It is, indeed, a really lively book. Two duller ones than the first two allotted, at the beginning of this notice, to her last period I have seldom read. They are both instances (and one at least contains an elaborate vindication) of the "novel of purpose," and they are by themselves almost enough to damn it. M. le Marquis de Villemer is an appalling prig--virtuous, in the Devil-and-his-grandmother style, to the _n_th--who devotes his energies to writing a _History of the Patriciate since the Christian Era_, the object being to reveal the sins of aristocracy. He has a rather nice half-brother spend-thrift, Duque d'Aleria (Madame de Villemer the elder has first married a Spaniard), whose debts he virtuously pays, and after a great deal of scandal he marries a poor but noble and noble-minded damsel, Caroline de Saint-Geneix, who has taken the position of companion to his mother in order to help her widowed and four-childed sister. For the virtue of George Sand's virtuous people _is_ virtue and no mistake. The lively and amiable duke is fortunately fitted with a lively and amiable duchess, and they show a little light in the darkness of copy-book morality and republican principles. [Sidenote: _Mlle. La Quintinie._] This kindly light is altogether wanting in _Mademoiselle La Quintinie_, where the purpose passes from politics to religion. The book is rather famous, and was, at the time, much read, because it is not merely a novel of purpose, but an instance of the duello fought, not with sword or pistol, not with quarter-staves or sand-bags, but with _feuilletons_ of fiction. It, and Octave Feuillet's _Sibylle_, to which it is the countercheck-quarrelsome, both appeared in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_. It should be seen at a further stage of this volume that I do not think _Sibylle_ a masterpiece, either of tale-telling or of argumentation, though it is more on my side than the reply is. But Feuillet, though not a genius, as some people would have George Sand to be, nor yet possessing anything like the talent which no sane criticism can deny her, was a much better craftsman in the art of novel-writing. [Sidenote: _Flamarande._] For a final notice--dealing also with the last, or almost the last, of all her books--we may take _Flamarande_ and its sequel, _Les Deux Freres_. They give the history of the unfounded jealousy of a husband in regard to his wife--a jealousy which is backed up by an equally unfounded suspicion (supported by the most outrageous proceedings of espionage and something like burglary) on the part of a confidential servant, who, as we are informed at last, has himself had a secret passion for his innocent mistress. It is more like a Feuillet book than a George Sand, and in this respect shows the curious faculty--possessed also by some lady novelists of our own--of adapting itself to the change of novel-fashion. But to me at least it appeals not.