la femme du peuple (Marie-Jeanne, Or the Woman of the People, 1845). Her career began going downhill with a shift in fashion and the public's desire for younger actresses, and she began traveling with a troupe of actors doing small shows around the countryside. By the age of 51, her health was failing due to her long life of travel and shows, and she sank into depression following the death of one of her grandchildren. George Sand assumed the financial support for Dorval's surviving grandchildren following Marie's death in 1849. Relationship with George Sand In January 1833, female writer George Sand met Marie Dorval after the former wrote the actress a letter of appreciation following one of her performances. The two women became involved in an intimate friendship, and were rumored to have become lovers. This has been debated, and never has been verified. Sand wrote about Dorval, including many passages where she is described as smitten with Dorval. Only those who know how differently we were made can realize how utterly I was in thrall to her...God had given her the power to express what she felt...She was beautiful, and she was simple. She had never been taught anything, but there was nothing she did not know by instinct. I can find no words with which to describe how cold and incomplete my own nature is. I can express nothing. There must be a sort of paralysis in my brain which prevents what I feel from ever finding a form through which it can achieve communication...When she appeared upon the stage, with her drooping figure, her listless gait, her sad and penetrating glance...I can say only that it was as though I were looking at an embodied spirit. Theater critic Gustave Planche reportedly warned Sand to stay away from Dorval. Likewise, Count Alfred de Vigny, Dorval's lover from 1831 to 1838, warned the actress to stay away from Sand, whom he referred to as "that damned lesbian". Victor Hugo wrote in his own journals that de Vigny was supremely jealous of Hugo's own relationship with Dorval, which could cast doubt on the rumors surrounding Sand and Dorval. Popular writers from that time, such as Théophile Gautier and Honoré de Balzac, capitalized on the rumors. Whatever the truth in their relationship, Sand and Dorval remained close friends for the remainder of Dorval's lifetime. In 1834, Dorval starred in Vigny's play