01 Jul 2023
On This Day
1 July 2023 Cheryl

1 July 1804: George Sand is born

George Sand c. 1845

George Sand’s family was connected to a number of high-ranking European aristocrats. Her paternal grandmother, Marie-Aurore de Saxe, was the illegitimate daughter of Count Maurice de Saxe, who himself was an illegitimate son of a King of Poland. This also made Sand distantly related to a line of French kings. [1]

Amantine Aurore Lucile Dupin was born in Paris on 1 July 1804. Her father, Maurice Dupin, was related to a line of kings and her mother, Sophie, was the daughter of a professional bird fancier from a humble background. She was raised by her grandmother Marie-Aurore de Saxe, Madame Dupin de Francueil, at her grandmother’s house in the village of Nohant, in the French province of Berry. Amantine Aurore was to become the baroness of Dudevant and renowned through the pen name that made her famous, ‘George Sand’.

A writer of genius, a great lover, and determined, she was the incarnation of the first modern woman. She wrote over 100 novels, plays, and essays and achieved literary fame during her lifetime. Her novels are love stories in which her romantic idealism unfolds in a realistic setting. She also gained infamy for her unconventional lifestyle.

Sand inherited the estate at Nohant in 1821 when her grandmother died, and she used this setting in many of her novels. In 1822, aged 18, she married Casimir Dudevant and had two children, Maurice and Solange. After 9 years, in early 1831, she moved to Paris in search of independence and love, leaving her husband and children behind. Free from provincial and marital restrictions, she lived openly with her lover, Jules Sandeau, and began writing to earn her living. Her first literary efforts were collaborations with Sandeau and they published several stories together, signing them Jules Sand. For her first independent novel, Indiana written in 1832, she adopted her pen name, George Sand.

Working from near midnight to early morning, Sand commonly wrote 20-40 pages each day. The early works are novels of passion, written to lessen the pain of her first love affairs. She came to enjoy a great reputation in Paris both as a writer and as a bold and brilliant woman. Sand had many admirers and chose new lovers from among them, including the Polish composer Frédéric Chopin.

George Sand’s writing was immensely popular during her lifetime and she was highly respected by the literary and cultural elite in France. Sand died in Nohant on 9 June 1876 at the age of 71 and was buried in the private graveyard behind the chapel at Nohant-Vic. After she died, Sand’s reputation as a writer was overshadowed by her infamy.