He tried to shroud his life, especially his association with women, in mystery.  Now since the veil is partially lifted, one can see how great was the role they played.  It has been said that twelve thousand letters were written to Balzac by women, some to express their admiration, some to recognize themselves in a delightful personage he had created, others to thank him or condemn him for certain attitudes he had sustained towards woman.

For him to have so thoroughly understood the feminine mind and temperament, to have given to this subtle chameleon its various hues, to have portrayed woman with her many charms and caprices, and to have described woman in her various classes and at all ages, he must have observed her, or rather, he must have known her.  He very justly says in his Avant-propos: 

“When Buffon described the lion, he dismissed the lioness with a few phrases; but in society the wife is not always the female of the male.  There may be two perfectly dissimilar beings in one household.  The wife of a shopkeeper is sometimes worthy of a prince and the wife of a prince is often worthless compared with the wife of an artisan.  The social state has freaks which are not found in the natural world; it is nature plus society.  The description of the social species would thus be at least double that of the animal species, merely in view of the two sexes.”

Thus, he made a special study of woman, penetrated, like a father confessor, into her innermost secrets, and if he has not painted the duchesses with the delicacy due them, it was not because he did not know or had not studied them, but probably because he was picturing them with his Rabelaisian pen.

He knew many women who were active during the reign of Louis XVI, women who were conspicuous under the Empire, and women who were prominent in society during the Restoration, hence, one would naturally expect to find traces of them in his works.

But it is not only this type of woman that Balzac has presented.  He painted the bourgeoise in society, as seen in the daughters of Pere Goriot, and many others, the various types of the vieille fille such as Mademoiselle Zephirine Guenic (Beatrix) who never wished to marry, Cousine Bette who failed in her matrimonial attempts, and Madame Bousquier (La vieille Fille) who finally succeeded in hers.

The working class is represented in such characters as Madame Remonencq (Le Cousin Pons) and Madame Cardinal (Les petits Bourgeois), while the servant class is well shown in the person of the grand Nanon (Eugenie Grandet), the faithful Fanny (La Grenadiere), and many others.  As has been seen, there is a trace of his old servant, Mere Comin, in the person of Madame Vaillant (Facino Cane), and Mere Cognette and La Rabouilleuse (La Rabouilleuse) are said to be people he met while visiting Madame Carraud.  The novelist must have known many such women, for his mother and sisters had servants, and in the homes of Madame de Berny, Madame Carraud and Madame de Margonne, he certainly knew the servants, not to mention those he observed at the cafes and in his wanderings.