of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, Mademoiselle Eleonore de Trumilly, second daughter of his friend the Baron de Trumilly, Lieutenant-Colonel of the Artillery of the Royal guard under the Restoration, a former emigre, and of Madame Alexandra-Anna de Montiers.  This request was received by her father, who transmitted it to her, but she rejected the suitor and married June 18, 1833, Francois-Felix-Claude-Marie-Marguerite Labroue, Baron de Vareilles-Sommieres, of the diocese of Poitiers.

The Baron de Trumilly (died April 7, 1832) held high rank among the officers of the artillery, and his cultured mind rendered him one of the ornaments of society.  He lived in friendly and intellectual relations with Balzac while the future novelist was working on the Chouans and the Physiologie du Mariage, and at the time Balzac was revising the latter for publication, he went to dine frequently at the home of the Baron, who used to work with him until late in the evening.  In this work he introduces an old emigre under the initials of Marquis de T——­ which are quite similar to those of the Baron de Trumilly.  This Marquis de T——­ went to Germany about 1791, which corresponds to the life of the Baron.

Baron de Trumilly welcomed Balzac into his home, took a great interest in his work, and seemed willing to give him one of his three daughters; but one can understand how the young novelist, who had not yet attained great fame, might not favorably impress a young lady of the social standing of Mademoiselle de Trumilly, and her father did not urge her to accept him.

Although Balzac wrote Madame Hanska that when he called the girl loved by Dr. Benassis in his “Confession” (Le Medecin de Campagne) “Evelina,” he said to himself, “She will quiver with joy in seeing that her name has occupied me, that she was present to my memory, and that what I deemed loveliest and noblest in the young girl, I have named for her,” some think that the lady he had in mind was not Mme. Hanska, but Eleonore de Trumilly, who really was a young unmarried girl, while Madame Hanska was not only married, but the mother of several children.  Again, letters written by the author to his family show his condition to have been desperate at that time.  Balzac asserts that the story of Louis Lambert is true to life; hence, despondent over his own situation, he makes Louis Lambert become insane, and causes Dr. Benassis to think of suicide when disappointed in love.

Thus was the novelist doomed, early in his literary career, to meet with a disappointment which, as has been seen, was to be repeated some months later with more serious results, when his adoration for the Duchesse de Castries was suddenly turned into bitterness.

     MADAME HANSKA.—­LA COMTESSE MNISZECH.—­MADEMOISELLE BOREL. 
     —­MESDEMOISELLES WYLEZYNSKA.—­LA COMTESSE ROSALIE RZEWUSKA. 
       —­MADEMOISELLE CALISTE RZEWUSKA.—­MADAME CHERKOWITSCH. 
          —­MADAME RIZNITSCH.—­LA COMTESSE MARIE POTOCKA.