The Miller of Angibault

The story is about the widow Marcelle de Blanchemont who comes to the area to investigate what is left of her husband’s property. She has one son, and is in love with Henri Lémor, who has no money of his own and refuses to marry her while she is rich. In trying to reach her castle, Marcelle gets lost and spends the night at the Mill of Angibault: “At the outskirts of the mill, this stream, slender but powerful, forms a lake of considerable breadth, still, deep, and harmonious as a mirror, in which the ancient willows and mossy roofs of the dwelling are reflected. Marcelle sat in contemplation of this peaceful, pleasant spot, which spoke more to her than she knew. She had seen more beautiful scenes; but there are places which leave us open to some inexplicable and powerful affinity, where it seems that fate draws us so as to prepare us to accept certain joys, griefs or duties.”

She becomes friendly with the miller, Grand-Louis, and his mother. The miller is in love with Rose Bricolin, daughter of a greedy local squire. The Bricolin’s eldest daughter fell in love with a poor man and was not allowed to marry him, and she went mad, and roams the fields seeking her lost lover. Rose seems set for a similar fate, but Marcelle assists Rose and eventually helps arrange things so that she and the miller may marry. She and Grand-Louis share a contempt for greed and feel that money is to be shared. The communist conversations they have throughout the book are remarkably radical for a novel published in 1845.

The novel influenced Dostoevsky who called George Sand “a Russian idealist of the 1840 generation”. Also influenced were Thomas Hardy, Walt Whitman, Matthew Arnold and Henry James.

Many socialist writers concentrated on the urban poor, but George Sand wanted to show the plight of the rural poor, and she does so very effectively in this novel. She depicts the ruin of an aristocratic family, due to gambling and debauchery, the insecurity of the landless farm worker, and also the machinations of ambitious new money, the crushing of an old beggar under the wheels of a smart new carriage not fit for country roads, the madness of an unhappy woman. The proceeds of the novel went into establishing a printing commune run by a socialist. George Sand gave generously to aid such local projects and was much loved by the local people.