for her beauty. She appreciated the ability of the young writer, and
invited him to read in her salon long before the world recognized his
name. He admired her greatly; of one of his visits to her he writes:

"Yesterday I went to see Madame Recamier, whom I found ill but
wonderfully bright and kind. I have heard that she did much good,
and acted very nobly in being silent and making no complaint of
the ungrateful beings she has met. No doubt she saw upon my face a
reflection of what I thought of her, and without explaining to
herself this little sympathy, she was charming."

Although one would not suspect Madame Hanska of being jealous of
Madame Recamier, perhaps it is because she wished to _foedorize_
herself that Balzac writes:

"_Mon Dieu!_ do not be jealous of any one. I have not been to see
Madame Recamier or any one else. . . . As to my relations with the
person you speak of, I never had any that were tender; I have none
now. I answered a very unimportant letter, and apropos of a
sentence, I explained myself; that was all. There are relations of
politeness due to women of a certain rank whom one has known; but
a visit to Madame Recamier is not, I suppose, _relations_, when
one visits her once in three months."


One of the famous women whom Balzac met soon after he began to acquire
literary fame was the Duchesse de Dino, who was married to
Talleyrand's nephew in 1809.

"When her husband's uncle became French Ambassador at Vienna in