The Marquis de Villemer

'The Marquis de Villemer' is a novel written by George Sand, one of the most popular writers in Europe in her lifetime, being more renowned than both Victor Hugo and Honoré de Balzac in England in the 1830s and 1840s. Though the book is entitled The Marquis de Villemer, it is primarily told from the perspective of the Marchioness, Caroline, who was the daughter of a gentleman of Lower Brittany, settled in the neighborhood of Blois, and of a Mlle de Grajac, a native of Velay. Caroline hardly knew her mother. Madame de Saint-Geneix died the third year of her marriage after giving birth to Camille, having exacted a promise from Justine Lanion to spend several years with the motherless children.