In 1833, Balzac wrote Madame Hanska that he had dedicated the fourth
volume of the _Scenes de la Vie privee_ to her, putting her seal at
the head of _l'Expiation_, the last chapter of _La Femme de trente
Ans_, which he was writing at the moment he received her first letter.
But a person who was as a mother to him and whose caprices and even
jealousy he was bound to respect, had exacted that this silent
testimony should be repressed. He had the sincerity to avow to her
both the dedication and its destruction, because he believed her to
have a soul sufficiently lofty not to desire homage which would cause
grief to one as noble and grand as she whose child he was, for she had
rescued him when in youth he had nearly perished in the midst of
griefs and shipwreck. He had saved the only copy of that dedication,
for which he had been blamed as if it were a horrible coquetry, and
wished her to keep it as a souvenir and as an expression of his
thanks.

Balzac was ever loyal to Madame de Berny and refused to reveal her
baptismal name to Madame Hanska; soon after their correspondence began
he wrote her: "You have asked me the baptismal name of the _Dilecta_.
In spite of my complete and blind faith, in spite of my sentiment for
you, I cannot tell it to you; I have never told it. Would you have
faith in me if I told it? No."

After 1834 Madame de Berny's health failed rapidly, and her last days
were full of sorrow. Among her numerous family trials Balzac
enumerates:

"One daughter become insane, another daughter dead, the third
dying, what blows!--And a wound more violent still, of which
nothing can be told. Finally, after thirty years of patience and