partly supporting herself with her pen. After her departure, the
finding of the corpse of Stelzi in her cupboard caused her to be
compared to the Spanish Juana Loca, but she was only eccentric. While
in the Orient she was stabbed and almost lost her life. In 1853 she
returned to France, then to Milan where she maintained a salon, but
she deteriorated physically and mentally.

For almost half a century her name was familiar not alone in Italian
political and patriotic circles, but throughout intellectual Europe.
The personality of this strange woman was veiled in a haze of mystery,
and a halo of martyrdom hung over her head. Notwithstanding her
eccentricities and exaggerations, she wielded an intellectual
fascination in her time, and her exalted social position, her beauty,
and her independence of character gave to her a place of conspicuous
prominence.

As to whether Balzac always sustained an indifferent attitude towards
the Princesse Belgiojoso there is some question, but he always
expressed a feeling of nonchalance in writing about her to Madame
Hanska. He regarded her as a courtesan, a beautiful _Imperia_, but of
the extreme blue-stocking type. She was superficial in her criticism,
and received numbers of _criticons_ who could not write. She wrote him
at the request of the editor asking him to contribute a story for the
_Democratie Pacifique_.

Balzac visited her frequently, calling her the Princesse
_Bellejoyeuse_, and she rendered him many services, but he probably
guarded against too great an intimacy, having witnessed the fate of
Alfred de Musset. He was, however, greatly impressed by her beauty,
and in the much discussed letter to his sister Laure he speaks of