Of her three children, Hippolyte, Undine (whose real name was Hyacinthe) and Ines, the two daughters passed away before her.  Her husband was honor and probity itself, and suffered only as a man can, from compulsory inaction.  He asked but for honest employment and the privilege to work.  She was so sensitive and felt so unworthy that she did not call for her pension after it was secured for her by her friends, Madame Recamier and M. de Latouche.  A letter written by her to Antoine de Latour (October 15, 1836) gives a general idea of her life:  “I do not know how I have slipped through so many shocks,—­and yet I live.  My fragile existence slipped sorrowfully into this world amid the pealing bells of a revolution, into whose whirlpool I was soon to be involved.  I was born at the churchyard gate, in the shadow of a church whose saints were soon to be desecrated.”

She was indeed a “tender and impassioned poetess, . . . one who united an exquisite moral sensibility to a thrilling gift of song. . . .  Her verses were doubtless the expression of her life; in them she is reflected in hues both warm and bright; they ring with her cries of love and grief. . . .  Hers was the most courageous, tender and compassionate of souls.”

A letter written to Madame Duchambye (December 7, 1841), shows what part she played in Balzac’s literary career: 

“You know, my other self, that even ants are of some use.  And so it was I who suggested, not M. de Balzac’s piece, but the notion of writing it and the distribution of the parts, and then the idea of Mme. Dorval, whom I love for her talent, but especially for her misfortunes, and because she is dear to me.  I have made such a moan, that I have obtained the sympathy and assistance of—­whom do you guess?—­poor Thisbe, who spends her life in the service of the litterrateur.  She talked and insinuated and insisted, until at last he came up to me and said, ’So it shall be!  My mind is made up!  Mme. Dorval shall have a superb part!’ And how he laughed! . . .  Keep this a profound secret.  Never betray either me or poor Thisbe, particularly our influence on behalf of Mme. Dorval.”

His friendship for her is seen in a letter written to her in 1840: 

“Dear Nightingale,—­Two letters have arrived, too brief by two whole pages, but perfumed with poetry, breathing the heaven whence they come, so that (a thing which rarely happens with me) I remained in a reverie with the letters in my hand, making a poem all alone to myself, saying, ’She has then retained a recollection of the heart in which she awoke an echo, she and all her poetry of every kind.’  We are natives of the same country, madame, the country of tears and poverty.  We are as much neighbors and fellow-citizens as prose and poetry can be in France; but I draw near to you by the feeling with which I admire you, and which made me stand for an hour and ten minutes