The Masterpieces of George Sand Amandine Lucille Aurore Dupin, Baroness Dudevant, _NOW FOR THE FIRST TIME COMPLETELY TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH THE SIN OF MONSIEUR ANTOINE, AND LEONE LEONI BY G. BURNHAM IVES_ _WITH TWELVE PHOTOGRAVURES AFTER PAINTINGS BY PIERRE VIDAL_ _VOLUME I_ _PRINTED ONLY FOR SUBSCRIBERS BY GEORGE BARRIE & SON PHILADELPHIA_ CONTENTS INTRODUCTION CHAPTER I. EGUZON II. THE MANOR OF CHÂTEAUBRUN III. MONSIEUR CARDONNET IV. THE VISION V. THE DRIBE VI. JEAN THE CARPENTER VII. THE ARREST VIII. GILBERTE IX. MONSIEUR ANTOINE X. A GOOD ACTION XI. A GHOST XII. INDUSTRIAL DIPLOMACY XIII. THE STRUGGLE XIV. FIRST LOVE XV-. THE STAIRCASE XVI. THE TALISMAN XVII. THAW XVIII. STORM XIX. THE PORTRAIT XX. THE FORTRESS OF CROZANT XXI. MONSIEUR ANTOINE'S NAP XXII. INTRIGUE XXIII. THE DEVIL'S ROCK LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS THE SIN OF MONSIEUR ANTOINE _VOLUME I_ EMILE'S FIRST MEETING WITH GILBERTE EMILE ENTERTAINED BY MONSIEUR ANTOINE MONSIEUR DE BOISGUILBAULT TRIES EMILE'S HORSE EMILE IN CONFERENCE WITH HIS FATHER EMILE EXAMINES THE PORTRAIT OF THE MARQUISE DE BOISGUILBAULT GALUCHET SURPRISED [Illustration: _EMILE'S FIRST MEETING WITH GILBERTE_ _A fresh young voice was singing, or rather humming, at a little distance, one of those sweet melodies, which are peculiar to the country. And the châtelain's daughter, the bachelor's child, whose mother's name was a mystery to the whole neighborhood, appeared at the corner of a clump of eglantine, as lovely as the loveliest wild flower of that charming solitude._] INTRODUCTION I wrote the _Sin of Monsieur Antoine_ in the country, during a season of tranquillity, outward and inward, such as seldom occurs in one's life. It was in 1845, a period when criticism of society, as it was, and dreams of an ideal society attained in the press a degree of freedom of development comparable to that of the eighteenth century. Some day, perhaps, people will find it difficult to believe the trivial but exceedingly characteristic fact I am about to mention. At that period, if one wished to be independent, to maintain directly or indirectly the boldest ideas opposed to the vices of the existing social organization and to give expression to the liveliest hopes of the philosophical sentiment, it was hardly possible to apply to the opposition newspapers. The most advanced of them unfortunately had not readers enough to give satisfactory publicity to the ideas one desired to put forth. The more moderate nourished a profound aversion for socialism, and, in the course of the last ten years of Louis-Philippe's reign, one of these organs of the reformist opposition, the most important by reason of its age and the number of its subscribers, did me the honor several times to ask me for a serial novel, always on the condition that it should contain nothing of a socialistic tendency.