Most of the tenuous (yet culturally interesting) sideways links to cipher mysteries that ping on my 20-screen bank of monitors are to relatively low-brow stuff – airport novels, films, neat 3d renders using Voynichese fonts, etc. Furthermore, they tend (with only a few honourable exceptions) to be fairly po-faced (and unsexy) The-Mismatched-Protagonists-Must-Battle-Against-An-Infinitely-Resourced-Ancient-Conspiracy-To-Save-The-World-As-We-Know-It-By-Decoding-An-Even-More-Ancient-Ciphertext pap. Which is quite sad, really.

So it is with a great sense of relief that I read about a bit of light-hearted sexual cryptography from French novelist George Sand (the pen-name of Amantine Aurore Lucile Dupin, 1804-1876). Sand dressed like a man (which was scandalous), smoked tobacco in public (which was also scandalous), and apparently conducted affairs with both sexes (which was… well, you work it out).

Here’s an enciphered letter she wrote to Alfred de Musset (just to make it absolutely clear, I’ve put her hidden message in bold letters):-

je suis très émue de vous dire que j’ai
bien compris l’autre soir que vous aviez
toujours une envie folle de me faire
danser. je garde le souvenir de votre
baiser et je voudrais bien que ce soit
là une preuve que je puisse être aimée
par vous. je suis prête à montrer mon
affection toute désintéressée et sans cal-
cul, et si vous voulez me voir aussi
vous dévoiler sans artifice mon âme
toute nue, venez me faire une visite.
nous causerons en amis, franchement.
je vous prouverai que je suis la femme
sincère, capable de vous offrir l’affection
la plus profonde comme la plus étroite
en amitié, en un mot la meilleur preuve
que vous puissiez rêver, puisque votre
âme est libre. pensez que la solitude ou j’ha-
bite est très longue, bien dure et souvent
difficile. ainsi, en y songeant j’ai l’âme
grosse. accourez donc vite et venez me la
faire oublier par l’amour ou je veux me
mettre.

Musset replied in the same cryptographic (and amorous) spirit:-

quand je mets à vos pieds un éternel hommage,
voulez vous qu’un instant je change de visage ?
vous avez capturé les sentiments d’un cœur
que pour vous adorer forma le créateur.
je vous chéris, amour, et ma plume en délire
couche sur le papier ce que je n’ose dire.
avec soin de mes vers lisez les premiers mots :
vous saurez quel remède apporter à mes maux
je suis très émue de vous dire que j’ai …..

Sand then replied…

Cette insigne faveur que votre cour réclame
Nuit à ma renommée et répugne mon âme.

Sadly, these days Sand’s relationship with Alfred de Musset may well be better known by pop fans, as former Eurovision Song Contest winning performer Celine Dion used the text of a 1834 letter from Sand to de Musset as the basis for one of her songs. But put all the pieces together and… wouldn’t it be just, well, wonderful if it turned out that Dion’s earnestly romantic bleatings were just Sand’s covertext for a gloriously ribald hidden sexual message? Perhaps someone will dig up a scan of the original letter and we can have a look…

And so it all spins back round to low culture again: sorry, that’s just the way these things seem to work. 🙁

9 thoughts on “George Sand’s cryptography!

  1. Pingback: Tweets that mention George Sand’s cryptography! | Cipher Mysteries -- Topsy.com

  2. an.nymous on May 16, 2010 at 7:41 pm said:

    Minor glitch … you need to hightlight the full odd line instead of only the first word in her original letter. The reply is correct though.

  3. An.nymous: ooops, fixed. Thanks for leaving a comment, much appreciated! =:-o

  4. Steamy stuff! Reads like some of the spam email I get from Russia.

  5. Raymond_TX on June 21, 2016 at 6:09 pm said:

    Celine Dion has been with me since my childhood. Sans Attendre is her simpiest and messiest album! “My Heart Will Go On” http://lyricsmusic.name/celine-dion-lyrics/ the most wonderful song from Celine.

  6. person on March 14, 2021 at 11:24 pm said:

    Can we not be referring to Celine Dion as low culture. How elitist of you.

  7. person: I suspect Celine Dion’s cultural altitude is something we’ll have to agree to differ on.

  8. Lord Haw Haw on December 28, 2022 at 4:17 am said:

    ‘mettre’ should be on its own line at the end (so that the ‘hidden’ message finishes with ‘venez me la mettre’)

  9. Lord Haw Haw: yes, you are correct, so I have fixed
    it. 😉

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