veteran regiments. The rough old sergeants nursed her and petted
her. Even the prince took notice of her; and to please him she
wore the green uniform of a hussar.

But all this soon passed, and she was presently sent to live with
her grandmother at the estate now intimately associated with her
name--Nohant, in the valley of the Indre, in the midst of a rich
country, a love for which she then drank in so deeply that nothing
in her later life could lessen it. She was always the friend of
the peasant and of the country-folk in general.

At Nohant she was given over to her grand-mother, to be reared in
a strangely desultory sort of fashion, doing and reading and
studying those things which could best develop her native gifts.
Her father had great influence over her, teaching her a thousand
things without seeming to teach her anything. Of him George Sand
herself has written:

Character is a matter of heredity. If any one desires to know me,
he must know my father.

Her father, however, was killed by a fall from a horse; and then
the child grew up almost without any formal education. A tutor,
who also managed the estate; believed with Rousseau that the young
should be reared according to their own preferences. Therefore,
Aurore read poems and childish stories; she gained a smattering of
Latin, and she was devoted to music and the elements of natural
science. For the rest of the time she rambled with the country
children, learned their games, and became a sort of leader in
everything they did.