French novelist and journalist Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin, better known by her pseudonym George Sand, was BOTD in 1804. Born in Paris, she was raised in her grandmother’s country estate near Le Châtre in Berry. After being educated at a convent school in Paris, and married Casimir Dudevant in 1822, aged 18. The marriage was unhappy, and they separated in 1831. She took custody of her children and returned to Paris and formed a relationship with novelist Jules Sandeau, with whom she began co-writing articles for Le Figaro newspaper. She became an overnight celebrity with the publication of her 1832 novel Indiana, a roman-a-clef about a woman who leaves an unhappy marriage to find love. She became the most popular novelist of her time, outselling her friends Honoré de Balzac and Victor Hugo, and published journalism, travel writing and a bestselling memoir. Her life became as famous as her work: she shocked polite society by wearing men’s clothing, smoking in public and pursuing affairs with men and women, which became material for her novels. Her known lovers include writers Prosper Mérimée and Alfred de Musset, the composer Frédéric Chopin and actress Marie Dorvel. She was also heavily involved in politics, supporting the new Republic but criticising the Revolutionary government of the Paris Commune. She died in 1876 aged 71. Her vivid descriptions of rural life and piquant portraits of marital strife inspired writers including Gustave Flaubert, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Marcel Proust, Henry James and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. In 2003, the French government announced plans to have Sand’s remains interred in the Panthéon, which was vigorously opposed by the residents of her burial place Nohant-Vic. She has been played onscreen by Merle Oberon, Rosemary Harris, Judy Davis, Juliette Binoche and Suzanne Clément.