ulter; and of the proper marriage-bells. There
is also a rather unnecessary appendix, doubtless dear to the folklorist,
of Berrichon wedding customs.

Once more, to cavil at this would be contemptibly easy. To quote _La
Terre_ against it would be uncritical, for, as may be seen later,
whatever M. Zola's books are, they are not evidence that can negative
anything. It would be as sensible to set against the night scene in the
wood by the Devil's Pool the history of the amiable Dumollard, who, as
far as fifty years' memory serves me, used, some years before George
Sand's death, sometimes to escort and sometimes to lie in wait for
servant-girls on the way to or from places, violate, murder, and rob
them, in another country district of France. Nor would it be quite
critical, though a little more so, to compare George Sand's own friend,
contemporary, and in some sort counterpart, Balzac's peasant scenes
against her. If, at this time, she viewed all such things _en rose_,
Balzac viewed them, at this and almost all times, _en noir_. Perhaps
everybody (except the wicked farmer, who insults Marie) is a little too
good, and it seems rather surprising that somebody did not say something
about Germain and Marie arriving next morning instead of overnight. But
never mind this. The scenery and the writing of the book have real
charm. The long conversation by the watch-fire in the wood, where
Germain tries to break off his suit to the widow already and transfer
himself to Marie, with Marie's cool and (for she has loved him already)
self-denying refusal on the most atrociously rational and business-like
principles, is first-rate. It may rank, with the above-mentioned
discussion about Consuelo's beauty between herself and her lover, as one
of the best examples of George Sand's gift for the novel.

[Sidenote: _Francois le Champi._]

The third in the order of mention of what is usually considered her
trilogy of idylls, _Francois le Champi_, if not the prettiest, is the
strongest, and the most varied in interest, of the three. The shadier
side of human character lifts itself and says, _Et in Arcadia ego_,[189]
much more decidedly than in the childish petulances of _La Petite
Fadette_ and the merely "Third Murderer" appearance of the unprincipled
farmer in _La Mare au Diable_. Even the mostly blameless hero is
allowed, towards the close, to exhibit the well-known _ruse_ or _madre_
characteristics of the French peasant to the extent of more