Page:George Sand by Bertha Thomas.djvu/256

246 and lucidity. The words, "Ne touchez pas à la verdure," among the last that fell from her lips, were understood by her children, who knew her wish that the trees should be undisturbed under which in the village cemetery she was soon to find a resting-place—a wish that has been sacredly respected.

Her suffering ceased a short while before death, which came to her so quietly that the transition was almost imperceptible to the watchers by her side. It was on the morning of the 8th of June. She was within a month of completing her seventy-second year. Although her life's work had long since been mainly accomplished, yet the extinction of that great intelligence was felt by many—as fitly expressed by M. Renan—"like a diminution of humanity."

Two days later she was buried in the little cemetery of Nohant, that adjoins her own garden wall. The funeral was conducted with extreme simplicity, in accordance with her taste and spirit. The scene was none the less a memorable one. The rain fell in torrents, but no one seemed to regard it; the country-people flocking in from miles around, old men standing bare-headed for hours heedless of the deluge. The peasant and the prince, Parisian leaders of the world of thought and letters and the humblest and most unlearned of her poorer neighbours, stood together over her grave.

Six peasants carried the bier from the house to the