Balzac evidently received a negative reply to his letter to Madame Hanska asking to be permitted to visit her immediately after her husband’s death.  It would have been a breach of the convenances had he gone to visit her so early in her widowhood.  Soon after learning of M. de Hanski’s death, he saw an announcement of the death of a Countess Kicka of Volhynia, and since his “Polar Star” had spoken of being ill, he was seized with fear lest this be a misprint for Hanska, and was confined to his bed for two days with a nervous fever.

What must have been Balzac’s disappointment, when almost ready to leave at any moment, to receive a letter which, as he expressed it, killed the youth in him, and rent his heart!  She felt that she owed everything to her daughter, who had consoled her, and nothing to him; yet she knew that she was everything to him.

He thought that she loved Anna too much, protested his fidelity to her when she accused him, and reverted to his favorite theme of comparing her to the devoted Madame de Berny.  He complained of her coldness, wanted to visit her in August at St. Petersburg, and desired her to promise that they would be married within two years.

Princess Radziwill wrote:  “When Madame Hanska’s husband died, it was supposed that her union with Balzac would occur at once, but obstacles were interposed by others.  Her own family looked down upon the great French author as a mere story-teller; and by her late husband’s people sordid motives were imputed to him, to account for his devotion to the heiress.  The latter objection was removed, a few years later, by the widow’s giving up to her daughter the fortune left to her by Monsieur Hanski.”

It is at this period that Balzac furnishes us with the key to one of his works, Albert Savarus, in writing to Madame Hanska: 

“Albert Savarus has had much success.  You will read it in the first volume of the Comedie humaine, almost after the fausse Maitresse, where with childish joy I have made the name Rzewuski shine in the midst of those of the most illustrious families of the North.  Why have I not placed Francesca Colonna at Diodati?  Alas, I was afraid that it would be too transparent.  Diodati makes my heart beat!  Those four syllables, it is the cry of the Montjoie Saint-Denis! of my heart.”

Francesca Colonna, the Princess Gandolphini, is the heroine of l’Ambitieux par Amour, a novel supposed to have been published by Albert Savarus and described in the book which bears his name.  Using her name, the hero is represented as having written the story of the Duchesse d’Argaiolo and himself, he taking the name of Rodolphe.  Here are given, in disguise again, the details of Balzac’s early relations to Madame Hanska.  Albert Savarus, while traveling in Switzerland, sees a lady’s face at the window of an upper room, admires it and seeks the lady’s acquaintance.  She proves to be the Duchesse d’Argaiolo, an Italian in exile.  She had been married very young to the Duke d’Argaiolo, who was rich and much older than she.  The young man falls in love with this beautiful lady, and she promises to be his as soon as she becomes free.