needed encouragement in his work. For this he naturally turned to
women who would give him of their time and sympathy. In his early
years, he received this encouragement and assistance from his sister
Laure, from Madame de Berny, Madame d'Abrantes, Madame Carraud and
others, and in his later life he was similarly indebted to Madame
Hanska. They gave him ideas, corrected his style, conceived plots,
furnished him with historical background, and criticized his work in
general. Is it surprising then that, having received so much from
women, he should have accorded them so great a place in his writings
as well as in his personal life?

While Balzac did not, as is often stated, _create_ the "woman of
thirty," this characteristic type having already appeared in Madame de
Stael's _Delphine_, in Benjamin Constant's _Adolphe_, and in
Stendhal's _Le Rouge et le Noir_, he must be credited with having
magnified her charms and presented her advantages and superiority to a
much higher degree than had been done before. Women indeed play in
general an important role in his work, many of his novels bear their
names; about one-third of the stories of _La Comedie humaine_ are
dedicated to women; and while not quite so large a proportion of the
characters created are women, they are numbered among the most
important personages of his prolific fancy.

If we are to believe his own testimony, his popularity among women was
by no means limited to his Paris environment, for he writes: "Fame is
conveyed to me through the post office by means of letters, and I
daily receive three or four from women. They come from the depths of
Russia, of Germany, etc.; I have not had one from England. Then there
are many letters from young people. It has become fatiguing. . . ."