Page:George Sand by Bertha Thomas.djvu/12

2 famous Augustus II., Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, and the Swedish Countess Aurora von Königsmark. The Marshal's daughter Aurore, though like her father of illegitimate birth—her mother, who was connected with the stage, passed by her professional name of Mdlle. Verrières—obtained after the Marshal's death the acknowledgment and protection of his relatives in high places, notably of his niece, the Dauphine of France, grand-daughter of Augustus of Poland, and mother of the three kings—Louis XVI., Louis XVIII., and Charles X.

Carefully educated at St. Cyr, Mdlle. de Saxe was married, when little more than a child, to the Count de Horn, who was also of partly royal but irregular origin. He very shortly afterwards fell in a duel. His widow, at thirty, became the wife of M. Dupin de Francueil, an old gentleman of good provincial family and some fortune. Maurice, their only child, was the father of George Sand.

Madame Dupin (the suffix de Francueil was afterwards dropped by her husband) appears to have inherited none of the adventurous and erratic tendencies of her progenitors. Aristocratic in her sympathies, philosophic in her intellect, and strictly decorous in her conduct, throughout the whole of her long and chequered life she was regarded with respect. Left a widow again, ten years after her second marriage, she concentrated her hopes and affections on her handsome