The house

After going up the seven front steps, you enter directly a room which probably was Manceau’s bedroom.

In the display case dedicated to him, on the left wall, a sketch from Eugene Grandsire shows him in 1858, standing, in boots, carrying an entomologist box scrapped across his chest and a net over the shoulder, coveting a butterfly   the famous Algira maybe?

A beautiful portrait from Auguste Lehman dating back to 1849 – he is aged 32 – shows him in three – quarter profile, wearing scrubs, sitting near one of his engravings of La Roche Lambert from a drawing he made of George Sand in 1852 – she is aged 48 – we can feel all the tenderness the engraver had vowed for his lover until she died, on August 21th of 1845 in Palaiseau, in the house in which there is a representation showing the garden frontage.

The indispensable Pere Moreau, the fisher of trouts, the renter of monkeys and horses, “the guide, the active and clever factotum for travelers in Creuse” as described in George Sand’s JOURNAL DE GARGILESSE, has obviously a place here, together with some of the objects and instruments included in the whole equipment required for butterfly hunt.

Above the display case, you will be astonished by an unexpected photograph of an already ageing George Sand wrapped up in a black velvet cloth and sporting a Louis XIV wig , just like Moliere, she had humored the famous photographer Felix Nadar, to the point of using it at the back of the calling cards she reserved for her close family.