Having recently conceived a consuming interest in the life and a passion for the works of George Sand, born Aurore Dupin, I determined on my last visit to France to seek out her home and burial place in Nohant, a village nestled among the undulating fields of the central part of the country. The nearest important city is Chateauroux, served by one of the finest lines of the French rail system. One easily reaches this terminus in one of the system’s most luxurious coaches, its decor attractive, its amenities spread before the traveler. Though it does have an impressive cathedral, Chateauroux is not a signal destination for most people. It has improved substantially, however, since 1952-53 when I taught there.

Once deposited in the pleasant, clean station, one simply takes a bus to Nohant, a negligible distance away. Once off the bus, one is greeted by the chimneys and roof of Sand’s imposing villa across the road. In the middle of a cluster of homes, all primly kept, is the ancient Roman Catholic church in Romanesque style where Sand’s obsequies were held even though by the end of her long life she held more to the Protestant credo than the Catholic. She may have shocked her generation by wearing men’s clothes at times and smoking cigars, but in her thinking she was not so unconventional as many have imagined. All her days she never relinquished her faith in God, though, indeed, that faith had a transcendental twist.

For too many people unacquainted with her work — for Sand was a woman far ahead of her time, a genius in fact — hers has been merely a name associated with Frederic Chopin or several other lovers, including the megalomaniac Alfred de Musset. For 11 years she was more mother than lover to the frail composer, whose music she genuinely loved (Sand was a fairly accomplished pianist herself). But by a strange contretemps, he suddenly returned to Paris and allied himself with her daughter, Solange, self-indulgent and selfish. Ironically, Chopin never dedicated anything to his benefactress, though he did honor the viperous Countess d’Agoult, one of the lovers of Franz Liszt.

Unpretentious, Sand, though descended from a noble family (her father was Maurice de Saxe, the legitimized bastard son of the Elector of Saxony, who became the Polish King Augustus the Strong), never capitalized on her aristrocratic forebears. Her father, later a marshal of France, was playing a dance when informed of the birth of his daughter. For some years she was reared in Spain, then came under the stern tutelage of her beloved grandmother at Nohant, an exemplar of the ancien regime who had come dangerously close to gratifying the guillotine during the Terror. Though Sand was in awe of her inflexible grandmother, she deeply loved her mother, even though the latter was not of the aristocracy, a fact that her grandmother never let her forget. At Nohant, Sand early began to absorb the life of the peasantry and the surrounding scene that gave her such moral fiber for the books she was destined to write.

Sand always maintained that to know her, one would have to know her father and, further, her books, in which, usually, the women were much more sinned against than sinning. After her imperious grandmother, Sand was most influenced by the ex-abbe Deschatre, the factotum of the household and an avid follower of Rousseau, the advocate of the “back to nature” movement whose repercussions were felt over the civilized world. Though not formally educated, the precocious Sand did pick up a smattering of Latin and English, music and the natural sciences along the way. For three years during which she was reasonably content, she was attached to a convent in Paris. After her grandmother’s death, she would have returned to the convent save for the fact that her friends found her a husband, Casimir Dudevant, a gentleman farmer, the father of her two children, Solange and Maurice, who quickly proved totally unsuitable.

It was not long before she realized that she had wed a clown who could not possibly share her intellectual interests. By 1831 an amicable separation was worked out, though according to the wildly unfair laws of the land, her whole estate had to be surrendered to him. But she had gained her liberty at last. To eke out a meager living, she did fancywork, made fans and snuffboxes and painted. Her literary apprenticeship came under the tutelage of a Dr. Delatouche, the editor of Figaro, on whose staff was a Jules Sandeau, a young lawyer whose name she assumed once they had formed a partnership. Her first independent novel, “Indiana” (1832) was praised by the critic Saint-Beuve, not known for dishing out compliments promiscuously. In a later work, “Valentine,” she expresses her anti-matrimony doctrines.

But it was “Lelio” (1833) that really marked her as a writer of consequence, for it is basically a diatribe against social coventions and the intransigently unfair marriage laws. On its publication she was dubbed “the female Byron.” About this time her affair with Musset, an abusive alcoholic who grew impossibly jealous, blossomed, but he eventually tired of her regimen of writing eight hours a day.

Her next critical excursion into social mores was “Jacques,” a book in which a woman in man’s disguise seeks free love, following the dictates of her heart. By this time she was a confirmed Republican, indeed a socialist, a stance that alienated many of her associates. No political action, however, deterred her from turning out her 20 pages a day punctually and rapidly. Her assiduity did not compromise her spontaneity, her correctness of diction (in this she followed her close friend Gustave Flaubert) and undeniable fluidity.

Devoted to her grandchildren, Sand at last retired to her charming home at Nohant, where one can still sense the flavor of a busy, fruitful life. Here are the piano she often played in the evenings, her many books and the furniture she used. Her presence is palpable.