ABSTRACT
To write the biography of a place: the research exposed in this chapter and in the upcoming book George Sand é Nohant. Une maison d’artiste (George Sand in Nohant: An Artist’s House) lays on the exploration of Sand’s correspondence (twenty-six volumes) and diaries (1853-1876). The analysis falls into three parts: the people (family, friends, servants, pets); places (the house, the garden, the land); and times (meteorology, body’s rhythms, diary, reading and writing times, theater, politics). Sand (1804-1876) dreamed to transform this village into an artistic retreat, a studio, a phalanstery of artists, an egalitarian model, a place of happiness. Here she wrote the essential of her work, while Chopin composed the é of his. Did she realize her dream? The chapter explores this existential and poetic attempt, marked by domestic conflicts and historical events.
