_Mademoiselle La Quintinie_, which appeared in 1863, was suggested by M. Octave Feuillet's _Sibille_. The point of M. Feuillet's novel is, that Sibille, an ardent Catholic, stifles her love, and renounces her lover on account of his heterodox opinions. Madame Sand gives us the reverse--a heroine who is reflectively rather than mystically inclined, and whose lover by degrees succeeds in effecting her conversion to his more liberal views. Here, as elsewhere, the author's mind shows a sympathetic comprehension of the standpoint of enlightened Protestantism curiously rare among those who, like herself, have renounced Romanism for the pursuit of free thought and speculation. But even those who prefer the _denoument_ of George Sand's novel to that of M. Feuillet's will not rank _Mademoiselle La Quintinie_ very high among the author's productions. It is colorless, and artistically weak, however controversially strong. Madame Sand, according to her own reckoning in 1869, had made at least L40,000 by her writings. Out of this she had saved no fortune. She had always preferred to live from day to day on the proceeds of her work, regulating her expenses accordingly, trusting her brain to answer to any emergency and bring her out of the periodical financial crises in which the uncertainty of literary gains and the liberality of her expenditure involved her. She continued fond of travelling, especially of exploring the nooks and corners of France, felt by her to be less well known than they deserve, and fully as picturesque as the spots tourists go far to visit. Here she sought fresh frames for her novels. "If I have only three words to say about a place," she tells us, "I like to be able to refer to it in my memory so as to make as few mistakes as possible." In January, 1869, we find her writing of herself in a playful strain to her friend Flaubert:-- The individual called George Sand is quite well, enjoying the marvelous winter now reigning in Berry, gathering flowers, taking note of interesting botanic anomalies, stitching at dresses and mantles for her daughter-in-law, costumes for the marionettes, dressing dolls, reading music, but, above all, spending hours with little Aurore, who is a wonderful child. There is not a being on earth more tranquil and happier in his home than this old troubadour retired from business, now and then singing his little song to the moon, singing well or ill he does not particularly care, so long as he gives the _motif_ that is running in his head.... He is happy, for he is at peace, and can find amusement in everything. M. Plauchut, another literary friend and a visitor at Nohant during this last decade of her lifetime, gives a picture of the order of her day; it is simplicity itself.