Page:George Sand by Bertha Thomas.djvu/17

Rh played from some distant attic start a train of melodious fancies and throw her into musical raptures. Her daily experiences, after reaching Madrid with her mother, continued to be novel and exciting in the extreme. The palace of the Prince de la Paix, where Murat and his suite had their quarters, was to her the realisation of the wonder-land of Perrault and d'Aulnoy; Murat, the veritable Prince Fanfarinet. She was presented to him in a fancy court-dress, devised for the occasion by her mother, an exact imitation of her father's uniform in miniature, with spurs, sword, and boots, all complete. The Prince was amused by the jest, and took a fancy to the child, calling her his little aide-de-camp. After a residence of several weeks in this abode, whose splendour was alloyed by not a little discomfort and squalor, the return-journey had to be accomplished in the height of summer, amid every sort of risk; past reeking battlefields, camps, sacked and half-burnt villages, and beleaguered cities. Captain Dupin succeeded, however, in escorting his family safely back into France again, the party halting to recruit awhile under his mother's roof.

Nohant, a spot that has become as famous through its associations as Abbotsford, lies about three miles from the little town of La Châtre, in the department of the Indre, part of the old province of Berry. The manor is a plain grey house with steep mansarde roofs of the time of Louis XVI. It stands just apart from