Again at Nohant for the summer, George Sand applied herself strenuously to the composition of _Valentine_; so closely, indeed, that, if she is to be taken seriously as to a letter written in August, 1832, she was rather weary of her work. At any rate, its early issue was marked by so brilliant a success, that the labor and weariness of her task may well have been forgotten. This book, like its predecessor, was severely criticised by those who saw in it an outspoken challenge to recognized social decrees. With what wealth of poetry, what beauty of imagery, and what force, is told the story of a girl sacrificed by a marriage of expediency! The crime is not the author's; she strikes at the system which destroys a pure heart and substitutes misery and shame for happiness and dignity. The author would trace the fault, to have it remedied. Though the subject of _Valentine_ is, like that of _Indiana_, unhappy marriage, the former, in arrangement, plan, and style, gave further convincing evidence of the author's artistic skill and promise of rich literary treasures of diverse and widely varying style and conception. Valentine, the heroine, has been brought up according to the prejudices and decrees of the aristocratic class. She marries in accordance with the dictates of her family. Her heart is not involved; she is passive in the matter. Later, the abandonment she suffers, and the passion of her own soul, lead her into a false position, of which the man who is entitled to call her his wife takes advantage. The climax is dishonor, death. The winter of 1832 finds George Sand again in Paris, where she is comfortably settled; she finds herself bothered with visitors, but out of the clutches of poverty. In her apartments, she seeks her pleasure in her work and the society of her little Solange, of whom she writes at this time: "She brings me more happiness than all the rest." In a letter to her son's tutor, written December 20, 1832, she says: "I am making lots of money; I am receiving propositions from all quarters. The _Revue de Paris_ and the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ are fighting for my work. I finally bound myself to the latter." _La Marquise_ had just been published, the novel having been received with great favor. Thus, within two years from the time she came to Paris to seek liberty of action and thought, wounded in her faith and affection, and her hopes entirely shattered of realizing any joy in her husband's society, George Sand had overthrown all obstacles in the path before her, and had become a distinguished personality in the world of letters.