Page:George Sand by Bertha Thomas.djvu/254

244 The last five years of her life saw her pen in full activity. In the Revue des Deux Mondes, Malgrétout, the novel of 1870, was succeeded by Flamarande and Les Deux Frères—compositions executed with unflagging energy and animation of style—La Tour de Percemont, and a series of graceful fairy-stories entitled, ''Contes d'une grand'mère. Nanon'' (1872), a rustic romance of the First Revolution, is a highly remarkable little work, possibly suggested by her recent experiences of the effect of public disturbances on remote country places.

She was also a constant contributor to the newspaper Le Temps. A critical notice by her hand of M. Renan's Dialogues et Fragments Philosophiques, reprinted from those columns, bears date May 1876, immediately before she succumbed to the illness which in a few days was to cut short her life.

At the beginning of this year she had written on this subject to Flaubert, in the brave spirit she would fain impart to her weaker brethren:—

George Sand, like most persons of an exceptional constitution, had little faith in the efficacy for herself of medical science. She was persuaded that the