It is not known how she arranged to have him send his letters, but he wrote her about once a month from January to September, and after that more frequently, as he was arranging to visit her.  M. de Hanski with his numerous family had come to Neufchatel in July, having stopped in Vienna on the way.  Here Balzac was to meet l’Etrangere for the first time.  He left Paris September 22, stopping to make a business visit to his friend, Charles Bernard, at Besancon, and arriving at Neufchatel September 25. (Although this letter to M. Bernard is dated August, 1833, Balzac evidently meant September, for there is no Sunday, August 22, in 1833.  He did not leave Paris until Sunday, September 22, 1833.) On the morning after his arrival, he writes her: 

 “I shall go to the Promenade of the faubourg from one o’clock till
  four.  I shall remain during that time looking at the lake, which I
  have never seen.”

Just what happened when they met, no one knows.  The Princess Radziwill says that her aunt told her that Balzac called at her hotel to meet her and that there was nothing romantic in their introduction.  Nevertheless, the most varied and amusing stories have been told of their first meeting.

Balzac remained in Neufchatel until October 1, having made a visit of five days.  He took a secret box to Madame Hanska in which to keep his letters, having provided himself with a similar one in which to keep hers.  If we are to credit the disputed letter of Saturday, October 12, we may learn something of what took place.  Even before meeting Madame Hanska, he had inserted her name in one of his books, calling the young girl loved by M. Benassis “Evelina” (Le Medecin de Campagne).

Early in October M. de Hanski took his family to Geneva to spend the winter.  After Balzac’s departure from Neufchatel the tone of his letters to Madame Hanska changed; he used the tutoiement, and his adoration increased.  For a while he wrote her a daily account of his life and dispatched the journal to her weekly.

Madame Hanska came into Balzac’s life at a psychological moment.  From his youth, his longing was “to be famous and to be loved.”  Having found the emptiness of a life of fame alone, having apparently grown weary of the poor Duchesse d’Abrantes, about to cease his intimacy with Madame de Berny, having been rejected by Mademoiselle de Trumilly, and having suffered bitterly at the hands of the Duchesse de Castries, he embraced this friendship with a new hope, and became Madame Hanska’s slave.

If Balzac was charmed with the stories of the daughter of the femme de chambre of Marie Antoinette, was infatuated with a woman who had known Napoleon, and flattered by being invited to the home of one of the beautiful society ladies of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, what must have been his joy in learning that his new Chatelaine belonged to one of the most aristocratic families of Poland, the grandniece of Queen Marie Leczinska, the daughter of the wise Comte de Rzewuska, and the wife of one of the richest men in Russia!