George Sand, Good Sense, and Hell · Lexicon

From the book

Intimate Journals

Charles Baudelaire · Diotimos Editions · 2026

Orientation

At a Glance

The wordGeorge Sand is a named writer turned into a polemical figure in Mon cœur mis à nu XLVIII–L2 3. The sustained attack joins aesthetic judgment, theological disagreement, misogynistic abuse, and fantasies of personal aggression.
In Intimate JournalsMon cœur mis à nu XLVIII accuses Sand of having been a moralist even when she practised counter-morality.
In this editionThe translation retains ‘counter-morality’, ‘flowing style’, and the repeated ‘good heart’ and ‘common sense’, so the argument's reversals remain audible.
A place to readElle a toujours été moraliste.

Meaning

George Sand is a named writer turned into a polemical figure in Mon cœur mis à nu XLVIII–L2 3. The sustained attack joins aesthetic judgment, theological disagreement, misogynistic abuse, and fantasies of personal aggression. A lexicon must separate these strands rather than repeat the abuse as a reliable description of Sand's intelligence or work.

Bon cœur and bon sens, ordinarily reassuring phrases, become suspect because trusting them can conceal unexamined self-approval. Contre-morale suggests that reversing accepted precepts may still leave a writer merely moralizing.

Use in the book

Mon cœur mis à nu XLVIII accuses Sand of having been a moralist even when she practised counter-morality. Its argument about her flowing style makes ease of reading a symptom of bourgeois complacency. The mock identification with Prudhomme shifts her from a supposedly rebellious novelist to a caricature of conventional opinion.

The specific dispute concerns her preface to Mademoiselle La Quintinie. Sand questions eternal punishment and argues that good Christians recoil from it; she also claims a place for serious religious inquiry within the novel. Baudelaire's repeated allegation that she has personal reasons to abolish Hell substitutes suspicion of motive for engagement with those arguments. His summaries are hostile paraphrases, not quotations from her preface.

Mon cœur mis à nu XLIX makes the Devil depend on ordinary stupidity as well as genius. Sand's trust in heart and sense becomes demonic possession, and a holy-water basin becomes an imagined weapon. The staging is revealing: religious objects and language can serve cruelty in the very fragments that appeal to spiritual depth. These passages test the ethical limits of Baudelaire's polemical intelligence.

Places to read

Mon cœur mis à nu XLVIIIElle a toujours été moraliste. — The aesthetic charge survives an apparent change in moral position.
Mon cœur mis à nu XLVIIIle fameux style coulant, cher aux bourgeois. — Fluency is converted from praise into accusation.
Mon cœur mis à nu XLIXse fier à son bon cœur et à son bon sens — Ordinary virtues are recast as instruments of temptation.
Mon cœur mis à nu LElle a de bonnes raisons pour vouloir supprimer l’Enfer. — An allegation of self-interest replaces a reasoned answer.

Translation in this edition

The translation retains ‘counter-morality’, ‘flowing style’, and the repeated ‘good heart’ and ‘common sense’, so the argument's reversals remain audible. ‘Holy-water basin’ gives bénitier its physical size and use; ‘old ingénues’ preserves the theatrical taunt. Notes 50–522 3 4 5 distinguish the Prudhomme caricature and inferred Béranger echo from Sand's own statements.

Source note

Sand’s own argument should be consulted alongside the hostile summary: Mademoiselle La Quintinie, Préface, Mademoiselle La Quintinie preface. She challenges eternal punishment and defends the novel’s treatment of religious and moral questions.