SAND, George (1804–1876).

A lovely letter to her friend, the opera singer, on the birth of her grandson. “My dear girl, we are so delighted to hear that you are content and happy in your new home” in Baden-Baden. She would love to go and see her, “But for a long time to come, perhaps, I shall not be able to leave the house. We are bound here by immense joy and by a thousand little cares at every moment. We have neither forests nor mountains, nor palaces, nor chalets, nor concerts, nor parties, but we have a beautiful little boy who was born to us on 14 July [Marc-Antoine Dudevant, son of Maurice] and who fills us all with joy. Maurice carries him and fiddles with him all day long, as deftly as if he were preparing a butterfly. His little mother feeds him and gazes at him. [...] 74027

This is the second time I have become a grandmother, and I had been left with a deep and lasting sorrow [a reference to the death of little Jeanne, Solange’s daughter]. As Maurice had decided late in life to marry, I saw my old age clouded by the isolation in which I was leaving him. At last, however, I accept my 59 years with pleasure. I shall not leave him alone; he has a lovely young wife, intelligent, lively, cheerful, an artist, neither devout nor worldly, and with a passionate and generous heart’… Then she speaks of Louise, Pauline’s daughter, ‘who has grown beautiful, but remains somewhat harsh and somewhat haughty’. And, alluding to the artistic hub of Baden-Baden, she laments: ‘The big capitals will become vast bazaars where, day by day, serious art will become more difficult and less appreciated. Great artists will conduct their business there from time to time, but they will make their lives elsewhere, and gather in oases. They will do well, and you set the example. Paris does not deserve to be the focus of one’s attention, for it wants too much and too little; it wants great artists, yet does not know how to accord them their due. And besides, it only half understands them; the feat of skill will always charm it. Art would certainly be lost if it did not create sanctuaries for itself in which to recharge its batteries’… Correspondence, vol. XVII, no. 10300.