It was a marvel that passions so foolishly conceived should have lasted so long; although the world, judging only by appearances, was astonished and scandalised to see her breaking the ties so soon and so completely. In all these attachments she had been hardly a week happy and blind--and was not the absolute devotion of one, sometimes two, years, which followed on a love that she recognised to have been foolish and ill-bestowed, a supreme effort of heroism, greater than the sacrifice of a whole life for a being felt to be worthy of it?" We can understand how it was that weak men had an attraction for Lucrezia. Her independent character in combination with her motherly instincts drew her to the weak. The idea of being protected was intolerable to her; and on occasions when she had felt the desire to lean upon those who were stronger than herself, she had too often been repelled by their coldness. She was therefore inclined to believe that love and energy were to be found in combination only in hearts which had suffered as much as her own. Finally, we see how her relation to her children--and Lucrezia, like George Sand, is the tenderest, most affectionate of mothers--influenced her erotic life. "She had wished to be a mother to her lovers without ceasing to be the mother of her children, and the conflict between the two feelings had always ended in the extinction of the less obstinate passion. The children triumphed, and the lovers, who, to speak metaphorically, had been taken from the Foundling Hospital of civilisation, were obliged, sooner or later, to return there." Lucrezia speaks of her attitude to the verdict of the world on her character and life in terms which are directly applicable to George Sand. "I have never sought notoriety. I may have caused scandal, but never knowingly or willingly. I have never loved two men at the same time. I have never, even in thought, belonged to more than one during any given time, that is, as long as my passion lasted. When I no longer loved a man, I did not deceive him. I broke off with him entirely. I had vowed, it is true, in my enthusiasm, to love him always; and I made the vow in absolute good faith. Every time I loved, it was so ardently and perfectly that I believed it was for the first and last time in my life. You cannot call me a respectable woman. But I myself am certain that I am one; I even lay claim to be a virtuous woman, though I know that, according to your ideas and public opinion, this is blasphemy. I submit my life to the verdict of the world without rebelling, without disputing the justice of its general laws, but not acknowledging that it is right in my case."[6]