f all
this will be a mysterious novel." The mysterious novel was the _Comtesse
de Rudolstadt_. Consuelo, who through her marriage with Albert is now
Comtesse de Rudolstadt, continues her European tour. She reaches Berlin,
and we find her at the Court of Frederick II. We now have Voltaire,
La Mettrie, the Sans-Souci suppers, Cagliostro, Saint-Germain and the
occult sciences. Frederick II sends Consuelo to prison. There appears
to be no reason for this, unless it be that in order to escape she
must first have been imprisoned. Some mysterious rescuers take a great
interest in Consuelo, and transport her to a strange dwelling, where
she has a whole series of surprises. It is, in fact, a sort of Palace
of Illusions. She is first in a dark room, and she then finds herself
suddenly in a room of dazzling light. "At the far end of this room,
the whole aspect of which is very forbidding, she distinguishes seven
personages, wrapped in red cloaks and wearing masks of such livid
whiteness that they looked like corpses. They were all seated behind a
table of black marble. Just in front of the table, and on a lower seat,
was an eighth spectre. He was dressed in black, and he, too, wore a
white mask. By the wall, on each side of the room, were about twenty men
in black cloaks and masks. There was the most profound silence. Consuelo
turned round and saw that there were also black phantoms behind her.
At each door there were two of them standing up, each holding a huge,
bright sword."(37)

(37) _Comtesse de Rudolstadt._

She wondered whether she had reached the infernal regions, but she
discovered that she was in the midst of a secret society, styled the
Invisibles. Consuelo is to go through all the various stages of the
initiation. She first puts on the bridal dress, and after this the
widow's weeds. She undergoes all the various trials, and has to witness
the different spectacles provided for her edification, including
coffins, funeral palls, spectres and simulated tortures. The description
of all the various ceremonies takes up about half of the book. George
Sand's object was to show up this movement of secret societies, which
was such a feature of the eighteenth century, and which was directed
both against monarchical power and against the Church. It contributed to
prepare the way for the Revolution, and gave to this that international
character and that mystic allure which would otherwise have been
incomprehensible.

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