AUTHOR'S NOTE

The steady rise of Balzac's reputation during the last few decades has
been such that almost each year new studies have appeared about him.
While the women portrayed in the _Comedie humaine_ are often commented
upon, no recent work dealing in detail with the novelist's intimate
association with women and which might lead to identifying the
possible sources of his feminine characters in real life has been
published.

The present study does not undertake to establish the origin of all
the characters found in the _Comedie humaine_, but is an attempt to
trace the life of the novelist on the side of his relations with
various women,--a story which is even more thrilling than those
presented in many of his novels,--in the hope that it will help
explain some of the interesting enigmas presented by his work. So far
as the writer could find the necessary evidence, many of the women in
Balzac's novels have been here identified with women he knew in the
course of his life; and while giving due weight to the suggestions of
various writers, and indicating some of the most striking
resemblances, she has tried to avoid a mere promiscuous identification
of characters.

In the case of many novelists such an investigation would not be worth
while, but Balzac's place in literature is so transcendent and his
life and writings are so closely and fascinatingly interblended, that
it is hoped that the following study, in which the writer has striven
to maintain correctness of detail, may not be unwelcome, and that it
will throw light on Balzac's complex character, and help his readers
better to understand and appreciate some of his most noted women