Archaeology – A Passion of George Sand
143
archaeology became an element of the author’s work, for which her
passion did not, over the course of the coming years, wane. In the
1860s, her interest in numismatics was, for instance, still apparent.
Jean-Claude Rouet, civil engineer at La Châtre, had a gold Roman
coin sent to Sand in January 1863. She thanked him in these terms:
“Mon cher Rouet, votre monnaie est très belle, très [bien] conservée.
Je ne sais pas encore si elle est rare, je le crois, mais je n’ai pu
l’étudier aujourd’hui. Dans tous les cas, ces trouvailles ont un très
grand intérêt et je vous remercie de cet aimable cadeau qui m’est très
agréable. Vous me direz où elle a été trouvée, car j’espère bien vous
voir dimanche soir et vous serrer la main.”
19 In this extract from her
letter, the author reveals the instincts of a meticulous practitioner of
archaeology, her first reaction being to ask where the coin had been
discovered. Then, with the intention of identifying it, she wrote on the
21st of the same month to Louis Maillard: “Informez-vous d’un
ouvrage de numismatique à m’envoyer pour les monnaies et les
médailles celtiques, gallo-romaines et romaines, le meilleur possible
avec planches et pas trop cher.”
20 The following week, she repeated
her request for the said work.
Sand’s archaeological interests extended into the 1870s, and
led to her finally discovering the “mardelle” that she had sought so avidly. “Mardelles” are excavations in the ground, which are widely
considered nowadays to be the result of karstic phenomena (underground water carves out channels and caves susceptible to collapse
from the surface; eventually a sinkhole, or a depression formed by a
portion of the lithosphere below eroding away, is created). However,
in George Sand’s day, mardelles posed other serious archaeological
problems. In his Ethnogénie gauloise, for instance, Roger de Belloguet considers them as indications of the underground sections of
ancient Gaulish dwellings. Consequently, the Sand family were most
enthusiastic in seeking out these landforms, guided by toponyms such
as “La Mardelle”, “Les Mardelles”, “Le Bois des Mardelles”, etc.
Near to Maron there is just such a plot of land, named “La
Mardelle”,
21 which was the object of a family expedition on 18 September 1862: “Maurice, Lina et Cadol vont faire une g[ran]de prome___________________________
19 Sand, Correspondance, XVII, p. 369.
20 Sand, Correspondance, XVII, p. 391.
21 See Stéphane Gendron, Les Noms de lieux de l’Indre (Châteauroux : Académie du
Centre et Credi éditions, 2004), p. 51.
143
archaeology became an element of the author’s work, for which her
passion did not, over the course of the coming years, wane. In the
1860s, her interest in numismatics was, for instance, still apparent.
Jean-Claude Rouet, civil engineer at La Châtre, had a gold Roman
coin sent to Sand in January 1863. She thanked him in these terms:
“Mon cher Rouet, votre monnaie est très belle, très [bien] conservée.
Je ne sais pas encore si elle est rare, je le crois, mais je n’ai pu
l’étudier aujourd’hui. Dans tous les cas, ces trouvailles ont un très
grand intérêt et je vous remercie de cet aimable cadeau qui m’est très
agréable. Vous me direz où elle a été trouvée, car j’espère bien vous
voir dimanche soir et vous serrer la main.”
19 In this extract from her
letter, the author reveals the instincts of a meticulous practitioner of
archaeology, her first reaction being to ask where the coin had been
discovered. Then, with the intention of identifying it, she wrote on the
21st of the same month to Louis Maillard: “Informez-vous d’un
ouvrage de numismatique à m’envoyer pour les monnaies et les
médailles celtiques, gallo-romaines et romaines, le meilleur possible
avec planches et pas trop cher.”
20 The following week, she repeated
her request for the said work.
Sand’s archaeological interests extended into the 1870s, and
led to her finally discovering the “mardelle” that she had sought so avidly. “Mardelles” are excavations in the ground, which are widely
considered nowadays to be the result of karstic phenomena (underground water carves out channels and caves susceptible to collapse
from the surface; eventually a sinkhole, or a depression formed by a
portion of the lithosphere below eroding away, is created). However,
in George Sand’s day, mardelles posed other serious archaeological
problems. In his Ethnogénie gauloise, for instance, Roger de Belloguet considers them as indications of the underground sections of
ancient Gaulish dwellings. Consequently, the Sand family were most
enthusiastic in seeking out these landforms, guided by toponyms such
as “La Mardelle”, “Les Mardelles”, “Le Bois des Mardelles”, etc.
Near to Maron there is just such a plot of land, named “La
Mardelle”,
21 which was the object of a family expedition on 18 September 1862: “Maurice, Lina et Cadol vont faire une g[ran]de prome___________________________
19 Sand, Correspondance, XVII, p. 369.
20 Sand, Correspondance, XVII, p. 391.
21 See Stéphane Gendron, Les Noms de lieux de l’Indre (Châteauroux : Académie du
Centre et Credi éditions, 2004), p. 51.