La Chatre Travel Guide

Introduction

290km (180 miles) S of Paris; 31km (19 miles) S of Châteauroux

George Sand was the pen name of Amandine Lucile Aurore Dupin, baronne Dudevant, the French novelist born in 1804. Her memory is forever connected to Nohant, the little Berry hamlet near the Indre Valley.

In her early life, she wrote bucolic tales of peasants, but she also penned romantic novels in which she maintained that women were entitled to as much freedom as men. Among her 80 novels, some of the best known were François le Champi and La Mare au Diable. She was also known for her love affairs; her two most notorious were with the poet Alfred de Musset and the composer Frédéric Chopin. By the time of her death in Nohant in 1876, George Sand had become a legend.