and near the end of life, could not Madame de Berny say as did Pauline
in the closing lines of _Louis Lambert_:

"His heart was mine; his genius is with God"?

The year 1832 was a critical one in the private life of Balzac. Madame
de Berny, more than twenty years his senior, felt that they should
sever their close connection and remain as friends only. Balzac's
family had long been opposed to this intimate relationship and had
repeatedly tried to find a rich wife for him. Madame de Castries, who
had begun an anonymous correspondence with him, revealed her identity
early in that year, and the first letter from l'Etrangere, who was
soon to over-shadow all his other loves, arrived February 28, 1832.
During the same period Mademoiselle de Trumilly rejected his hand.
With so many distractions, Balzac probably did not suffer from this
separation as did his _Dilecta_. But he never forgot her, and
constantly compared other women with her, much to her detriment. He
regarded her, indeed, as a woman of great superiority.

In June (1832), Balzac left Paris to spend several weeks with his
friends, M. and Mme. de Margonne, and there at their chateau de Sache,
he wrote _Louis Lambert_ as a sort of farewell of soul to soul to the
woman he had so loved, and whose equal in devotion he never found. In
memory of his ten years' intimacy with her, he dedicated this work to
her: _Et nunc et semper dilectae dicatum 1822-1832_. It is to her
also, that he gave the beautiful Deveria portrait, resplendent with
youth and strength.[*]

[*] MM. Hanotaux et Vicaire think that it is Madame de Berny who was