Berny after she had had a lover.

It is doubtless to this friendship that Balzac refers when he writes
in the last lines of _La Duchesse de Langeais_: "It is only the last
love of a woman that can satisfy the first love of a man." It is of
interest to note that Antoinette is the Christian name of the heroine
of this story. Throughout the _Comedie humaine_ are seen quite young
men who fall in love with women well advanced in years, as Calyste de
Guenic with Mademoiselle Felicite des Touches in _Beatrix_, and Lucien
de Rubempre with Madame Bargeton in _Illusions perdues_.

In _Eugenie Grandet_ Balzac writes:

"Do you know what Madame Campan used to say to us? 'My children, so
long as a man is a Minister, adore him; if he falls, help to drag
him to the ditch. Powerful, he is a sort of deity; ruined, he is
below Marat in his sewer, because he is alive, and Marat, dead.
Life is a series of combinations, which must be studied and
followed if a good position is to be successfully maintained.'"

Since Madame Campan was _femme de chambre_ of Marie Antoinette, Balzac
probably heard this maxim through Madame de Berny.

Although some writers state that Madame de Berny was one of Balzac's
collaborators in composing the _Physiologie du Mariage_, he says,
regarding this work: "I undertook the _Physiologie du Mariage_ and the
_Peau de Chagrin_ against the advice of that angel whom I have lost."
She may have inspired him, however, in writing _Le Cure de Tours_, as
it is dated at her home, Saint-Firmin, 1832.