“Say whatever you like about La Duchesse de Langeais, your remarks do not affect me; but a lady whom you may perhaps know, illustrious and elegant, has approved everything, corrected everything like a royal censor, and her authority on ducal matters is incontestable; I am safe under the shadow of her shawl.”

Balzac continued to call on her and to write to her occasionally, and was very sympathetic to her illness, especially as her Parisian friends seemed to have abandoned her.  Though death did not come to her until more than twenty-five years later, he writes at this time: 

“Madame de Castries is dying; the paralysis is attacking the other limb.  Her beauty is no more; she is blighted.  Oh!  I pity her.  She suffers horribly and inspires pity only.  She is the only person I visit, and then, for one hour every week.  It is more than I really can do, but the hour is compelled by the sight of that slow death.”

In her despondency he tries to cheer her: 

“I do not like your melancholy; I should scold you well if you were here.  I would put you on a large divan, where you would be like a fairy in the midst of her palace, and I would tell you that in this life you must love in order to live.  Now, you do not love.  A lively affection is the bread of the soul, and when the soul is not fed it grows starved, like the body.  The bonds of the soul and body are such that each suffers with the other. . . .  A thousand kindly things in return for your flowers, which bring me much happiness, but I wish for something more. . . .  You have mingled bitterness with the flatteries you have the goodness to bestow on my book, as if you knew all the weight of your words and how far they would reach.  I would a thousand times rather you would consider the book and the pen as things of your own, than receive these praises."[*]

[*] It is interesting to note Balzac’s fondness for flowers, as is
    seen in his association of them with various women, and the
    prominent place he has given them in some of his works.

Though his visits continued, their friendship gradually grew colder, and in 1836 he writes:  “I have broken the last frail relations of politeness with Madame de C——.  She enjoys the society of MM.  Janni and Sainte-Beauve, who have so outrageously wounded me.  It seemed to me bad taste, and now I am happily out of it.”

La Duchesse de Langeais appeared in 1834, but Madame de Castries had not fully wreaked her revenge on Balzac.  For some time an Irish woman, a Miss Patrickson, had insisted on translating Balzac’s works.  Madame de Castries engaged her as teacher of English, and used her as a means of ensnaring Balzac by having her write him a love letter and sign it “Lady Nevil.”  Though suspicious about this letter, he answered it, and a rendezvous was arranged at the opera.  That day he called on Madame de Castries, and she had him remain for dinner.  When he excused himself to go to the opera, she insisted on accompanying him; he then realized that he was a victim of her strategy, which he thus describes: