all the ruins of Rome compared to a noble heart, to a loyal hold out to me? What are the rays of the sun of Naples compared to the gaze of a friend? What are all the masterpieces of the arts compared to a sympathetic and invigorating word?"
George: "The older I get, the more I prostrate myself in front of goodness, because I see that it is a benefit of which God is the most avaricious to us."
Marie: "Public morality is a word that sounds hollow; it is composed of a few millions of individual immoralities forming a public morality according to the principle that two negations equal an affirmation ... One will protest in thoughts, words and actions against this named public morality."
George: "Reasonable manners are good with this enemy anthill called the indifferent people. With those we love, we can be ridiculous at ease."
Marie: "We are impatiently waiting for your new novel, I hope you will come and read it to us and in this hope I kiss you a thousand times with all my heart."
George: "I admire you and esteem you because I know that lasting love is a diamond that requires a pure gold box, and your soul is that precious tabernacle."
Marie: "One meets sometimes, on his way, high and noble natures, but the most beautiful souls are not without tasks and the best of us are those who regret in the second half of their life, to have not better employed the first."
George: "My beautiful fair-haired countess, ... you seem to me the only beautiful, estimable and truly noble thing that I have seen shine in the patrician sphere."
PS: Translations are mine, sorry, great ladies.
The letters they exchanged at the height of their friendship, testify to the exceptional character of these two women who, braving the prejudices of their class, wanted to be mistresses of their destiny.
This was a summary of the background cover. Charles F. Dupêchez, knows Marie d'Agoult very well and did a lot of work on this correspondence that he presents and which he enlightens us by notes. That said, I don’t always agree with his notes: I had the impression that he showed too much the negative sides of the two women; not that there is none, who does not have some? But I find that he does not reckon enough the difficult private circumstances of each of the two women during the two or three years of this correspondence. George Sand was divorcing a husband (whom I would have divorced too!), Marie was in full questioning about herself, about her position vis-à-vis her lover and in society.
That's why I didn't rate this book, because I would have given 5 stars to George Sand and Marie d'Agoult, but not to the narrator, sorry.
A friendship generally starts with the meeting of two people who feel attracted to each other. So, a discussion is started, serious, humorous, light, whatever. Then we decide to meet again, because the current went well on both sides. Finally, trusting in the friend, one can entrust to him deeper thoughts, because one knows that, even if he disagrees on certain points, the friendship will not suffer.
I believe that George Sand, just like Marie d'Agoult needed a feminine friendship in this moment of their lives, but they simply idealized one another before throwing themselves into a fictional friendship.
So here is an epistolary story whose end is known in advance, since it is the letters of these two writers that tell it to us. And this story of friendship between two women ends badly. Personally, I am not in a position, at this moment, to endure an unhappy end. But I really wanted to read this correspondence, because, if I know very little about Marie d'Agoult, I know George Sand more and I admire her.
So, I had the idea to read the letters from last to first. Thus, I go back, over the book, from the sad separation to the happy birth of friendship! So we can discuss the wrongs of each of the two women, rank with each other preferably ... Personally, I preferred to take the best of each, and it’s nothing but happiness!
So here’s the story of an unfortunate female friendship, from the end to the beginning, through some quotes which reflects the intelligence and the heart of these two women:
Marie: "Basically, there is something irreparable between us: I think that George pointed out the right point by saying that our friendship was fake, that I had yielded to my love for Franz (Liszt), to my desire to please him, to share all his feeling." (Franz Liszt was friends with George Sand) "But George's nature was unpleasant to me."
George: "I think that ink and paper were invented to poetize life, not to dissect it. So, when you are ready, tell me your day and your time, either at my home, at yours or at Mrs. Marliani's, at your pleasure."
Mary: "Love and forgiveness of Men attracts, like a divine magnet, God's love and forgiveness."
George: "Good evening my dear children (Franz Liszt and Marie d'Agoult). Love me only half of what I love you, and it will be a lot. I do not have the right to ask you more. You care so much about each other's hearts and minds it does not remain a part of first quality for people of my species. But that does not prevent me from putting you in the front line in my affections."
Mary: "What are, for me, all the ruins of Rome compared to a noble heart, to a loyal hold out to me? What are the rays of the sun of Naples compared to the gaze of a friend? What are all the masterpieces of the arts compared to a sympathetic and invigorating word?"
George: "The older I get, the more I prostrate myself in front of goodness, because I see that it is a benefit of which God is the most avaricious to us."
Marie: "Public morality is a word that sounds hollow; it is composed of a few millions of individual immoralities forming a public morality according to the principle that two negations equal an affirmation ... One will protest in thoughts, words and actions against this named public morality."
George: "Reasonable manners are good with this enemy anthill called the indifferent people. With those we love, we can be ridiculous at ease."
Marie: "We are impatiently waiting for your new novel, I hope you will come and read it to us and in this hope I kiss you a thousand times with all my heart."
George: "I admire you and esteem you because I know that lasting love is a diamond that requires a pure gold box, and your soul is that precious tabernacle."
Marie: "One meets sometimes, on his way, high and noble natures, but the most beautiful souls are not without tasks and the best of us are those who regret in the second half of their life, to have not better employed the first."
George: "My beautiful fair-haired countess, ... you seem to me the only beautiful, estimable and truly noble thing that I have seen shine in the patrician sphere."
PS: Translations are mine, sorry, great ladies.
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