the more remarkable, since the personage of the senator is the only
one which Balzac has kept just as he was, without changing his
physiognomy in the novel. The senator was still living at the time
Madame d'Abrantes wrote her account of the affair, his death not
having occurred until 1827. In her _Memoires_, Madame d'Abrantes
refers frequently to the kindness of the great Emperor, and it is
doubtless to please her that Balzac, in the _denouement_ of _Une
tenebreuse Affaire_, has Napoleon pardon two out of the three
condemned persons. Although the novelist may have heard of this affair
during his sojourns in Touraine, it is evident that the origin of the
lawsuit and the causes of the conduct of Fouche were revealed to him
by Madame Junot.

Who better than Madame d'Abrantes could have given Balzac the
background for the scene of Corsican hatred so vividly portrayed in
_La Vendetta_? Balzac's preference for General Junot is noticeable
when he wishes to mention some hero of the army of the Republic or of
the Empire; the Duc and Duchesse d'Abrantes are included among the
noted lodgers in _Autre Etude de Femme_. It is doubtless to please the
Duchess that Balzac mentions also the Comte de Narbonne (_Le Medecin
de Campagne_).

Impregnating his mind with the details of the Napoleonic reign, so
vividly portrayed in _Le Colonel Chabert_, _Le Medecin de Campagne_,
_La Femme de trente Ans_ and others, she was probably the direct
author of several observations regarding Napoleon that impress one as
being strikingly true. Balzac read to her his stories of the Empire,
and though she rarely wept, she melted into tears at the disaster of
the Beresina, in the life of Napoleon related by a soldier in a barn.