_Jacques_, the longest of the novels written at Venice, afforded fresh grounds to those who taxed her works with hostility to social institutions. Without entering into the vexed question of the right of the artist in search of variety to exercise his power on any theme that may invite to its display, and of the precise bearing of ethical rules on works of imagination, it is permissible to doubt that _Jacques_, however bitter the sentiments of the author at that time regarding the marriage tie, ever seriously disturbed the felicity of any domestic household in the past or present day. It is too lengthy and too melancholy to attract modern readers, who care little to revel in the luxuries of woe, so relished by those of a former age. We cannot do better than quote the judgment pronounced by Madame Sand herself, thirty years later, on this work of pure sentimentalism--generated by an epoch thrown into commotion by the passionate views of romanticism--the epoch of Rene, Lara, Childe Harold, Werther, types of desperate men; life weary, but by no means weary of talking. "_Jacques_," she observes, "belonged to this large family of disillusioned thinkers; they had their _raison d'etre_, historical and social. He comes on the scene in the novel, already worn by deceptions; he thought to revive through his love, and he does not revive. Marriage was for him only the drop of bitterness that made the cup overflow. He killed himself to bequeath to others the happiness for which he cared not, and in which he believed not." _Jacques_, taken as a _plaidoyer_ against domestic institutions, singularly misses its aim. As critics have remarked, some of the most eloquent pages are those that treat of married bliss. Our sympathies are entirely with the wronged husband against his silly little wife. It is a kindred work to _Lelia_, and its faults are the same; but whilst dealing ostensibly with real life and possible human beings it cannot, like _Lelia_, be placed apart, and retain interest as a literary curiosity.