In _Claudie_, as in _Francois le Champi_, the rural setting is one of the great charms of the play. The first act is one of the most picturesque scenes on the stage. It takes place in a farmyard, the day when the reapers have finished their task, which is just as awe-inspiring as that of the sowers. A cart, drawn by oxen, enters the yard, bringing a sheaf all adorned with ribbons and flowers. The oldest of the labourers, Pere Remy, addresses a fine couplet to the sheaf of corn which has cost so much labour, but which is destined to keep life in them all. Claudie is one of those young peasant girls, whom we met with in the novel entitled _Jeanne_. She had been unfortunate, but Jeanne, although virtuous and pure herself, did not despise her, for in the country there is great latitude in certain matters. This is just the plain story, but on the stage everything becomes more dramatic and is treated in a more detailed and solemn fashion. Claudie's misfortune causes her to become a sort of personage apart, and it raises her very high in her own esteem. "I am not afraid of anything that can be said about me," observes Claudie, "for, on knowing the truth, kind-hearted, upright people will acknowledge that I do not deserve to be insulted." Her old grandfather, Remy, has completely absolved her. "You have repented and suffered enough, and you have worked and wept and expiated enough, too, my poor Claudie," he says. Through all this she has become worthy to make an excellent marriage. It is a case of that special moral code by which, after free love, the fault must be recompensed. Claudie is later on the Jeannine of the _Idees de Madame Aubray_, the Denise of Alexandre Dumas. She is the unmarried mother, whose misfortunes have not crushed her pride, who, after being outraged, has a right now to a double share of respect. The first good young man is called upon to accept her past life, for there is a law of solidarity in the world. The human species is divided into two categories, the one is always busy doing harm, and the other is naturally obliged to give itself up to making good the harm done. _The Mariage de Victorine_ belongs to a well-known kind of literary exercise, which was formerly very much in honour in the colleges. This consists in taking a celebrated work at the place where the author has left it and in imagining the "sequel." For instance, after the _Cid_, there would be the marriage of Rodrigue and Chimene for us. As a continuation of _L'Ecole des Femmes_, there is the result of the marriage of the young Horace with the tiresome little Agnes. Corneille gave a sequel to the _Menteur_ himself. Fabre d'Eglantine wrote the sequel to _Le Misanthrope_, and called it _Le Philinte de Moliere_. George Sand gives us here the sequel of Sedaine's _chef-d'oeuvre_ (that is, a _chef-d'oeuvre_ for Sedaine), _Le Philosophe sans le savor._