* DUDEVANT, MADAME AMANTINE-AURORE, better known by her assumed name of George Sand, was born in 1804, iu the department of Indre (part of the old province of Berri), in the very centre of France. Her father, Maurice Dupin, was a captain in the army of the empire, after having served since 1793 in the wars of the revolution. His father was a fermier-genSral ; but his mother, who had been previously married to Count de Horn, was the only daughter of the celebrated Mareschal Maurice de Saxe, who was a natural son of the handsome Augustus II. of Poland. Thus the future authoress, by her paternal descent, had tho royal blood of Poland in her veius a fact which, with the mixture of that blood through her mother with blood more plebeian and popular, ebe herself commemorates. Left an orphan by the death of her father, who was killed by a fall from his horse, Mademoiselle Dupiu was educated under the care of her grandmother, the Comtcsse de Horn, who still survived, at the Chateau de Nobant, in a retired valley in her native province of Berri. Ae her grandmother (a genuine Frenchwoman of the revolution) was a believer in the doctrines of Rousseau, the education of the young Aurore was somewhat peculiar. She roamed about as she chose, and was brought up very much as if she had been a boy. Already how ever her intellectual tastes had declared themselves, and she was an ardent and a various reader. At the age of fifteen, her grandmother, persuaded at last that a girl educated on Rousseau's system in the country would be an anachronism in the France of the restoration, sent her to Paris, where ahe was placed in the Convent des Dawes /anglaise& Here, with all the enthusiasm of her nature, she entered into the spirit of the place, so totally novel to her at the time, and became an ardent Catholic. Her devoteeism went so far that, on her grandmother's death, she determined to take the veil. The remon strances of her family, if not their authority, prevented her from carrying the design into effect; and at the age of seventeen she was married, by family arrangement, to M. Dudevant, a country gentleman of Berri, to whom she brought some fortuue. Sho lived with him about ten years, during which they had two children, a son and a daughter. But, although there was no disparity of years or other ordinary cause of incompatibility between the husband and the wife, the marriage was not a suitable ono; and Madame Dudevant having, in consequence of a severe illness, been sent to the Pyrenees for change of air, and having then, for the first time since her girlhood, come into free contact with the world, conceived such a distaste for her existing mode of life that she resolved to bring it to a close. Accordingly, she separated from her husband in 1831, allowing him to retain her fortune, and came to Paris, to begin, at the age of twenty aeven, a life of absolute independence. She resided first at the convent where she had been educated, but afterwards in an obscure lodging in the Quai-SteMichel, where Jules Sandeau, a young student with whom she had some time before become acquainted, also had his abode. In order to earn a mere subsistence, the two friends, so associated, betook themselves to literature ; 'and, after some coutributions to Egaro,' journal of that day, they jointly wrote a novel called 'Rose et Blanche,' which was published (1832) with ',Jules Saud' on the title-page as the author's name. The proceeds of this work enabled the friends to live for some time; but again, on the compulsion of necessity, they agreed, during a separation caused by Madame Dudevant's return on business to Berri, to write each a portion of a tale to be published as one.
Madame Dudevant alone executed her part of the work, and the result was 'Indiana,' which was published iu 1832, and to which, in com memoration of her friendship with Sandcau, she affixed the name of George Sand:' This work at once made her celebrated, and her celebrity was increased by her next tales—' Valentine,' published in the 'Revue de Paris' (11,32); and"Lelia,' published in the 'Revue dee Deux Mendes' (1833). The genius of therm works was acknow ledged by all, while the daring spirit of social revolt which they showed, and especially their doctrines as to the institution of marriage, gave a peculiarity to their reputation which much affected their reception as specimens of literary art. Tho same admiration of tho genius of the authoress, as shown in her powers of description, narration, and character-painting, and in her almost unmatched mastery of eloqoent French prose, accompanied by the same fear of the Maumee of her doctrines ou the minds of the young, has attended her throughout her whole subsequent career—except that of late the admiration has become more general, and the fear has considerably abated. Her works have been extremely numerous. In addition to those already mentioned, more than a dozen novels—among which were ' Le Secretaire Intime," Andre," Leone-Leoni," Jacques; 'Mauprat,' and 'Sldridien'—proceeded from her ready pen before 1637, published generally first in the feuillrions of jonrnale. About this time she was successful in a suit against her husband instituted for the recovery of her private property, and for obtaining the guardianship of her children. With her children she removed to the ChAteau de Nohant, where she has chiefly resided since, often however removing to l'aris. When M. Pierre Leroux and others started the 'Revue Independents,' she became a contributor to that periodical, and here appeared perhaps her finest tale, 'Cousualo: She also con tributed to ' Le Monde, a journal edited by Lamenuais. Among her novels, besides Consuelo,' published since 1837, are Horace," La Petite Fadette," Jeanne," Fauchette: and 'La Comtesse do Itudol stadt;' but her tales in all amount to about thirty, and while there is not one of them that does not display genius, hardly any two of them are precisely alike. In 1841 she published' Un II iver an Jlidi,' com memorating a residence in the island of Majorca. Prepared by long association with Liu:rennet% Pierre Leroux, and other distinguished thinkers characterised by faith lu philosophic democracy, and in the possibility of reorganislug society on now religious and political principles, Aladame Dudevant entered with enthusiasm into the san guine hopes of a new era for France which were produced by the revolution of ISIS. For some time she edited a democratic newspaper of her own, in which she addressed the people in the express character of a journalist from day to day. The regime of Louis Napoleon, first as president and next as emperor, having repressed democratic politico in France, Madame Sand, while still retaining her political beliefs and aspirations, was obliged to resume her more purely literary labours. Within the last few years, residing either at Nohant or at Paris, where her daughter is matried, she has, to a great extent, forsaken the novel for the drama. Here she has not been so success ful as in the novel, some of her pieces having failed. Her late pieces however have been popular on the stage. She has recently published a voluminous autobiography, which appeared in parte in the 'I'resse' newspaper. Many of her works have been translated into English.